[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 27 (Friday, March 11, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: March 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
THE ``VICTIM'' OF A HAPPY CONSPIRACY
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, for many Americans, Washington is a nucleus
of Byzantine plots and national political legerdemain, of scenarios
hatched in smoke-filled rooms and of sinister conspiracies nightmared
to life behind closed doors.
Be that as it may, yesterday, I found myself the subject of a
conspiracy, of whispered intrigues, and of hidden agenda that reached
to the very spires of power in the United States Senate--a conspiracy
so intricate that its tentacles reached out to embrace some of my
closest friends and even some of the most loyal members of my own
staff.
So I stand here to say that I am shocked--shocked. Yes, Mr.
President, shocked, that such conspiring could have taken place under
my very nose and involve so many high-placed personages without my ever
catching a whiff of that conspiracy before the fact. It is indeed a
serious matter.
However, I add, Mr. President, that seldom have I been so touched and
moved by any such conspiracy in my life, and I sincerely thank all of
those who planned yesterday's special luncheon honoring me for 35 years
of continuous service in the United States Senate, and all of those who
joined in honoring me.
It was 35 years ago, Mr. President, that the first two Alaska
Senators were sworn in on the same date as was I, in January 1959. And
in that year, Hawaii's first two Senators' terms began on August 21,
1959. So, it was in commemoration of those great events, the swearing
in of those four Senators from those two States that yesterday's
luncheon was held. And Senators Inouye and Stevens, especially, were
kind enough to include me in the honors. To Senator Dole, Senator
Mitchell, Senator Hatfield, Senator Rockefeller, Vice President Gore,
and so many others--I assure all involved, Mr. President, that I was
sincerely and genuinely moved by the events of yesterday, and that I
shall never forget the graciousness and the thoughtfulness of which I
was the beneficiary at Thursday's celebration.
Nor shall I ever forget the sly fashion in which the Secretary of the
Senate, Walter J. Stewart lured me into their net--telling me in my
office, as I was eating a bologna sandwich, that a British delegation
from those beautiful isles adjoining the English channel and the North
Sea were upstairs and would be happy to visit with me, and that they
wanted to hear me discourse on the United States Constitution and the
British Constitution.
Thus, armed with the United States Constitution, I left my office to
share what I thought would be a half hour with our British partners,
and our British cousins, I might add. When I entered the luncheon room,
the Mansfield Room, and everybody stood up and applauded, I thought the
applause was for our phantom British visitors, who, I thought, were
entering the room behind me. So real had Joe Stewart's act been, and so
taken in was I, that, at the applause, I looked around to welcome our
guests.
Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens hosted the luncheon, and I deeply
appreciate the efforts that Senator Inouye and Stevens exerted in
planning and executing this beautiful affair. It was a delightful
event, a very delectable and enjoyable luncheon on yesterday.
I especially thank Senator Dole and Senator Mitchell for their roles
in honoring me. I have stood in both of their shoes, and I know the
difficulty of the task of being either the minority leader or the
majority leader. I shall long remember both leaders being present and
their eloquent words in my behalf.
I thank Senator Rockefeller, my distinguished colleague from West
Virginia, and Senator Hatfield, my colleague and distinguished ranking
member on the Appropriations Committee. Again and again, my
responsibilities throw me together with these exemplary gentlemen--and
I intend that word ``gentlemen'' in all of its most laudatory and
classic connotations--and I treasure the associations that I have
enjoyed with these two Senators in our work together here in the Senate
and in our friendships, one with the other.
Mr. President, I make no pretense of nonchalance or detachment with
regard to the United States Senate, or to my privilege of serving in
this institution.
In the season of mankind's tenure here on Earth, and in the brief
centuries of the recorded history of that tenure, perhaps into the
hands of no other institution--the Senate of Republican Rome included--
into the hands of no other institution has so much power and trust been
delivered than has been delivered into the hands of the United States
Senate. No, not the Roman Senate, although that, too, was a unique
Senate--one of the two greatest Senates in all history--and not the
British House of Commons, not the French Chamber of Deputies, not the
Russian Imperial Duma, not the German Bundestag, not the Japanese Diet.
The United States Senate is, as far as I am concerned, sui generis
among all legislative bodies.
Out of all of the millions upon millions of men and women who have
been and are privileged to call themselves Americans, only 1,815 men
and women, cumulatively, have been chosen to bear the title ``United
States Senator.'' As surely as I stand here in living flesh and blood,
I discern in the creation of the Senate and in the bestowal of the
title ``United States Senator,'' the hand of Destiny--a Destiny that
promises for this great Nation an incomparable role in human history; a
Destiny that purposes for this Senate a paramount role in charting our
ship of state through the shoals and rapids of a sometimes capricious
and purpose-destroying course of events.
For those reasons, if none other, I am a proud advocate of the
constitutional prerogatives of the United States Senate against all
those who might, in their sometimes invincible ignorance, reduce the
Senate to a pitiful creation, far less than the giants of the
Constitutional Convention envisioned this Senate to be.
If all else fails, Mr. President, let the United States Senate rise
to her full stature and do battle. If all else fails, let the United
States Senate gird herself with the majesty of the intellects of
Madison and Washington and Franklin and Hamilton, and those others on
whose shoulders this Republic rests. If all else fails, let the United
States Senate play the unfettered role embodied for her in the
Constitution, and the promise of America, the purpose of America, and
the dream of America will not be lost.
That, Mr. President, is my faith in History's and Destiny's having
called the United States Senate into being.
And that, Mr. President, is, in part, my interpretation of my own
humble participation as one among equals in welding the powers, duties,
and servanthood that the Constitution bestows on all of us who are set
aside by our fellow citizens to be called ``United States Senator.''
Therefore, Mr. President, I have discerned, and I continue to
discern--and I have done through my 35 years in the Senate--my being a
Senator more in terms of duty and responsibility--patriotic
responsibility--in behalf of the people of the United States and the
citizens of West Virginia than in any misbegotten sense of pride or
haughtiness of position.
But, yesterday, I experienced again, as I have experienced so many
times over roughly three-and-one-half decades, the incomparable
friendship and comradeship that we share as Senators. I shall carry
into eternity my gratitude for the quality of the association and
mutual affection that is ours uniquely here in the United States
Senate.
I yield the floor.
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