[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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