[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 17, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            TRIBUTE TO THE LATE HONORABLE WILLIAM H. NATCHER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Mazzoli] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Speaker, tonight it is my honor, on behalf of the 
delegation from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and really on behalf, I 
am sure, of all the Members of the House, to take this special order to 
pay tribute, and I can think of no better word than the word tribute, 
it is very apposite here with respect to our late colleague, 
Congressman Bill Natcher of Kentucky, but to take this moment to pay 
tribute to that great man for his over 40 years of devoted and diligent 
service to the House of Representatives, to the Nation, to the 
Commonwealth of Kentucky, to the Second Congressional District of 
Kentucky, to his friends and his family in Bowling Green, his 
birthplace, and the center of his district.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. Speaker, it has to be said that there have been in the history of 
the House, the history of this Congress on both sides of the Hill, 
important people, men and women, who have served their Nation with 
particular distinction. But try as I might and with full allowance to 
the fact that being a native-born Kentuckian myself, I am probably not 
one to be completely objective here, but try as I might, in searching 
my brain and the books of this Nation as carefully as I have, it is 
hard to think of anyone more qualified than Congressman Natcher, our 
late friend, for holding a distinction as one of the premier lawmakers 
in the history of our country.
  Bill Natcher began serving the Second District of Kentucky in 1953. 
He was a young man at the time. However, he had already served as 
county attorney, commonwealth's attorney, he had served his country in 
the Navy in the service of his land, but he began that service in 1953 
and probably never thinking that his service would extend for the next 
40 years and for 18,000 plus consecutive votes, which remains a record 
for this assembly and probably for any free assembly in this entire 
Nation. But he was sworn in 1953 in a midterm and he was consecutively 
reelected without a break for the next 40 years until he passed away 
just recently in this year of 1994.
  Throughout his service, Congressman Natcher was at all times a 
devoted public servant, he was at all times a very diligent legislator 
who rose as we all know to become chairman of the distinguished House 
Appropriations Committee. But as it was said in Bill's behalf at the 
funeral in Bowling Green, which many of us attended, as it was said by 
his family friend, Bill was never very far away from Bowling Green. 
President Clinton, who graced KY and Bowling Green and, of course, 
honored the memory of Bill Natcher by appearing at the funeral, said 
much the same thing: That Bowling Green was never very far from Bill's 
mind and heart. It at the same time represented in a figurative way of 
speaking the fact that Bill never, despite his ascendancy here to a 
position of great rank, never really forgot his roots, he never forgot 
his origins. He was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He never left it 
despite his 40 plus years here in Washington, and when the Lord called 
him home, he wound up his time in Bowling Green and it was so fitting 
that it would end that way.
  Congressman Natcher was educated in the public school system of 
Warren County, received his degree from what was then known as Western 
State College which is now, of course, Western Kentucky University, and 
then Bill received his juris doctor degree, his law degree, from Ohio 
State University.
  Bill began practicing law in 1934, and it was during this time that 
his public service truly began. He served as Federal Conciliation 
Commissioner in the period 1936 to 1937, County Attorney for Warren 
County which is, of course, the county in which Bowling Green is the 
county seat; he served as county Attorney for Warren County for three 
4-year terms, almost 12 years; served as Commonwealth attorney from 
1951 to 1953, which I might say also were the years when I was at the 
University of Notre Dame, reading at the same time about Congressman 
Natcher, never thinking that at some point I would actually serve with 
him.
  As I mentioned, Bill was elected to Congress in 1953 and served until 
1994, a 41-year career.
  One of my first recollections of coming into this great Chamber in 
1971 when I was elected was the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky, 
and once again I think of no combination of words that better describe 
Bill Natcher than ``the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky,'' 
because he was a very distinguished looking man, very careful in his 
attire, fastidious, perfectly groomed at all times. He always made all 
of us look very sloppy and unkempt by comparison. It looks like we just 
came in from carrying the garbage out to the dump and Bill just stepped 
out of some gentleman's magazine, but that is how it was with him. The 
only human being I ever knew who could sit down in these chairs for 
hours in a row and stand up with nary a wrinkle, and how he did it to 
this day I still never know.
  I watched him often as he arranged himself in these chairs, taking 
the coat, the tails of his coat and putting them in a certain way and 
arranging the trousers in a certain way, and I tried to do it many 
times and I still came away looking rumpled, but Bill always fresh as a 
daisy.
  When the Vice President in Statuary Hall, which is just a few feet 
away from here, when Vice President Gore spoke at the memorial service 
held here in behalf of Congressman Natcher, the then Congressman Gore, 
our colleague in the House, remembered that any time Bill Natcher was 
in the chair as Chairman or Speaker pro tempore, something important 
was happening because all the Speakers back to the start, and it goes 
back in Bill's case to Speaker Rayburn, but in my case to Speaker 
Albert, they would choose Bill Natcher when they had a tough 
proposition to handle, they needed someone with parliamentary skills in 
the chair, they needed someone who commanded respect in the Chamber, 
someone who was respected, not just by command but by example, and 
always this person was Bill Natcher.
  I was always prone to study his actions and mannerisms as he stood 
and presided over the House and would get order where there was chaos 
earlier, and often when I am in the chair myself and I thank the 
Speaker for inviting me to act as Chairman and Speaker pro tempore from 
time to time and often when I am in the chair, I think of situations 
and think, how would Bill Natcher do it? How would he try to get order, 
or how would he try to handle the recognition of Members, or how would 
he respond to a question propounded to the Chair.
  I was not aware until I read about Bill after his death that while at 
law school, Bill memorized the Robert's Rules of Order. We do not use 
Robert's Rules, we use the Jefferson Rules of Order, as modified over 
the years, but the Robert's Rules of Order are the sort of traditional 
and much honored set of rules which govern parliamentary activities 
throughout this Nation. And Bill memorized those, and the fact that 
that shows some mental acumen which would defy most of us does not 
surprise me because Bill was an extremely intelligent man, but also it 
takes a lot of discipline, of plain iron-willed discipline to memorize 
and memorize something like the Robert's Rules. But Bill did and that, 
of course, gave him the leg up on every other challenge he ever had 
from a standpoint of parliamentary rulings because he had that tucked 
away in his head and he knew exactly how to respond.
  I also know that Bill was an extremely tenacious legislator and along 
with my awareness of what an important figure he was when I came into 
this Chamber in 1971 as a freshman Member, I also had the, probably the 
somewhat misfortune of having a sort of different position on an issue 
that was particularly close to Bill's heart in those early days. Most 
Members would never remember the Three Sisters Bridge, but it was a 
major contentious factor here in the House for a number of years in the 
early 1970's. I do know that Bill would be able to recite from memory 
not only Robert's Rules but how everybody voted on the Three Sisters 
Bridge, or failed to vote as the case might be.
  I found out very quickly that I needed to do a little more study 
about that issue and I needed to study at his knee which I proceed to 
do, and then I was shriven of my sins.

                              {time}  2010

  Chairman Natcher is known for a lot of things including his 
gentility, his gentlemanliness, his courtliness, his absolute devotion 
to good manners, as would befit a gentleman or a gentlewoman in this 
Congress. He also was known, and very admirably so, as one who never 
took any political funds from any source, not just political action 
committees, which I myself have not taken money from, but from anybody. 
Bill Natcher financed his own campaigns. They were modest affairs by 
the likes that we use today where you can have multimillion-dollar 
campaigns for a House seat. Several hundred thousand is the norm.
  Bill Natcher would get by with a few thousand dollars that he would 
himself finance, and he would put signs up, and he would sort of go 
from county seat to county seat throughout his far-flung district. He 
would talk to his friends. He would say, ``I'm Bill Natcher,'' although 
everyone knew him, ``I need your help in this election,'' which he 
never really needed, but it was always nice to be asked. People 
appreciate being asked.
  And so he was, some would say, an anachronism. That word has sort of 
a pejorative meaning, so only in a very healthy way was he an 
anachronism. He was a calling back. He was a reference back to an era 
in which people did not spend great globs of money, did not have to be 
incessantly raising funds, did not have to be out all the time 
producing money in order to fund a campaign. So to that extent, he was 
a kind of an anachronism, but a very healthy and positive example did 
that set for all of us.
  Because in the year, for example, 1992, when Bill ran, he could still 
do that. He could still have retail politics, hands-on, face-to-face, 
hand-to-hand politics, and managed to win and win handily in an era in 
which politics is driven so much by money that we are now in the 
process of changing the campaign finance laws in order to bring more 
balance to it and try to reinsert the grassroots at the heart of the 
political system.
  Well, Bill never had to go backward to that, in a sense, because he 
never was any different from the start in 1953 to the end in 1994 when 
he voted coming in that door on the hospital bed, devoted to duty 
despite his personal distress and despite his very great pain. That he 
would even do what he did was an example of real legislative and 
personal heroism which I think will be with us for a long time to come.
  Chairman Natcher lived and practiced politics in an era when sound 
bites are of the norm. We try to crunch our statements down to 10 or 15 
or 30 seconds, and we try to position ourselves to the cameras, and we 
try to say the thing which we believe the news editors would find 
distills the idea of the event. Well, Bill Natcher did not do any of 
that, because he did not really have to. He not only had a very 
incisive mind and he had a very intelligent grasp of the English 
language with that melodious southern drawl of his, he did have a 
wonderful command of the vocabulary, so he was able to say things when 
he chose to talk to the press, which was not often, often enough to 
suit the press, but often enough to suit Mr. Natcher was the rule not 
so much what the press wanted but what he liked, but when he did, he 
did not need to go the sound-bite routine.
  We also live in an era in which we live and die by the telephone and 
by the fax machine and by the television set and by the cellular phone 
and by the satellite photography and all of the ways and means we get 
information back and forth to our districts. But it was said by 
President Clinton down in Bowling Green that for a while he was 
wondering when he had to deal with this man Natcher, at the beginning 
of the Clinton administration, he could not figure out how was he a 
technician, and of course, I still say Congressman Gore, Al Gore, but 
Vice President Gore who are on the superhighway of electronics, I mean, 
how could they deal with a man who had an office that we at least hear 
had no fax machine and did not have the copiers and did not have all of 
these high-speed duplicators and things that most of us take as a 
matter of course. Bill did not really need those things because he, of 
course, studied the issues. He knew them carefully. He responded to his 
mail.

  He had Diane Rihely and all of those wonderful, as he calls them, his 
ladies. He is one of the few people who might be able to in this day 
and age use that terminology in that way, but it was meant obviously 
without patronizing. It was meant as a great compliment to the staff 
that he had, which happened all to be women. But they functioned in a 
very positive way to help Mr. Natcher stay abreast of all of his work.
  But he was unusual in the respect that he did not have the extensive 
staff that many of us have. Yet he still managed to run this giant 
Committee on Appropriations. He managed every day to make an entry into 
that remarkable journal of his which, when revealed and opened to 
scholars and to writers and to political scientists, historians, social 
scientists, demographers, is going to be a treasure trove. Simply 
stated, it is a treasure trove.
  We who were here for several years, in my case 24 years, with Mr. 
Natcher through the bulk of these 18,401 votes that he cast 
consecutively, we will miss him for lots of things including that type 
of devotion and the fact that he was his own person and he was his own 
person at a time when there are very few people in political life who 
are their own people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
appreciate his leadership in calling this special order for Mr. Natcher 
this evening.
  I just wanted to express my respect and affection for him. All of my 
family started out in the part of western Kentucky that Mr. Natcher 
represents, represented. I still think he is with us.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I make the same mistake myself. I use it in the present 
tense often.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Yes. When I first arrived here a few years ago and 
realized that common root with Mr. Natcher, it was something that I 
particularly enjoyed being able to talk to him about, because we could 
talk about Short Creek and Caneyville and Falls are Rough and 
Litchfield and a whole bunch of little towns down in his district that 
I used to spend a lot of time in as a little boy visiting grandparents 
that nobody else around this place, outside the Kentucky delegation, 
even some of you, probably have never heard of, and being able to have 
that kind of connection with him was a priceless thing and a source of 
great joy for me, because I could talk with him a little bit on his own 
terms, although he was many times my senior in this place.
  But it also gave me an insight into his devotion to duty and to the 
House and to his country and to his district that I probably would not 
have been able to see quite so well otherwise, a man who was the 
absolute epitome of integrity.
  I was down in the Rayburn garage walking to my car last week and 
walked by his parking place, and there still under the name tag of Mr. 
Natcher of Kentucky is his old Chevy Impala, I think, virtually 
spotless, and if you could ever picture what a car would look like in a 
vest, I mean, it was the vehicle, and as the gentleman knows, Mr. 
Natcher was one of the few Members here who often still was in the 
three-piece suit a lot of the time, even in the summertime. But just to 
see sort of his car there was a very poignant memorial of the man and 
his style and his particular way of doing this job, and in so many ways 
I think for each of us, and I am privileged to serve on the committee 
that he chaired with such distinction. Every day, every time we turn 
around almost there is something here that reminds us of this 
extraordinary American with whom I was very proud to serve, and I thank 
the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I thank the gentleman from Colorado. He and I have 
talked often about his Kentucky roots, and we are always happy to have 
our colleagues here who either know our State or, in your case, 
actually have a contact with it, and I think you are exactly right. 
Passing that car, as I sometimes pass the locker of the gentleman from 
Kentucky, Mr. Natcher, it does remind me of how important he was to 
this place and how vivid his memory really is and how hard it is for us 
to say about Bill in the past tense.

                              {time}  2020

  I think for a long time to come those Members among us who served 
with him for a length of time will probably always consider Bill in a 
kind of present tense way, which I think is maybe the greatest 
testimonial to the kind of human he really was.
  Mr. SKAGGS. One further comparison: I spent a little bit of time at 
the University of Virginia in my student days. They still refer to Mr. 
Jefferson down there as if he had just gone away for the weekend. It 
would be nice if we could have Mr. Natcher's presence here in the same 
way.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Well said, well said.
  At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Maryland.
  Mrs. BENTLEY. I first want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky for 
taking this time to pay tribute to one of the outstanding Members of 
this body.
  Mr. Speaker, the loss of our colleague, Bill Natcher, has diminished 
the effectiveness of this body by a magnitude that will only be fully 
realized in the days ahead.
  Of his many strengths, the one that I admired the most and felt was 
the greatest contribution to the stature of the Congress--to all of 
us--was his respect for the awesome power of the seat. That respect was 
manifested in his deep sense of responsibility to the House and in 
that, to the people whom he represented not only in the 2nd District of 
Kentucky, but across this great Nation.
  That respect permeated his every action: from the respect shown 
toward ideas and concepts, to the patient courtesy displayed, toward 
everyone, in the most difficult of hearings.
  It is a legacy of intellectual integrity and responsibility that 
should be held up for future generations of the Congress, an 
inspiration to walk in the footsteps of this extraordinary servant of 
the people.
  You know, I came here 10 years ago as a freshman, but Mr. Natcher 
always made me feel, and I know he did this with every person who came 
in contact with him in this Congress, he made us feel important. He 
made us feel like we were wanted. There was a warmth, a welcome, a 
``can I help you'' attitude always from Mr. Natcher.
  When I went on his committee, I was extremely proud and pleased. 
Initially, as I told him once, I said, ``You know, I don't really want 
to be on the subcommittee that I had been assigned to,'' and he was the 
chairman of that subcommittee, Labor, Health, Education, Human 
Services. I concluded that year last year, and I said, ``You know, this 
has been a real learning lesson for me and one that you have helped so 
much to make so interesting and so important. And I want to thank you, 
Mr. Chairman, for doing that.''
  Again I just want to say to the gentleman from Kentucky thank you so 
much for taking this time tonight to pay tribute to a truly great 
American.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I thank the gentlewoman from Maryland for those 
comments. The gentlewoman's being here adds a lot to our evening. It 
also points out again what I had said earlier, or tried to say, that 
Bill was the essence of courtliness and decency and friendliness 
despite his rank here. When she joined, as I did earlier, even, he was 
a man of rank, but despite that he was still a person who was down to 
earth. I think, as I also said earlier, he carried those roots from 
Bowling Green here to Washington and never forgot Bowling Green and 
never forgot the way you deal with people. He carried that here, and he 
exhibited those same wonderful tendencies all throughout his career.

  So we thank the gentlewoman for remembering him.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I knew Bill Natcher for a little over 25 years, and my experience in 
observing him was that he was a man of both starch and steel.
  My first experience with him came shortly after I went on the 
Committee on Appropriations and he was my first subcommittee Chair, he 
and Julie Butler Hansen. I served on D.C. and on Interior 
subcommittees.
  My first experience in dealing with Bill Natcher came on an occasion 
on which he and I were on opposite sides of an issue. I found out just 
how tough he was, because he had decided, for reasons that I respected 
but disagreed with, that he was not going to support funding of the 
D.C. Subway at that point because he felt that previously agreed 
arrangements had not been lived up to.
  I decided that as a newcomer I thought that that judgment should be 
changed. So I organized an effort which resulted in Mr. Giaimo from 
Connecticut offering the amendment to provide the funding for the 
subway system. And after a long, protracted fight, we won in the House 
and, I thought then, because the Senate was for it, that we were going 
to win. But I discovered very quickly that Bill knew the rules. So he 
simply decided that he was going to try not to bring out a D.C. 
Appropriation bill at all that year, force us into a continuing 
resolution, where last year's rules and regulations would prevail. Our 
win on the floor would have been gone.
  It took the combined effort of Richard Nixon in the White House 
making telephone calls, Egil Krogh, who was handling it for the White 
House, the Speaker of the House, George Mahon, who was then the 
chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, and the United States 
Senate, in order to finally, in the last week of the session, overcome 
Bill's opposition.
  I was having what we know in Wisconsin as ``Tom and Jerry'' parties 
in my office during the week just before Christmas Eve. Bob Giaimo came 
over to my office and decided he was going to have more than one. And 
Bob said, ``You know, Bill is going to remember this for a long time.'' 
And he did remember it for a long time. Over the years we got over our 
differences on that issue, but he taught me then he knew an awful lot 
about this House and about the rules.
  Jamie Whitten, when he had his portrait unveiled in Statuary Hall, 
was making some comments about some of the subcommittee Chairs on the 
Appropriations Committee, and he looked at Bill and he looked at me, 
and he said, ``You know, we have two fellas here, Bill Natcher, why, if 
he died and went to Heaven, he wouldn't go into Heaven until he knew 
the rules; and Obey wouldn't go into Heaven until he changed them.'' 
Bill got as big a kick out of that as I did.
  And I certainly knew Bill Natcher through the years as he chaired the 
Labor, Health, and Education and Welfare Subcommittee, which was a 
great love of his. He was regarded with great respect and affection, 
especially by the folks at NIH. As you know, there is a building named 
after Bill out there, and justifiably so. I think anyone who dealt with 
Bill understood he was fair and he was also tough. We will remember 
that.

  I was grateful for the fact that shortly before he died, he and I had 
a wonderful conversation in his hotel room out at Bethesda Hospital. He 
was extremely gracious. He told me the story of how he misspelled his 
middle name as a child and stuck to that misspelling all through his 
life.
  I told him that, in my view, he had set a record for exhibiting a 
sense of duty that would never be equaled in this place, and I really 
believe that. I think we were all fortunate to have served with him, 
not just on the committee but in the House as a whole.
  It is a tremendous privilege to be a Member of this body and not very 
many people in our country's history have been given that privilege. 
Bill Natcher never forgot that for one moment.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. The gentleman 
brings up some very interesting recollections. One I have is that Bill 
Natcher, as my friend from Kentucky to whom I will yield in a moment 
will attest, Bill remembered all of the data in all of these budgets. 
He had that tucked way in his capacious brain.
  The story was he said to people that he would know when it was time 
to leave, unlike some of the jurists and people, he would know when he 
couldn't recall the data from any budget that he had ever put together 
in the Committee on Appropriations all the way back to 1953 or '54, 
when he came on it. As we know from all the breakfasts we have enjoyed 
over all these years as he was standing before any group, whether it 
was a Farm Bureau group or a child welfare group, he would have in his 
brain all of the data from all of the budgets.

                              {time}  2030

  So actually he passed on never having lost any of that sharp edge 
that the gentleman is talking about. His ability to remember, his 
ability to synthesize this information, was legendary, and he, 
therefore, becomes one of those people whom I would call an icon of 
this place, a person who brings credit to it and brings credit to all 
of us by the very fact that we were able to serve with him.
  The gentleman from Kentucky.
  Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. 
Mazzoli] for yielding, and, more than that, I appreciate the gentleman 
taking this special time, this special order, to allow us to share with 
him the memories of our dear departed colleague, Bill Natcher.
  Mr. Speaker, before I pay tribute to Bill Natcher, I want to pay 
tribute to the gentleman in the well who has this special order. He is 
leaving the Congress after this term, and, although we are divided by 
the aisle of the House, we are not divided by any personal animosities 
at all. In fact, I regard the gentleman as one of my best and dearest 
friends, and he has served this body with great distinction and with 
great honor. He is an independent thinker, and a very conscientious 
American, and devoted public servant, and I say, ``Ron, we will miss 
you in this body very much.''

  Mr. MAZZOLI. I thank my friend very much. I thank you.
  Mr. ROGERS. Bill Natcher, of course before he came to this body, was 
in Kentucky a Commonwealth attorney, which is a State prosecuting 
attorney, which happened to have been my background as well, and I wish 
I could emulate Bill Natcher, but that is impossible because of my lack 
of talents. But Bill Natcher came to this body with a great and abiding 
respect for the Constitution, and this body especially, and a great 
reverence for law and a great reverence for procedure because he 
believed, as I do and, I think, the gentleman does, that in procedure, 
and in the law, and in the Constitution are the guarantees of our 
individual liberty obviously, and he believed that to the nth degree.
  I do not think we will see the likes of Bill Natcher again. Truly he 
was what I have referred to as an antebellum man, and I mean that in 
the most respectful and admirable way: ``antebellum'' of course meaning 
prior to the great war, the Civil War, in his courtliness, and in his 
demeanor and in his attitude toward other people which we see lacking, 
I think, in our world today.
  I wish we had more of the civility in our society that Bill Natcher 
represented. Unfortunately we do not. But he certainly is an example 
for all of us to try to live up to.
  ``He is the quintessential Member of the U.S. House of 
Representatives,'' one of our colleagues said in an earlier tribute to 
him here on the floor, words to this effect, that he is the model by 
which we all should try to conduct ourselves as a Member of this body. 
Truly he not only was representative in the highest sense of a Member 
of Congress, but he also set the standards for the rest of us to try to 
live up to.
  Of course Bill was a natty dresser. I say to my colleagues, ``He was 
one of the most handsomely dressed men that you'll ever encounter. I 
never saw Bill Natcher without a three piece suit on, a very colorful, 
but conservative, tie, and always with perfectly creased pants and with 
buttoned coat. You never saw Bill Natcher with his coat unbuttoned, nor 
without a vest, and his creases were always perfect. And if you noticed 
when he took his seat in the Chamber here, there was a ritual that he 
went through to preserve that. There was, before he sat down, the 
lifting of the coat so as to not wrinkle the back, and then the 
creasing of the pants as he sat down,'' and, as was said in the 
tribute, I think, last week by Speaker Foley in Statuary Hall, ``always 
never crossing of the legs because that ruined the crease in the 
pants.''
  But he was a very prideful man of his appearance, and rightly so. He 
was a very handsome man and very handsomely dressed always.
  In fact one time a few years ago a secretary in my office told me 
that she lived in the same building that Mr. and Mrs. Natcher lived in, 
and she came in one Monday morning and told me she had seen Chairman 
Natcher in the apartment building the previous weekend. I said, ``Where 
did you see him?''
  She said, ``I was doing my laundry in the laundry room downstairs, 
and, as I was doing my laundry, there was Bill Natcher doing his.''
  And I said, ``Well, was he O.K.?''
  And she said, ``Why certainly.''
  And I said, ``Well, how was he dressed?''
  And she said, ``Well, we were in the laundry room, and he was dressed 
in a three piece suit as he did his laundry.''
  When I first came to the Congress in January of 1981, Mr. Speaker, 
Bill Natcher and Carl Perkins were the two senior Members of our 
delegation, and both of them helped me no end to learn a little bit 
about how to conduct myself in this body. I wish I had learned more. 
But Bill Natcher always was helpful, as the gentleman has indicated. I 
tell my colleagues:
  ``Any problem that you had, political, or legislative, or what have 
you, personal, Bill Natcher was always there in that seat. And the seat 
next to it was always open and welcome for any who would come and sit 
with him, and every Member of this body at one time or the other, and 
many times in many cases, sat there, and listened, and learned, and 
asked questions, and was courteously treated and advised honestly and 
forthrightly. And one of his favorite sayings, as all of us have 
recollected, I am sure; he would answer a question, and then he would 
say, `I say that to you frankly.' Now that meant, when he said, `I say 
that to you frankly,' that meant you better write that down because 
that's the way it's going to be.''
  ``I say that to you frankly,'' and he said that to presidents, and 
kings, and the lowliest Member of this body, and to everyone who came 
in his path, but always with a courteous and humble demeanor, never in 
a mean-spirited way. I never heard Bill Natcher talk ill of anyone, 
whether it be across the aisle here in the heat of debate or any other 
fashion. It was just not in his heart to be uncivil or unkind to 
another human being.
  So, his like will not be seen anymore. He was a man of great 
intellect. He had a great memory. He had a devotion to his work on the 
Committee on Appropriations. And of course, as chairman of the 
committee, subcommittee, that had the largest budget; in fact, the 
subcommittee on which he was chairman had a budget, I think, that was 
like the fourth or fifth largest budget of any government in the world, 
but he knew every penny in that budget and was able to recite it, as 
the gentleman has indicated, quickly and repeatedly, and in fact he 
would repeat it to Farm Bureau groups and others who came here, who had 
no idea, I think, many times what he was talking about, and yet he was 
devoted to the extent that he wished to share that with them.
  His district bordered mine in southern Kentucky. Bowling Green is an 
hour's drive from where I live, and our districts abutted each other 
for all the time that we served here, and we shared a lot of the same 
types of problems with people where lived and where my district also 
is. And he was always devoted to Kentucky. He never forgot that this 
was his old Kentucky home, and he revered it, and he revered the people 
there, and he was devoted to their well-being, and he never let us rest 
when it came to the problems of his constituents.
  Interestingly enough, and this has been referred to, but a few 
people, I think, can probably comprehend this:
  In his district of small towns in Kentucky, I think some 22 or so 
counties, when it came time to campaign for re-election, Mr. Speaker, 
Bill Natcher did not hire any Washington consultant.

                              {time}  2040

  He did not hire even a Kentucky consultant. He did not hire a press 
secretary. He did not hire any radio commercials or television 
commercials. That was alien to his way of campaigning.
  What he would do campaigning-wise, he would get in his car and he 
would drive to one town. He would have called beforehand to talk to one 
or two of his supporters there. And he would arrange a luncheon or a 
breakfast or an evening meal with four or five of his local supporters. 
He would not go to the radio station nor the newspaper nor the 
courthouse, as all of us have to do as mere mortals. He would merely go 
to the restaurant and meet with his four or five supporters in that 
country and they would have a good time talking and renew the 
acquaintance, talking about what the needs of that community were. He 
would then drive to the next town, on his own gasoline, as they say, 
and do the same thing.
  The people of that community would know that he was there. He would 
walk the streets. But he would have no structured events. If a 
newspaper man called him or a radio station called him for some comment 
on some issue, he did not do that. That was Bill Natcher, and no one 
challenged that.
  He as able, I guess, to get by with that type of activity, where the 
rest of us would be sorely chastised for it.
  What a wonderful man, what a personal friend he was to so many of us, 
and so many people around the state and in the country, a personal 
friend, and that is hard to come by sometimes, particularly in public 
life where you have to guard what you say and do and be careful what 
you say to what you may consider a friend. This business is rough on 
friendships, and it is rough on confidences and that type of thing.
  But in Bill Natcher, you could tell him your innermost secret. You 
could confide in him your most troublesome problem, and be assured, 
instantly, that there was an open ear, a kind heart, some good advice, 
and absolute confidentiality. That is hard to come by these days.
  As the minister at the Baptist Church in Bowling Green at the funeral 
so eloquently I though described the goodness of public service, Bill 
Natcher certainly is the one example that we can think of that gave all 
of us a good deal of confidence that public service, after all is 
worthwhile.
  He believed that the greatest gift one can give to the world is 
public service, honest public service, and that is an example that we 
need so much these days. In this era of cynicism in politics, 
particularly, and cynicism in the demeanor of those of us in public 
life, Bill Natcher stood tall and alone, almost, in the probity, in the 
stature, in the self-confidence that all of us wish we could emulate.
  I know Bill Natcher is listening on this great C-SPAN in the sky this 
evening, and we want him to know that we loved him and cared for him. 
More than that, we listened to him, and we will try to emulate his type 
of public service.
  Again, I thank the gentleman for his taking this special order.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I want to thank my friend of many years, Congressman Hal 
Rogers, for those wonderful statements. I am sure Bill is watching, and 
confident Bill is tuning into what he said. The Speaker, as he stood 
here, as you remember, in telling us Bill was going to have to miss 
some votes for the first time in his career, did say he thought Bill 
was going to be watching and still staying very close in touch with 
what we are doing here, because he is so proud of this place and so 
proud of being a legislator and a public servant. So he wanted to be 
there despite his own grievous personal health problems, to show that 
kind of tenacity and devotion to duty, that fidelity, to come into this 
Chamber in the side door to cast a vote, when most of us would have 
long since put that aside, but he did it, as the gentleman said, 
because he felt strongly about public service.
  Mr. ROGERS. If the gentleman will yield, and I will close with this, 
the one compliment, the one way that Bill Natcher found to compliment 
you when you did something that he liked, he would say, ``You are going 
to turn out OK in my journal.'' You know, he kept a journal of the 
daily activities of his life. We are all anxious to read those notes. 
They are bound volumes now, stacks on end. And he described in those, 
we are told, in those journals, the everyday secrets of this place, 
not, I am sure, confidential matters, but things we will have long 
forgotten. And he would, he said, write comments in the journals at the 
end of the day about Members who did something that he liked or did not 
like. We are all anxious to see what will come out.
  But he always would almost threaten you with the journal. And we were 
all worried about doing something to cross him, for fear that he would 
write about us in his journal. But he would always, when you did 
something right, you knew you were complemented when Bill Natcher said, 
``You are going to turn out OK in my journal.''
  But I will just say this, my friend, in closing, that I think if we 
kept journals ourselves, and maybe we should, Bill Natcher would 
certainly turn out right in my journal.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I thank the gentleman very much.
  The gentlewoman from Georgia.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for 
organizing this special order, so we could say some nice things about a 
man who was always so nice to us. I suspect that I might always have a 
place in Chairman Natcher's journal, and I do not know if I turned out 
right or not. But I would like to talk about my first experience with 
Chairman Natcher. It is one that I will carry with me for the rest of 
my political career.
  My very first memory of Chairman William Natcher will last forever. I 
sat on the floor with my friend Carrie Meek anticipating the start of 
our first joint session of Congress as Members.
  Carrie and I talked about everything under the sun--including 
abolishing the Appropriations Committee. Little did I know that the 
elderly gentleman sitting next to me was the Chair of the Committee.
  He introduced himself--and this Georgia peach blossom shrank, 
realizing that I had to try to remove the foot from my mouth--and fast.
  Unfazed by my embarrassment, Mr. Natcher was just as nice as he could 
be. And from that moment on, it became a tradition for the two of us to 
sit together during joint sessions. He would even help me fight for my 
seat as more senior Members tried to move me--a freshman with no 
seniority--to a less than prime location in the gallery. Mr. Natcher 
would say, ``This seat is reserved for my Georgia Peach!''
  I miss Mr. Natcher. And tomorrow, when we attend the first joint 
session since his passing, I will be thinking of him, and I'll know 
he'll be looking down from heaven for the seat next to his Georgia 
Peach.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I thank the gentlewoman. That is a wonderful statement. 
As we sit here I can look in the back at that very chair where, for all 
the years I have been here, 24 years, always Chairman Natcher was in 
that very same seat. And almost always the pictures that would come out 
from the national news photographers would always have Bill there. He 
took those sessions very seriously. I think the gentlewoman has risen 
to a particularly lofty state in her first term by being considered the 
gentleman's ``Georgia Peach.'' That is a pretty high title, and a 
pretty wonderful title to be given to anyone, to say the least. I thank 
the gentlewoman very much for her comments.
  My friend from Minnesota.

                              {time}  2050

  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to 
me.
  I had not intended to participate in the special order. I was here 
for another purpose. But hearing all the wonderful statements about 
Chairman Natcher, I must add a very few reflections of my own.
  My first experience with Mr. Natcher was as Administrative Assistant 
to my predecessor, John Blatnik, who was a very close friend of Bill 
Natcher and preceded Chairman Natcher in Congress by several years. 
John was elected in 1946. But he, too, recounted the story of the Three 
Sisters Bridge and how Bill Natcher had nothing, no personal interest 
or reflection or commentary upon the District of Columbia. But there 
was a law that said that the Three Sisters Bridge had to be built. And 
he was not going to allow a penny to be spent on the subway until the 
prior commitment had been met, which was the law.
  And John Blatnik said, ``You watch. Bill Natcher will not yield an 
inch.''
  It was not until the caissons were pounded into the embankment on the 
Virginia side of the Potomac River and the work begun on building the 
southern extremity of Three Sisters Bridge that Chairman Natcher 
finally relented, as now-Chairman Obey recounted in the House-Senate 
conference on the continuing resolution, to allow those funds, 
initiated by the Senate, to be spent for the subway.
  The second experience that I had, not directly with Mr. Natcher, but 
it was confirmed by him, was Speaker Albert, during the dark days of 
Watergate, when it appeared that President Nixon was going to be, that 
Articles of Impeachment were going to be issued from the Committee on 
Judiciary and that impeachment would be brought to the House floor, 
Speaker Albert told me that he had selected Chairman Natcher to preside 
over the House because, he said, he is the one person who can command 
universal respect and national appreciation for the job that would be 
necessary in these highly charged circumstances to preside with 
equanimity, with fairness, with dignity and with complete command of 
the rules of procedure of the House. And so he was right.
  I asked Bill Natcher about that some years later. He said, ``It is 
not well-known, but that is true.'' And he just let it lie there. He 
said, ``I was fully prepared, but I am glad, Jim, you know, I am glad I 
never had to take that task on,'' he said.
  And a third experience that I shall treasure forever was in 1981, 
when the first Reagan budget came to the Appropriations Committee. And 
I found, to my astonishment and horror, that funding for libraries was 
proposed for elimination.
  I did some research, made some comparisons, came armed with sheets of 
paper, documents, and testified at the Labor-HHS Appropriations 
Subcommittee hearings.
  I said, ``Mr. Natcher, are you and the members of this committee 
aware that in this budget funding for library services would be 
eliminated? At the previous level of funding, $114 million for the 
current fiscal year, that there is more money spent in the military 
budget on marching bands for the combined uniformed armed services than 
we would have spent for library services and that in the next fiscal 
year, we will spend zero?''
  And he leaned forward and said, ``I didn't know that. Thank you for 
reminding the committee. Jim, you have always been a good member. You 
have always supported our bills when we brought them to the floor. I 
can assure you that we are going to deal with this matter, and you will 
be pleased with its outcome.''
  That is all you needed from Bill Natcher. He was an impeccable man of 
his word. But he understood, even the significance of even one of the 
smallest items in that appropriations bill, library services, he say to 
it through all his years that that funding remained and that it grew at 
an appropriate level with full understanding of the importance to small 
towns and rural areas of bookmobile services and interlibrary loans. 
And he knew it down to the last detail.
  He was a man for the ages and a man to be admired and an example for 
all of us.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for 
those wonderful words, because Bill is with us in spirit. And he is 
with us in the embodiment of what public service is about. He 
appreciates what you have said, because it really does crystallize the 
fact that he was a master of the legislative detail.
  But he was also a human being. He understood the human side of a 
budget, the human side of a figure on an appropriations bill. that is 
what made Congressman Natcher such a powerful and important person.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to make just a few more comments. I would 
like to, of course, mention the fact that we know very well that Bill's 
18,401 consecutive votes, which will last forever as a symbol not just 
of legislative devotion but of, of course, a great knowledge of the way 
this parliamentary system operates. We know of his journal, the 
wonderful treasure trove that will yield priceless gems about what has 
happened in America for these past 40-plus years. We know about all of 
his wonderful mastery of the legislative detail.
  We have heard tonight about his fondness for Members on both sides of 
the aisle, and we have a pretty good idea, I think, of the fact that 
Bill Natcher was a devoted family man.
  It was said about the fact that, as Congressman Rogers said, about 
one of the tenants in the same apartment house seeing Congressman 
Natcher in the laundry room dressed up to the nines. Of course, he was 
very much in love with his wife Virginia for many, many years. Her 
illness and eventually her death obviously was a very severe personal 
tragedy for Bill and probably did not do his own health any good.
  And his daughters, Louise and Celeste, and the family and, of course, 
we had an opportunity to hear a wonderful statement by, I think it was 
Christopher, I believe, one of the grandsons who spoke at the Statuary 
Hall and talked about his grandfather and about how much he as a young 
man, admired his grandfather and admired what his grandfather stood 
for.
  So Bill was really everything. Bill was a legislator. Bill was a 
human being of great talent and devotion. He was a father, a husband, a 
loving grandfather as well.
  His passing is a serious blow to this entire body.
  Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to 
join with all his friends and colleagues here to pay tribute to Bill 
Natcher.
  I could say a lot of good things about Bill Natcher, and every one of 
them would be true. He was a trustworthy friend and it was a pleasure 
and a privilege to serve with him during his 40 years in Congress and 
as my colleague on the House Appropriations Committee.
  As chairman of the full Appropriations Committee and its Subcommittee 
on Labor, Health and Human Services, Bill provided an invaluable 
service to the Nation, while always remaining faithful to his people 
back home in Kentucky and his district.
  He was a gentleman in every respect and was always called upon when a 
cool head was needed. You might argue with his position, but nobody 
could ever take exception to the way he handled himself. He was 
respected by all who knew him, both here and at home.
  He set an example for all his colleagues in conducting himself in an 
honest and straightforward manner, both in Congress and in his 
campaigns.
  I will certainly miss Bill's counsel, his friendship, and his 
leadership.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Dreier].
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  I appreciate his forbearance. I thank him for taking out this time.
  I feel very saddened, first, of course, with the passing of Mr. 
Natcher. But unfortunately, as many of us were out of the country when 
he passed on, I was unable to go to Kentucky for the service. I was in 
China at the time and was really very surprised and saddened. Why? 
Because I was convinced that that incredible spirit and drive, which we 
had seen repeatedly embodied in the life of Mr. Natcher, would come 
back.
  We know that many talked about the fact that he spent so much time 
voting and not focusing attention on his health, that that was slowing 
his recovery. But we know he finally did focus attention on it. It was 
a very sad day, of course, when for the first time in his four decades 
of uninterrupted voting that he did miss that vote.
  But I wanted to take just a moment to talk about a couple of 
instances that I had.
  I happen to serve as a member of the Rules Committee. One of the 
things that Mr. Natcher taught me was that we in this House should 
operate under the standard rules. He always had a standard line with me 
over the past several years. He would say, ``Now, David, where does the 
Rules Committee meet?'' He said, ``I just don't have any idea where you 
all are.''
  And the reason he said that is that appropriations bills are 
privileged resolutions which can come directly to the floor unless 
waivers are requested. And Mr. Natcher was very consistent in his 
refusal to request waivers.
  He would say to me on a regular basis down here, ``David, this place 
should run under the standard operating rules.''

                              {time}  2100

  That is why he would quip, ``I don't know where the Rules Committee 
is,'' because he did not like going right upstairs above this Chamber 
and testifying before our committee, because he believed very sincerely 
in the operation which should allow Members to have the chance to offer 
amendments to legislation, increasing or cutting amendments in 
appropriation bills, and he stood by that very firmly.
  From my perspective, we all know what an incredible gentleman Bill 
Natcher was, and he was a model Congressman, but from my perspective as 
a member of the Committee on Rules, I especially appreciated his 
consistent position as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, 
standing there and saying we should operate under the standard rules of 
this institution.
  One other thing, Mr. Speaker. I one day was sitting near his famous 
seat and he was telling me that his grandson, who appeared on 
television programs in Los Angeles, near the area that I am privileged 
to represent. He almost missed a vote, and blamed me for that. I don't 
think anyone would have brought the gavel down if he was in the Chamber 
here, but he did jump, as he often did, at the prospect of missing a 
vote.
  One story that he did tell about nearly missing one, and he would 
have missed this one, it was late one night in the early 1980's. I had 
just come here. He was driving out of the garage in the Rayburn 
Building and our former and deceased colleague, Phil Burton, my fellow 
Californian, had called a re-vote on a measure at about 1 o'clock or 2 
o'clock in the morning. Bill Natcher said that he just happened to 
catch a glimpse, and I don't know if you will recall, but I know you 
do, Ron, a blue screen, and if there was a blue screen on, it meant 
there was a vote going on. We don't do that any longer.
  He said he was just turning the corner there heading to go home and 
his eye caught that blue screen, and that let him turn around and come 
back and cast that vote that he might have missed. He was a great man. 
He was an inspiration to so many of us, and I will miss him. I thank 
the gentleman very much for taking out this time.
  Mr. MAZZOLI. I thank the gentleman from California for those 
recollections, and they again bear out both the humanity of this man, 
his legislative skills, his devotion to duty, his patriotism, having 
served his country, his rigid devotion to the betterment of this place 
and how to actually make it function in the way it was designed to 
function. All of those things are so important to this place that his 
passing is a deprivation to this entire body. I appreciate the 
gentleman's statement.
  Mr. McDADE. Mr. Speaker, It was a great privilege to serve in the 
U.S. House of Representatives with our late colleague, Bill Natcher. 
Congressman Mazzoli and the Kentucky delegation are to be commended for 
organizing this special order to honor a truly special man.
  I am not exaggerating when I say that there was no one like him 
before and I am not overstating the facts when I say there will be no 
one like him again. Bill Natcher was one of the most distinguished and 
dedicated Members to ever serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
  Certainly Bill Natcher will be remembered for his 18,401 consecutive 
recorded votes. While that is an unparalleled achievement not likely to 
be surpassed, Bill Natcher should and will be remembered for so much 
more. He made a lasting legislative imprint with his leadership in 
drafting the annual Labor, HHS and Education appropriations bill. That 
bill impacts the lives of millions of Americans by funding such things 
as employment and training services, occupational safety, health 
delivery programs, Head Start, rehabilitation services, and student 
financial assistance.
  Bill Natcher was remarkable in many ways. He will be remembered for 
being elected and reelected 20 different times without the expensive, 
high-technology campaigns which are now the norm. He never accepted 
political contributions, and he tended to the needs of the people of 
his Kentucky district with a bare-bones office staff and a roll-up-
your-sleeves approach to constituent service.
  Those of us who knew him personally will warmly recall his integrity, 
collegiality, and his devotion to doing what was right for the people 
of his district and our great Nation. I feel very fortunate to have 
worked closely with him during the past several years when he served as 
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and I served as ranking 
Republican. The committee has always put partisanship aside in the 
interests of enacting appropriations legislation which serves the 
citizens of this Nation. Bill Natcher carried on that tradition in 
grand style, earning the respect of his colleagues from both political 
parties on the committee and in the House.
  There were, of course, moments of disagreement, but Bill Natcher 
never ceased to be a gentleman and a credit to this institution. You 
could disagree with Bill Natcher and never jeopardize your friendship. 
He carried himself with great decorum, whether he was presiding over 
the chamber during a controversial debate or guiding the Appropriations 
Committee during a time of tightening budgets.

  Bill Natcher will long be remembered not for the length of time he 
spent in Congress, but for the high quality of his service. His life 
serves as a model to those of us who have been elected to public 
office. Any young person who is interested in public service should 
study the writings and actions of Bill Natcher.
  My sympathies go to Bill's two daughters, Celeste Jirles and Louise 
Murphy, and seven grandchildren. They can take great comfort in knowing 
what a rare and special man their father and grandfather was. The 
people of this Nation, and those of us who served with Bill Natcher, 
are richer for his contribution to the Congress.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor for me to hold this special 
order to give more of our colleagues the opportunity to pay their final 
tributes to a great Kentucky gentleman and a great U.S. Congressman, 
William H. Natcher.
  Chairman Natcher and I didn't share the same political party. We 
didn't see eye to eye on every issue. But he was a leader. He was a 
gentleman. And he was a friend. I respect him greatly. And I will miss 
him much.
  The Kentucky Post, one of the major newspapers in my home district, 
recently referred to Chairman Natcher in an editorial headline, as 
Capitol Hill's ``Man of Steel''.
  They were, of course, referring to the 40 years during which Bill 
Natcher never missed a day of work; the 40 years that Bill Natcher 
never missed a recorded vote; the 40 years that Bill Natcher devoted to 
public service here in the U.S. House of Representatives. Forty years 
of unblemished, untarnished, and unquestioned integrity.

  And ``Capitol Hill's Man of Steel'' is definitely an appropriate way 
to remember Bill Natcher today, because Chairman Bill Natcher was 
indeed a ``Man of Steel'' when it came to his convictions. They never 
wavered.
  He was a man of steel when it came to his commitment. It never 
faltered. For 40 years, while 9 presidents came and went. While seven 
Speakers of the House came and went--Bill Natcher was there day in and 
day out, quietly going about the business of doing the people's 
business
  He didn't showboat. He didn't make a lot of speeches. He didn't 
schmooze with the press. He just quietly went about the business of 
public service, because he believed in it.
  When you looked at Bill Natcher, it was easy to believe that he was 
indeed a man of steel. He always stood so straight and tall--like he 
had a ramrod for a backbone. Never wrinkled--never rumpled, never 
mussed. Always courtly in appearance, with a pleat in his trousers as 
sharp as a knife.
  And he got the job done. During the years he presided as Chairman of 
the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health, Human Services and 
Education, the appropriations bill was on schedule and under budget. It 
took firm resolve and hard work to get that done. It took a ``Man of 
Steel.''
  But Bill Natcher was more than an ``Iron Man'' and it was that other 
side of the man that those of us who knew him personally, loved and 
respected the most.
  And I hope that side of Bill Natcher will end up in the history books 
along with the voting and attendance records that he left behind. 
Because it was that other side of Bill Natcher that made the biggest 
mark on me--his warmth and generosity of spirit.
  The stories you could tell to illustrate this side of Bill Natcher 
are endless.
  Eighteen years ago, my chief of staff, Dave York, worked for my 
predecessor, Gene Snyder. He would occasionally bring his 6-year-old 
daughter, Rebecca, into the office with him on Saturdays.
  Rebecca would disappear. And Dave would go looking for her. 
Invariably, he would find his daughter across the hall in Bill 
Natcher's office sitting on the chairman's knee as he read to her from 
one of the letters he wrote his own grandchildren every week.
  That is the side of Bill Natcher I am talking about.
  Some years ago, on a fall morning you would find Bill Natcher, 
walking out onto the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, stooping down every now 
and then to pick up buckeyes which had fallen from one of the trees. He 
would call it his ``harvest.''
  Then this man, who was the chairman of one of the most powerful 
subcommittees in the world, and who was destined to be the Chairman of 
the full Appropriations Committee, would take those buckeyes and polish 
them a bit, wrap them in tissue and put them in a gift box he had saved 
from birthdays and Christmases to pass out to visiting constituents.
  It is stories like this that illustrate the side of Bill Natcher that 
I will cherish in my memories. The compassion. The gentle spirit and 
the genuine thoughtfulness that made him truly great in my book.
  I also believe that it was this side of Bill Natcher that actually 
gave him the strength of purpose and commitment that helped make him 
the ``Iron Man of Capitol Hill.'' The iron man was driven by a soft and 
gentle heart full of compassion.
  Chairman Bill Natcher's philosophy was simple. He wasn't shy about 
sharing his beliefs. I guess I heard his spiel a thousand times in the 
7\1/2\ years I was in Washington with him. He repeated it virtually 
every time he spoke before a group of Kentuckians visiting Washington. 
It wasn't a complex philosophy.
  He simply said, ``If you educate your children, and if you provide 
for the health of your people, you will continue to live in the 
strongest Nation in the world.''
  He believed that. And he helped make it happen.
  That was Bill Natcher. A man of iron will and steel commitment driven 
by a heart full of gentleness, compassion and caring. That is what made 
him great.
  Mr. BEVILL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to my long-time 
good friend and colleague, Chairman Bill Natcher of Kentucky, who 
passed away in March.
  Much has been said about Bill Natcher's outstanding career as a 
congressman and much has been said about his matchless voting record. 
Certainly, he was one of the most respected and dedicated Members of 
the Congress to ever serve our Nation. And, it's likely that his long, 
unbroken voting record will never be beaten.
  But, most importantly, Bill Natcher was a wonderful person who cared 
deeply about his family, the people of his district, his State and 
Nation. He devoted himself to them and served them with great dignity 
and integrity.
  Bill Natcher was highly principled, always a gentleman and set very 
high standards throughout his 40 years in Congress. He will always be 
an excellent role model in every respect, not only for current Members, 
but also for future Members and anyone else who serves in public 
office.
  On many occasions, I saw Bill stand up for what he believed in. He 
did it with determination and firmness, but also, with good manners. In 
his role as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, he served 
with great tact, diplomacy and leadership.
  I was impressed with the time, energy and devotion he gave to 
corresponding with his grandchildren each week.
  I predict that his record of events spanning his 40-year 
congressional career will make excellent reading.
  I enjoyed my friendship with Bill Natcher over the years, especially 
the time we spent together on the House Appropriations Committee. I 
will always remember him with fondness and respect.
  Bill Natcher will be missed, but his service to his district, his 
State and our Nation will never be forgotten.
  He was one of the finest public servants who ever lived.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, oh, how I wish that the American public 
had the same image of the Congress of the United States that the 
Members of Congress have of Mr. Natcher. What an honor it was to have 
served in the Congress of the United States for 19\1/2\ years with the 
perfect gentleman from Kentucky. I always knew I had an ally when I 
went before the Appropriations Committee fighting for child nutrition 
and education moneys. I always knew that what Mr. Natcher said, Mr. 
Natcher did.
  Beyond his dedicated service as a Member of the U.S. House of 
Representatives, was the magnificent human being from Kentucky. I can 
remember when dad left Congress, he said he won't miss the job but he 
will certainly miss his friends. I certainly miss and will miss 
Congressman Bill Natcher; as I know will be true of his family, who he 
loved so much and talked about so often.
  Well done my good and faithful servant.
  Mr. GALLO. Mr. Speaker, we have gathered today to honor the memory of 
an individual who touched us all in very personal ways--our friend and 
colleague Bill Natcher, the gentleman from Kentucky.
  It is a measure of our times that Bill Natcher became well known 
across the country for his amazing voting record in this body, with 
more than 18,000 consecutive votes cast--a record that will most 
probably never be equalled.
  Inside the beltway, of course, he was best known for the important 
role which he played on the House Appropriations Committee, ending his 
career as chairman of that committee.
  But to many of us, he was known simply as a gentleman and as a 
friend.
  In fact, Bill Natcher's many kind words and his dedication to service 
defined for many of us the word gentleman during his many years in the 
U.S. House of Representatives.
  As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, I had the honor to 
work closely with him and to have many fond memories of his wit and 
wisdom and of his many good works as chairman.
  He had a smile and a kind word for everyone he met in the Halls of 
Congress.
  He treated Presidents and pages with the same gentle consideration, 
courtesy, and respect.
  And, anyone who knew him knew that his kindness was genuine and that 
it was a part of his nature. He was not a gentleman by profession, but 
by nature.
  No one could share an elevator with Bill Natcher and not come away 
feeling better than before.
  He always had a kind word for everyone he met. He was a good friend 
to a great many people. He will be greatly missed.
  Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues today to remember Bill 
Natcher, a dedicated and powerful member of Congress who never lost 
touch with his own humanity or with the feelings of the people around 
him. I am proud to join with you in honoring this gentle man from 
Kentucky.
  Mr. HYDE. Congressman Bill Natcher was ramrod straight, both in 
physical appearance and the conduct of his office. He was an example of 
what a Congressman should be. His natural reserve and formality added 
to his aura of stature and rectitude.
  He did more for the poor and despised of our country through his 
always effective leadership as chairman of the Subcommittee on Health 
and Human Services of the Appropriations Committee than anyone I can 
imagine. It was impossible to say ``no'' to Bill Natcher.
  He always defended the unborn, even when it was unpopular with many 
of his colleagues. There are literally millions of people alive today 
because Bill Natcher would not let them be aborted.
  To call a political figure great is by now a cliche. There are so few 
truly great people. But by any standard, Bill Natcher was great. I have 
been blessed to know and work with him.
  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives and the Nation 
have lost an outstanding legislator and a true gentleman with the 
passing of our colleague and friend, William ``Bill'' Natcher of 
Kentucky.
  It is certainly doubtful that his unbelievable attendance of over 40 
years will ever be equaled. But Bill Natcher leaves more than a record-
setting 18,401 consecutive rollcall votes behind him.
  Death took him as he served as chairman of the House Appropriations 
Committee--the committee to which he had given so many years of his 
life, always doing his utmost to fight any unnecessary spending of the 
hard-earned dollars of taxpayers.
  Before taking over leadership of that very important committee, Bill 
Natcher served his Kentucky constituents as well as his Nation by 
dedication to duty as chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and 
Human Services and Education Appropriations, which he took over in 
1979.
  For 40 years he served his country in the House of Representatives as 
few others in history have served. And before he brought his talent and 
kindness to this body, he also served his country for over 3 years in 
the U.S. Navy during World War II.
  As we witness the media take its daily swipes at Congress in efforts 
to increase circulation and lift ratings, we wonder why they never took 
the time to point out another side of Congress--that best represented 
by Bill Natcher. Bill Natcher was an honorable, dedicated public 
servant.
  In his four decades of duty here in the House of Representatives, 
Bill Natcher continuously displayed, as one observer noted, ``the kind 
of personal style and behavior that exemplified all the `old' virtues--
honesty, modesty, hard work, fairness, prudence, compassion, decency, 
institutional loyalty.''
  It was not only a pleasure to serve with this kind, warm individual--
it was a privilege to serve with William ``Bill'' Natcher, truly one of 
the outstanding figures in U.S. congressional history.
  Mr. APPLEGATE. Mr. Speaker, I wish to join with my many colleagues on 
both sides of the aisle in recognizing a truly outstanding and much 
loved Member of this House, someone who taught us many important 
lessons about who we are, and who reminded us that we should never 
forget where we come from, the late Honorable Bill Natcher of Kentucky.
  Throughout my term of service in the House of Representatives, I 
always enjoyed and greatly appreciated my working relationship with Mr. 
Natcher. For many of us, Bill Natcher was the last remaining link to a 
past in politics and statesmanship that will be forever lost. He showed 
us how campaigns could still be conducted with just a few bucks from 
your pocket and without any fast-talking strategists and political 
advisers. He taught us about frugality, not only when it came to 
working out a Federal budget, but just as equally when it came to 
operating a lean and efficient office. Bill Natcher was his own chief 
of staff and he spoke as his own press secretary.
  But no one should ever doubt the deep and abiding commitment and 
sincere respect and love that Representative Bill Natcher held for this 
institution. You only need to look at his consecutive voting record of 
more than 18,000 recorded votes since first coming to Congress over 40 
years ago to fully understand his dedication.
  I will miss Bill Natcher, as a good friend and a faithful colleague. 
I extend to his many friends and to his family, including his daughter, 
Celeste Jirles, who resides in Cambridge, OH, in my congressional 
district, my very deep regards and sympathy upon the passing of this 
true giant of the United States Congress.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation to the 
distinguished gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Mazzoli] for reserving this 
special order in honor of our friend and colleague, the late Bill 
Natcher.
  We gather to pay tribute to a dedicated individual whose 40-year 
tenure in the Congress earned him the respect and admiration of all who 
knew and served with him. I was proud to have known Chairman Natcher, 
and I join my colleagues this evening in celebrating his life and 
contributions to this legislative body and the Nation.
  With the passing of Chairman Natcher, the Second Congressional 
District of Kentucky and the Nation have lost a fearless leader and 
champion. Chairman Natcher served his constituency and the Nation to 
the very best of his ability. He was a committed public servant who 
gave selflessly of his time, energy, and talents.
  Mr. Speaker, in reflecting upon the legislative career of Chairman 
Bill Natcher, words such as hard-working, conscientious, and one-of-a-
kind are used to describe an individual who was easily one of the most 
respected and admired Members to ever serve in the U.S. Congress.
  When he was elected to this body in 1953, Bill Natcher brought to 
Washington a passion for public service. His commitment not only earned 
him a perfect attendance and voting record, but it won him the 
admiration of his colleagues and his constituency.
  Prior to his illness, Chairman Natcher never missed a day in Congress 
or a rollcall vote. He cast a historic 18,401 votes during his tenure 
in the House. We are proud to note that the historical records of the 
Congress will reflect the fact that this record is unsurpassed.
  Bill Natcher served with distinction as the chairman of the House 
Appropriations Committee. His leadership of this powerful panel was 
exemplary. Chairman Natcher was a champion for education, health, and 
the environment. He was not only a skilled legislator, but he was fair 
and conscientious in his decision-making.
  Mr. Speaker, I was privileged to serve on the Appropriations 
Committee under Chairman Natcher. When I recall Chairman Natcher, I 
remember his love for this institution, for his family, and for his 
country. I recall his legislative brilliance and strong leadership. I 
also fondly remember our close friendship and the personal interest he 
took in my career.
  Mr. Speaker, we are honored to have had the opportunity to serve in 
the Congress with Chairman Natcher. He will be remembered for his 
honesty, compassion, and loyalty. Above all, we will remember Chairman 
Natcher as a role model and statesman. His devotion to public service 
and distinguished record serve as an inspiration to each of us. 
Chairman Natcher has earned a very special place in history, and he 
will never be forgotten.
  Mr. ROWLAND. Mr. Speaker, people are already using the term 
``legendary'' in reference to William H. ``Bill'' Natcher, our beloved 
friend and colleague whose public career spanned more than half a 
century.
  No matter how bitter the debate, Congressman Natcher always used his 
position and influence in a fair and evenhanded and well-reasoned 
manner. He was, in fact, regarded by everyone as a gentleman in the 
truest sense of the word. Yet, he could be a very tough and determined 
opponent. He was certainly one of the most highly skilled legislators 
to ever serve in this body. Although he is among the greatest 
legislative achievers of our time, he was characteristically modest 
about these achievements, quick to give credit to others and usually 
avoiding the media attention he earned.
  As the publication ``Politics in America'' noted, Congressman Natcher 
was not a man to bend with the times, He was noted for not accepting 
campaign contributions and for campaigning the old-fashioned way, often 
driving unaccompanied through his district and meeting with 
constituents on an individual basis. As chairman and longtime member of 
the House Appropriations Committee, he was an implacable foe of any 
spending he perceived as ``pork barrel.'' In that respect, ``Politics 
in America'' pointed out that the times had begun to bend with 
Congressman Natcher during the past several years as pressure for 
greater fiscal responsibility in Washington increased.
  For these reasons, and more, few people who have served in this body 
have been held in greater esteem than the gentleman from Bowling Green, 
KY.
  Mr. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, Bill Natcher was one of a kind, and I feel 
very blessed to have served with him, to have learned from him, to have 
heard many of his wonderful stories, and to have counted him a good 
friend.
  Throughout my 14 years in Congress, Bill was, of course, so very 
senior, very eminent, very respected. But he always had time for a 
pleasant exchange, and kind word, a story, and, yes, when necessary, to 
focus on the business of importance to we rank and file who needed to 
talk with him about something in particular. He always tried to help, 
to be constructive, and he always carried out his business in the most 
deliberate, kind, and gentle manner.
  It was axiomatic when the leadership, for the consideration of the 
most contentious legislation, wanted the fairest of the fair, the most 
objective and evenhanded person presiding, Bill was in the chair. The 
whole House knew that and appreciated it. Once, when in the course of 
debate a lot of us were scrambling to be recognized, he recognized 
someone ahead of me, following which he motioned for me to come to the 
chair. He said, ``I should have recognized you. I think you were first 
on your feet, but I didn't see you out of the corner of my eye in time. 
You will be next.'' I hadn't thought anything of it, but that was Bill; 
that was just how he was.
  Often I had the privilege--when hosting constituents and would meet 
him in a corridor of the Capitol or elsewhere on the Hill--to introduce 
my folks to him and to note his great attributes to them. He always had 
time for a pleasant word with them.
  I had the privilege of being a page in the 83d Congress, when Bill 
arrived here. While I wasn't here for a lot of the intervening time, I 
was here for his first vote and his last. We always enjoyed visiting 
about the former times in Congress, how it was then versus how it is 
now, and talking about some of the characters of days gone by. These 
were special times for me, to have seen Bill's perspective and to share 
in his recollections, so well framed, so well stated.
  His district, Kentucky, and the country have lost an exemplary public 
servant who made his mark and whose service will be felt and recognized 
for generations to come. I shall miss greatly his presence here, the 
class of his very being, and the touch of his friendship.
  Mr. PICKETT. Mr. Speaker, as a product of pioneer settlement of the 
rugged Commonwealth of Kentucky, Bill Natcher grew up on principles and 
patriotism that made him one of modern history's greatest legislators.
  He learned at an early age the meaning of words like integrity, 
honesty, honor, and principles. He learned the power that strength of 
moral character brought to one's life. It was these life values that 
made him the solid, compassionate, knowledgeable, and intellectual 
legislator whom we would do well to emulate. And it was these same 
values that the residents of Kentucky's Second District also embraced 
by returning Bill Natcher to Congress over and over from 1953 until his 
death.
  Bill Natcher lived the traits of a textbook legislator: His devotion 
to detail. The seriousness with which he took his responsibility to 
vote. His fairness and civility to fellow legislators, regardless of 
party affiliation. His belief and support of his constituency. His 
protection of his public trust. His frugality in handling his country's 
money resources. His love of the institution of the House of 
Representatives, and his commitment to never tarnishing its image or 
reputation.
  He was a thoroughly modern example of the courtly southern gentleman 
of years past who was an inspiration in public service to all who would 
listen. He established a voting record as an effective public servant 
that may never again be equaled, but one for which we would all do well 
to strive for as we go about the public's business in today's world.
  His wise counsel will be missed, but his record and his principles 
will continue to shine for all to see.
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we refer to each other as 
``gentleman'' or gentlewoman,'' but, when we refered to the late 
Representative of the Second District of Kentucky, we really did mean 
it.
  It has been a privilege for me to serve with the gentleman from 
Kentucky for a little over a year and to serve under his leadership as 
a member of the Committee on Appropriations. No Member of this House 
was more fair or courteous, or, I may say, tolerant of the foibles of a 
new Member.
  This Congress has seen the Committee on Appropriations have to make 
tough decisions on priorities. Some of these decisions have not always 
been to my liking, but I have always had the opportunity to express my 
views. Sometimes I have prevailed, but courtesy and fairness was always 
the Chairman's watchword. Who can ask for more than that.
  Chairman Natcher was a product of the progressive wing of the 
Kentucky Democratic Party with its foundations in the Wilson era and 
the New Deal and the Fair Deal. He was allied with the faction led by 
former Senator Earl Clements. He has been a hard fighter for the 
working men and women, and the children, of Kentucky and America.
  Although his compassion for the less powerful in his Commonwealth and 
our Nation is well known, he has not hesitated to insist that programs 
produce. Woe be it to an agency that he caught not delivering an 
efficient and effective service, and catch them he did.
  His dedication to the service of the people of the Second District is 
exemplified by his never having missed a vote since coming to this 
House in a special election in 1953. His dedication is more than 
demonstrated by his efforts to improve the lives of his bosses, the 
people, in his district. I am told that he and the late Kentucky 
Congressman, Carl D. Perkins, had a friendly rivalry on who had the 
most flood control projects in their respective districts. This rivalry 
developed from a dedication to prevent human destruction caused by 
Mother Nature.
  Chairman Natcher's mark is not these concrete manifestations of his 
legislative prowess, but it is the millions of young men and women who 
have received a decent education, it is the millions who lead healthy 
lives as a result of medical research he nurtured at the National 
Institutes of Health, it is the children of America who have benefited 
from immunization programs and Head Start, and it is the millions of 
working men and women who have safer work places because of his efforts 
to insure that the Department of Labor did its job.
  He left this earth a little better place for future generations.
  My condolences go to his daughters, Celeste and Louise, and 
grandchildren and to his loyal and skilled staff who served him and 
America well.
  Mr. de LUGO, Mr. Speaker, since his sad passing just a few weeks ago, 
people from all walks of life have extolled the remarkable qualities 
and exceptional achievements of William Natcher. By every measure, Bill 
Natcher was an extraordinary man, a superlative Member, an outstanding 
chairman, a gracious gentleman, and, to me and many, many others, a 
real friend.
  There is little that I can add to what has already been said about 
Bill Natcher, other than to recount a few of my personal experiences 
that I believe well illustrate the deep principals and heartfelt 
generosity that Bill Natcher always showed to me and people of the 
Virgin Islands.
  Thirty years ago, my district experienced the impact of large scale 
immigration, made far more challenging by the islands' small size and 
insular nature.
  After a federal court decision required the Virgin Islands school 
system to teach the children of all residents. I felt the Federal 
Government had an obligation to help insure that all young people had 
the opportunity to receive the best possible public education. Doing so 
would be an important investment in them and in the future of our 
community.
  I developed and had authorized a special assistance to education 
program, but without appropriations the program was on the books but 
would never reach the classrooms.
  That's when Bill Natcher, as Appropriations Subcommittee chairman, 
stepped in. In a purely pragmatic sense, he had no reason to support a 
program for school children as far away from Kentucky as the Virgin 
Islands. Bill Natcher would gain no political advantage by supporting 
my request to fund a program when many other districts with powerful 
members were competing for money.
  But Chairman Natcher did help. He recognized the needs of Virgin 
Islands young people were no less important then those of every other 
school child in this Nation. He knew that nothing in their young lives 
would be more important than a solid education. So, he saw to it that 
my program was funded.
  Last year, the last time as it turned out that I would be privileged 
to testify before him, I was joined by my Governor, Alexander A. 
Farrelly. Always the epitome of graciousness, Chairman Natcher left the 
dias to personally greet the Governor. The Chairman remembered the 
Governor by name and he took him aside to chat until the duties of the 
committee called him back.
  Those sorts of courtesy, personal interest and genuine kindness are 
rare indeed, but they were typical of Bill Natcher. He knew what was 
right and he did it, from insuring the education of children we would 
never meet to greeting a man he had no reason to recall other than his 
personal interest and courtesy.
  These were the qualities of a truly extraordinary man, and why Bill 
Natcher was so respected and admired.
  Chairman Natcher now is gone, but his legacy and his example will 
always remain within this Chamber, will dwell here so long as we 
remember this remarkable man and the principles he lived by.
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, history will record the great energy and 
dedication our colleague, Bill Natcher, devoted to this institution and 
to the people it serves.
  It will record an incredible 18,401 uninterrupted rollcall votes 
amassed over 43 years in which he never missed a single day of work. 
Not a single day.
  It will record that he came here as the representative of a rural, 
small-town district and rose to great positions, of leadership in the 
Appropriations Committee and on this floor, all on the same humble 
values of hard work, fair play and attention to duty.
  History will record, and will no doubt be indebted to, his faithful 
chronicle of life and work as a member of this body during one of the 
most fascinating and momentous periods in our nation.
  And it will record that Bill Natcher did all of these things will 
little fanfare, neither seeking nor accepting any special attention in 
Washington or at home.
  But, Mr. Speaker, history will also record what is in such evidence 
here today, and that is the great love and true affection Members of 
this body have for Bill Natcher. He was a man of exceptional courtesy 
and sincerity, a teacher of wise and generous counsel, a gentleman 
whose word was always his bond.
  Mr. Speaker, I count the leadership and friendship I received from 
Bill Natcher among the genuine, blessing of service in this 
institution. It was an honor to serve with him and under him on the 
Appropriations Committee, and a privilege to call him both colleague 
and friend.
  Mr. Speaker, in the history of this body and of this country there 
will, I believe, be no further public servant, no man of greater 
industry and integrity, no better loved and respected leader than Bill 
Natcher. He was a man without parallel and we miss him. And we always 
will.
  [Mr. MAZZOLI addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter 
in the Extensions of Remarks.]

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