[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 144 (Thursday, October 6, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 6, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 TRIBUTE TO SENATOR GEORGE J. MITCHELL

  (Mr. FOLEY asked and was given permission to speak out of order for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, this is an unusual event. It is unusual for 
several reasons. First of all, it has not been, in the past, ever 
permissible for Members of the House to speak of other Members of the 
Congress, of the other body, and certainly not in any way that might 
imply any question of their motives or character.
  We are here, of course, to praise one of the great Senators of this 
century, and to praise him by name and to embrace him with bipartisan 
enthusiasm, conviction, respect, admiration, and gratitude.
  This Congress will see two giants of our institution leave after many 
years of service. Bob Michel, who has just left the floor, the 
distinguished Republican leader, leaves with the admiration and respect 
of every Member of this Chamber, Republican and Democrat; and George 
Mitchell, after 5 brilliant years as majority leader of the U.S. 
Senate, is voluntarily retiring as a Senator from Maine.
  These have not been easy times for leaders. I think we, all of us who 
have had some responsibility, recognize that. One of my favorite 
stories about a previous Speaker, probably apocryphal, but I like it, 
is about Thomas Brackett Reed, who came from the same State that George 
Mitchell now represents so well.
  Speaker Reed was a powerful Speaker, a Speaker who had enormous sway 
over this body. One of his constituents from Maine, he then represented 
the whole State of Maine in one single congressional district, wrote to 
him and asked him for a copy of the rules and regulations of the House 
of Representatives, to which Mr. Speaker Reed grandly replied by 
sending his constituent an autographed photograph of himself.
  The days have long passed when a Speaker or majority leader can 
symbolize personal control and regulation and direction of any 
legislative body. And, of course, it is right that that should not be 
so. But I would hazard a little bit on the border of the rules of the 
House to say that the other body makes it particularly difficult for a 
leader.
  There is a phrase that I have heard on that side of the Capitol that 
``99 is not enough'', which means that a leader must almost obtain 
unanimous consent day after day, time after time, to bring issues 
forward and to resolve them, and George Mitchell has used his 
extraordinary skills of conciliation and compromise, and his great 
qualities of courage and patience and knowledge, time after time, year 
after year, day after day, to bring the other body to some of its 
greatest legislative achievements.
  He is a man who has never forgotten to whom he is responsible, the 
people of the State of Maine, but he has also recognized the broader 
responsibility to the country and to the world that his high office has 
required and made possible. He has always remembered the circumstance 
of his own upbringing and the fight every day for decency and 
opportunity and comfort, for which his family struggled as immigrants 
to the United States.
  He has not forgotten that every day in this Chamber and in the Senate 
we have the responsibility of remembering what those who have sent us 
here expect of us, our conscientious concern for their welfare, their 
dignity, their future, and their values, and a day-by-day effort to 
achieve, perhaps in a way that they will never even know about, much 
less remember, a benefit to their future and the future of their 
children and their grandchildren.
  George Mitchell has held that responsibility high. He has represented 
the State of Maine, he has represented the United States and the other 
body, the Senate of the United States, with such great dignity and 
effectiveness, that he serves as a model, not only for every majority 
leader that will follow him, but for leaders in both parties and in 
both bodies.
  He is deliberate, tenacious, logical, precise, judicious, brilliant 
in his knowledge of the law and of the subjects of which he has made 
himself a particular master, dedicated to the institution in which he 
has served, and formidable. Everyone who has come in contact with 
George Mitchell knows that he can be a strong, a vigorous, a 
determined, and a committed party leader. And he has sometimes even 
been criticized for the zeal and the determination and the 
effectiveness of his leadership.
  But he also knows that legislation is the art of compromise and 
conciliation, and that at the end, we must bring together these two 
great bodies in the final legislative resolution. And time after time, 
on environment, on crime, on clean air, on issues that relate to reform 
of the Congress, on health care, on government, on public service and 
war and peace, his voice has been a voice not only of conviction, but 
of resolution, compromise, and conciliation.
  From his early apprenticeship with Senator Muskie mentioned by Bob 
Michel, through his leadership of the Democratic Party in Maine, his 
service as assistant county attorney, nominee for governor, U.S. 
attorney, and U.S. district judge, he has been a man of extraordinary 
ability and accomplishment. He is a born leader. It has been a great 
pleasure to work with him.
  He has many, many values and characteristics that all of us want to 
recall as we recall our service with him. He has always been a person 
of extraordinary personal integrity, not only in the normal and 
understandable sense of that word, but in terms of his intellectual 
honesty. His honesty, his word, his ability to see the issues clearly 
and without blinking at the difficulties and the challenges. He has 
been as patient and as hard working and as controlled in his 
determination to achieve the ultimate goal as any leader, as any 
Member, I have ever served with.
  We know that he will have great success in his future endeavors. All 
of those qualities and characteristics, all of that strong character, 
that New England character that he has brought with such great 
achievement to the leadership of the U.S. Senate, will avail him in 
private life to continue to leave his mark, to continue to help those 
with whom he comes in contact, in and out of public service, for the 
future of our country, in everything that he undertakes to do.
  I am proud to have known him. I salute him and wish him well in the 
future. All of us in this Chamber, I know, would want me to express for 
them our best wishes for every success in the future.

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