[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 149 (Thursday, December 1, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: December 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             HARRIS WOFFORD

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is an honor to join in the tributes to 
our outstanding colleague from Pennsylvania, Harris Wofford. His Senate 
years, like his entire career, have been extraordinary.
  I suspect it all began as a young man, when Harris went to India to 
study the career of Mohandas Gandhi. In Many ways, Harris exemplified 
that ideal--the ideal of the Philosopher-activist. There could have 
been no more appropriate joining of student and subject, because Harris 
Wofford--in the Senate for the past 3\1/2\ years and throughout a 
lifetime of public service--has been an American version of that ideal.
  All of us who know Harris recognize his outstanding qualities, 
especially his unflinching commitment to doing what is right. He knows 
the details of policy issues as well as the broader social and 
historical context from which they emerge. He is able to reach across 
partisan and ideological lines to bring about far-reaching agreements 
that are compromises on details and tactics, but that are never 
compromises of basic principles. He is a Senator I have been proud to 
work with in the labor and Human Resources Committee and on the floor 
of the Senate on so many issues to improve the quality of life for 
hard-working men and women across this country.
  Harris served in the Army Air Corps during the Second World War.
  He went from the Army to the University of Chicago, to India, to a 
kibbutz in Israel, and to Howard University Law School. After he 
graduated from law school, he enlisted in one of the great moral 
struggles of our time here in the United States, the fight for civil 
rights for American of all races. Harris was an adviser to Martin 
Luther King from the time of the Montgomery bus boycott onward. He 
helped draft the first Civil Rights Act in 1966 and was counsel to the 
U.S Commission on Civil Rights under Rev. Theodore Hesburgh.
  Harris' work in civil rights had a special significance for the 
Kennedy family. He was a key aide to Senator John Kennedy in his 1960 
campaign, and he was a special assistant to President Kennedy with 
responsibility for chairing the sub-cabinet group on civil rights. He 
also worked with Sargent Shriver on the creation of the Peace Corps, 
and was its associate director.
  After leaving the Peace Corps in 1966, Harris served as the president 
of two colleges, as well as practicing law. He entered public service 
again in 1987 as secretary of labor and industry for the State of 
Pennsylvania.
  Harris was appointed to the Senate in 1991. He won re-election in his 
own right later that year in a dramatic victory over Dick Thornburgh. 
Harris' election sent a shock wave through Washington, because it 
showed that universal health care was an issue that mattered deeply to 
the people of Pennsylvania and to the people of this country. Harris 
crystallized the issue in two simple sentences: ``Under the 
Constitution, those accused of a crime have the right to a lawyer. It 
should be just as fundamental that when a person is sick they should 
have the right to see a doctor.''
  Just as securing the right to equal justice under the law for 
African-Americans was a basic test for the Nation in the 1960's, 
securing the fundamental right to health care for all Americans is a 
basic measure of our national character in the 1990's. Harris Wofford 
had the vision to understand both of the imperatives, and the 
commitment and courage and skill to help others to understand the need 
for action.
  I have worked most closely with Harris on the causes that engaged us 
on the Labor Committee over these past 3 years--the struggle for 
universal health care, for community service, for an effective school-
to-work educational program to improve job opportunities for the young, 
and for many other important issues. Harris' contributions to our work 
cannot be over estimated.
  Community service was a cause Harris brought with him from his days 
at the Peace Corps, and even more from his life experience and his 
vision of citizenship. He was a strong and effective voice for passage 
on that landmark legislation in 1993. On the school-to-work 
legislation, the programs he created in Pennsylvania provided an 
important model for our committee's efforts, and he helped immeasurably 
in shaping the legislation and moving it to final passage.
  On health reform and universal health care--the cause with which his 
Senate career has been most identified--he worked to bridge bipartisan 
differences by cutting bureaucracy and streamlining the program. He was 
the principal author of the provisions in the bill protecting privacy 
and creating administrative simplification. He authored important 
provisions protecting retirees, and he worked to include a program 
giving senior citizens and others a chance to participate in a 
voluntary program providing insurance against high nursing home costs 
at a reasonable price.
  But more than any specific provision, it was Harris' constant and 
unremitting effort to push the committee and the Senate toward reform 
that was his unique contribution. And until the very end of the debate 
in the full Senate, he worked with his usual optimism, extraordinary 
spirit, and deep commitment to find some way of enacting at least a 
down payment on reform this year. We did not reach the goal line this 
year, but surely no one moved the ball farther toward that goal than 
Harris Wofford.
  When the framers of the Constitution conceived the idea of a U.S. 
Senate, they had in mind the notion of an assembly of wise statesmen, 
philosophers who would take the long view of the Nation's needs and an 
expansive vision of its interests. Harris Wofford has been the kind of 
Senator the founding fathers would have liked the most. I am proud to 
have had the opportunity to serve with him, and I am confident that the 
Nation will have future opportunities to call on his unique talent for 
public service.

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