[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 4, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S427]]
                      TRIBUTE TO SENATOR DANFORTH

 Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, in this body there are many, many 
Senators who will fight to the end for legislation they believe in, as 
a matter of principle, and this is admirable. There are other Senators 
who, confronted with a disagreement on fundamental issues will attempt 
to find a principled middle ground, and who will negotiate until they 
drop to find a way to bring the Senate together. This is also 
admirable. For the last 18 years, there has been one Senator who did 
both, who fought for the people and issues he believed in but who was 
able to broker agreements on thorny issues between Senators who would 
not normally agree. He was able to do this, in part because his 
training in the law and the ministry gave him a double set of 
negotiating tools, and in part, because his genuine good nature and 
penetrating grasp of basic issues made him easy to deal with. But the 
real reason, I think, that Jack Danforth was able to shepherd 
legislation like the 1991 Civil Rights Bill into law was because no 
Senator has ever doubted his integrity or wondered where he was coming 
from. He could say, like Martin Luther, ``Here I stand. I can do no 
other.'' The Senate will be, philosophically and ethically, the poorer 
for his leaving.

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