[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 11, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S812-S816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          1994 MEN OF THE YEAR

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, recently I received a newspaper insert from 
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch concerning the selection of 2 of our former 
colleagues as the 1994 St. Louis Men of the Year.
  Former Senators Tom Eagleton and John Danforth were selected to 
receive this prestigious designation by 19 of their fellow citizens, 
each of whom had been chosen in the past for this same award. They are 
the 41st and 42d individuals to be so honored by the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch since the award was first established in 1955.
  I congratulate the Post-Dispatch on its excellent selections of this 
dynamic duo. Both of these men were shining lights when they served 
here among us in the Senate, and they have both obviously continued to 
shine and inspire in private life.
  Jack Danforth was a voice of reason and moderation in the Senate. He 
was a credit to his party precisely because he was never a slave to the 
party line. Senator Danforth's calm reasoned approach to the issues of 
the day, no matter how politically charged gave him enormous 
credibility of the type that is so needed in the Senate today. His 
presence is sorely missed in the Chamber.
  Senator Tom Eagleton is a personal friend, and has been for many 
years, in addition to being an individual for whom I have tremendous 
respect and admiration. Over the years, Tom Eagleton has stayed in 
touch with my office, and he is never too busy to weigh in when the 
battle needs his energy and his force of character. Senator Eagleton 
brought to this chamber an irrepressible personal and intellectual 
honesty which was apparent in his floor statements and in the positions 
that he took on the issues of the day. If one wanted to hear the 
unvarnished truth, no matter how unpopular it might be to utter, one 
could always look to Tom Eagleton to come to the point, and to state 
with eloquence and with logic the bottom line. Common sense has been 
called genius dressed in its working clothes. Tom Eagleton has an 
abundance of that often too-scarce commodity.
  I congratulate both Senator Eagleton and Senator Danforth. They have 
brought great credit to the Senate by their service in the body and now 
as private citizens. St. Louis is much the richer for the Senate's loss 
in the case of these two fine former Members.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an insert from the St. 
Louis Post-Dispatch be printed in the Record at this point.

[[Page S813]]

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

  The 1994 St. Louis Men of the Year: Thomas F. Eagleton and John C. 
                                Danforth

                          (By Mary Kimbrough)

       For the second time in its history, the St. Louis Man of 
     the Year Award is given to two men, Thomas Francis Eagleton 
     and John Claggett Danforth, who have represented Missouri in 
     the United States Senate, one who left the Senate in 1986; 
     and one who will officially retire on January 3.
       The footsteps of the two honorees, one a Democrat, one a 
     Republican, have trod parallel paths. Both are graduates of 
     Country Day School. Both are graduates of eastern 
     universities, Eagleton of Amherst, Danforth of Princeton, and 
     of Ivy League law schools, Eagleton of Harvard University, 
     Danforth of Yale University.
       Both became practicing attorneys. Both served as attorney 
     general of Missouri.
       Both carry distinguished St. Louis family names, were 
     intrigued in boyhood by politics and joined lively 
     discussions of national and world issues around the dinner 
     table.
       Although they did not know one another well in St. Louis--
     Eagleton was ahead of Danforth's class at Country Day--they 
     became good friends in Washington. Both of them would cross 
     party lines in their voting records.
       ``We decided that working together for Missouri was the 
     right thing to do,'' said Eagleton. That was their common 
     concern.
       When Eagleton retired, Danforth paid tribute. ``When most 
     candidates are going negative,'' he said in his remarks from 
     the Senate floor, ``when many candidates are taking cheap 
     shots, Tom Eagleton is and will remain the standard for what 
     politics should be--for decency and fairness and principle.''
       They will be honored at ceremonies at 10:30 a.m., Friday, 
     Jan. 6, in the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington 
     University. A reception will follow.
       Eagleton and Danforth were selected by former recipients of 
     the award, established 40 years ago by the St. Louis Globe-
     Democrat to recognize outstanding civic contributions, 
     leadership and service to the community. When that newspaper 
     ceased publication, previous honorees joined to maintain the 
     annual award and carry on the tradition. For the past eight 
     years, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has served as sponsor of 
     the annual award.
                           thomas f. eagleton

       Tom Eagleton bounces through life like a sacked Joe Montana 
     jumping off the turf and brushing off the bruises. A devout 
     Cardinal fan--the baseball variety--he charges through his 
     day like Pepper Martin barreling into a hapless catcher. And 
     he's on the telephone more often than Joe Torre calling the 
     bullpen.
       At 65, Eagleton is many persons. Retired U.S. senator, 
     political scientist, college professor, TV commentator, 
     newspaper columnist. He is the sandlot kid grown to senior 
     status, the urbane civic statesman in shirt sleeves, 
     sometimes disheveled, his gray hair a bit mussed, turning up 
     the volume of his voice as he leads the charge.
       For the born-and-bred sports buff with a lifelong love 
     affair with politics, a perfect world is an exuberant, 
     scrappy, warm-hearted world of good talk and good friends, of 
     family and a St. Louis Rams-Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl in 
     the new stadium, of rousing arguments and politics and the 
     law and the Democratic party.
       But he also knows the imperfect world that can be down and 
     dirty, a world of war and want, of crime and poverty and 
     people killing each other on the streets and on the 
     battlefield. From the windows of his law office on the top 
     floor of a sleek downtown office building, he can look 
     through the Arch, symbol of progress, to see poverty and 
     pain.
       Thomas Francis Eagleton deals with both worlds with humor 
     and energy and grace. And sometimes with righteous outrage.
       After his retirement from the Senate, he was invited to a 
     partnership in the legal firm of Thompson & Mitchell, with a 
     charge to continue to serve this community. In his eighth 
     year off the political fast track he may have tempered a 
     little--but just a little--the jittery lifestyle described by 
     a Post-Dispatch reporter at the time he left Washington.
       ``He still bounds around corners talking 90 miles a minute, 
     whips into a room with 40 things on his mind * * * and 
     generally vibrates like an oversized sparkplug.''
       His lifestyle is much calmer now that he has returned to 
     his legal career. He and his wife, the former Barbara Smith, 
     parents of a grown daughter, Christy, and son, Terence, make 
     their home in Clayton.
       Barbara, whom he married in 1956, learned to share his 
     political activism during his career. When they moved back to 
     Missouri, she organized the Women's Democratic Forum, now 
     with some 350 members, who meet regularly to hear 
     distinguished speakers on current issues.
       Neither Christy nor Terence has shown any inclination to 
     enter politics. Christy is in Washington, engaged to be 
     married and working with International Sprint. Terence is a 
     television producer in New York.
       ``Politics is not for everyone,'' said their father. ``It's 
     a unique profession and for whatever reason, you have to 
     immerse yourself in it. When I was in the Senate, I went back 
     to Missouri nearly every week. That's one of the down sides. 
     I didn't have time to take my children to baseball games or 
     school functions. I didn't have enough leisure time with my 
     children.
       ``The best politics is back home.''
       Now that he is relieved of that pressure, he has found the 
     time to write, to teach, to lecture and, as an ardent sports 
     fan, to follow his cherished Cardinals.
       ``I like the day games,'' he said, with the fervor of a 
     unabashed fan. ``That's old-fashioned baseball. I'm there 
     nearly every Sunday afternoon. I will be thrilled when the 
     Cardinals once again play on grass.''
       But this year, he has been concentrating on another sport, 
     working with the determination of a bulldozer to bring the 
     National Football League back to St. Louis.
       At the request of Congressman Richard Gephardt, Mayor 
     Freeman Bosley and County Executive Buzz Westfall, he has 
     headed FANS Inc., a civic committee devoted to persuading the 
     Los Angeles Rams to move here.
       ``Politics was all consuming,'' he said. Now football is 
     all consuming.''
       But Eagleton hasn't lost his passion for politics and 
     history, and his love for America and St. Louis. This passion 
     and this love are his heritage. To continue this heritage, 
     the Federal Courthouse now under construction in downtown St. 
     Louis has been named the ``Thomas F. Eagleton Federal 
     Courthouse.''
       He was born into an Irish Catholic home on Tower Grove 
     Place in South St. Louis, where politics was polished to a 
     fine art, and named for his immigrant grandfather. He and his 
     older brother, Mark Jr., were the sons of Mark D. Eagleton, 
     prominent figure in city politics and one-time candidate for 
     mayor, and Zitta Eagleton, Mark's gentle and soft-spoken 
     wife, who was determined that one boy would be a doctor, the 
     other a lawyer.
       That's just what they would do. Mark Jr., went to medical 
     school and became a prominent St. Louis radiologist. He died 
     in 1985. Tom also had a half-brother, Kevin, a St. Louis 
     lawyer-businessman.
       Tom would follow in the career footsteps of his father, a 
     strong-willed, strong-voiced attorney, whose closing 
     courtroom arguments are said to have been heard through open 
     windows up and down Market Street.
       A Bull Moose Republican, with the progressive stripe of 
     Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Eagleton left his party in 1944 when 
     his hero, Wendell Willkie, was denied re-nomination for a 
     second run at the White House. He became a Democrat, and 
     publicly announced his support of Franklin D. Roosevelt for a 
     fourth term.
       Four years earlier, the senior Eagleton had taken his son 
     to the party convention in Philadelphia where the exuberant 
     11-year-old met Willkie, Robert Taft, Thomas E. Dewey and 
     other party leaders.
       ``I decided I was for Dewey because he was handing out more 
     buttons and horns and hats.''
       Many years later, his eyesight failing, Mark Eagleton would 
     sit in the Senate Gallery to hear his younger son take the 
     oath of office. He would remember and be glad that he had 
     given this rookie senator a good start in their robust after-
     dinner conversations.
       Sometimes Zitta finished her meal alone. Tom and Mark Jr. 
     would eat as fast as they could to keep up with their dad who 
     would then escort them into the living room to start the 
     evening discussion.
       ``Our three favorite subjects were history, baseball and 
     politics,'' Tom recalled. ``Of course, politics had a lot of 
     side issues. Frequently, we argued so much that without 
     knowing it we switched sides to keep the argument going. That 
     is where I first became interested in politics.''
       All three loved the Cardinals and each year when the boys 
     were quite young, the whole family went to spring training.
       ``Mother was dragooned,'' said Eagleton. ``She didn't abhor 
     baseball but she sure didn't love it the way we did.''
       The boys were enrolled in a half-day school in a quonset 
     hut. Zitta would pick them up at noon and take them to Al 
     Lang Field, the ballpark.
       ``We would stay in the Bainbridge Hotel where all the 
     players stayed and eat in the dining room with them. I 
     remember especially Pepper Martin, Terry Moore and Howard 
     Krist, a relief pitcher. Krist was very kind to us.
       ``Dad was a member of the St. Louis Board of Education and 
     he used to take me with him to meetings at 911 Locust. That 
     was between 1937 and 1943. I would sit out in the audience.
       ``Those were very exciting times. There were great 
     arguments and debates and I said to myself, `Wouldn't it be 
     interesting doing something like that?'
       ``I had begun to focus on the Senate when I was in high 
     school at Country Day. But there, and in college, I was the 
     tactician, the pseudo Jim Farley. I didn't run for anything. 
     I was interested in the strategy.''
       After graduating from Country Day, Tom went to Amherst 
     where he received his bachelor of arts degree before going on 
     to Harvard University for his law degree.
       Then, after graduation and a stint in the Navy at Great 
     Lakes, he came back to St. Louis, carrying with him that 
     dream of public office.
       Over the next 12 years, he was elected, in turn, St. Louis 
     circuit attorney, Missouri attorney general and Missouri 
     lieutenant governor, chalking up aggressive and noteworthy 
     records in each office.
       No longer was he a young Jim Farley. Now he was learning to 
     plan his own career strategy, sometimes a bit homespun, 
     sometimes 
     [[Page S814]] more costly in shoe leather than in 
     sophisticated political advertising. He talked to the people 
     face to face. That was, and is, the Eagleton style. His sense 
     of humor was his trademark.
       So in 1968, at the age of 39, according to an informal 
     biography from his office, ``Tom Eagleton loaded his wife, 
     two children and the family dog into his station wagon and 
     headed for Washington.''
       He had reached his ultimate career goal. ``I had achieved 
     that. I didn't lust (to use President Carter's word) for 
     anything higher.''
       Despite that, in one of the low spots of his career, he 
     almost snagged the brass ring in 1972 when George McGovern, 
     the Democratic nominee, chose him as his running mate. Three 
     weeks into the campaign, he pulled out after revealing, with 
     true Eagleton candor, that he had been undergoing medical 
     treatment for depression.
       ``People thought it would get me down,'' he said. ``It did 
     not overwhelm me. I took it as a facet of life, a difficult 
     facet of life, but I never viewed it as irreparably 
     catastrophic.
       ``I never had any great ambition to be vice president nor 
     did I ever have any notion I would run for the presidency.''
       He would be re-elected to the Senate twice, and in June 
     1984, he announced he would not seek a fourth term.
       Now, after eight years as ``Tom Citizen,'' he looks back on 
     those days, surrounded in his office by shelves filled with 
     books on history and politics. In 1974, he added his own to 
     America's library of public servants' books, ``War and 
     Presidential Power; A Chronicle of Congressional Surrender.''
       On his wall are photographs, many of which picture his 
     special presidential heroes, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry 
     S Truman.
       Eagleton also brought back to St. Louis many happy memories 
     of special triumphs and bitter disappointments, but he 
     carries no nostalgic desire to return to the thick of 
     government and the partisan warfare in the Congress. In fact, 
     he has seen both parties ``atrophy.''
       ``The two-party system is almost deceased. Back then you 
     were proud to be a member of your party. You supported the 
     platform.
       ``The only current need of the two-party system is to 
     nominate someone for the presidency every four years, but the 
     strength of the two parties has just withered away.''
       Was there a single moment, a single vote by his colleagues, 
     that made him want to pull out of politics? No, he said, it 
     was more a build up of disillusionment. The joy in the job 
     had not dimmed, but the cost of campaigning had grown and the 
     campaigns had grown ugly and ``everlastingly long.''
       ``As I raised funds for my last race, in 1980, by 
     contemporary standards it was cheap. It was $1.2 million 
     compared to today's standards of $5 million and up.
       ``I found fund raising to be increasingly distasteful. Back 
     in those years you could raise practically all you needed in 
     Missouri. But as politics was developing during that era, the 
     fund raising became all the more intense. You had to go 
     nationwide with a tin cup begging for funds.''
       In the early days, it was easier and a lot more fun.
       As a member of the Committee on Environment and Public 
     Works, he led in the enactment of the Clean Air and Clean 
     Water acts. On the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, he 
     authored the ``Right to Read'' program. His Older Americans 
     Act is the basis of federal social services for the aging.
       But he is especially proud of one piece of legislation, the 
     so-called Eagleton amendment to the American involvement in 
     the war in Southeast Asia.
       ``We had withdrawn from Vietnam but we were still carpet 
     bombing in Cambodia. The Eagleton amendment stopped that. For 
     all practical purposes that ended American participation in 
     that dreadful war.''
       As Charlotte Grimes wrote in the Post-Dispatch at the time 
     of his retirement, ``It, along with the War Powers Act that 
     limited presidential authority to send troops into combat, 
     was a culmination of sorts: Eagleton had campaigned for the 
     Senate on a platform calling for an end to the war in 
     Vietnam.''
       Even though he is no longer a lawmaker, Eagleton keeps a 
     close eye on the Congress and, especially, on America's 
     continuing involvement in foreign affairs.
       An astute observer and prognosticator, he predicted before 
     the November elections that the Democrats ``would take a 
     pretty good licking.
       ``We will have gridlock government for two years. It will 
     be a war of words between the White House and the Congress.''
       As for engagements abroad, he continues to be, as he was in 
     the Senate, a centrist able to cross party lines.
       ``I was opposed to sending military forces to Haiti but so 
     far it has worked pretty well. But the problem is how do we 
     get out of there. We will have to leave some troops and a lot 
     of money. Haiti can no more be made into a democracy today 
     than I can fly to the moon.
       ``Democracy is a very sophisticated form of government. The 
     Haitians are not sophisticated people. They have an 80 
     percent illiteracy rate.
       ``I think the two philosophical extremes are both wrong. 
     One is that we are the world's policeman, that it is our job 
     to intervene in all sorts of places, send our army, send our 
     air force and bring peace and justice to anyone we think 
     ought to have it.
       ``Then there is the old, stale position of Robert Taft, 
     that our only business is between the Atlantic and the 
     Pacific, maybe Canada and Mexico, but nothing else is any of 
     our business.
       ``That is equally wrong. We have some global 
     responsibilities, for instance, the Middle East. I was never 
     embarrassed to say that when President Bush went to Kuwait, 
     the reason was oil because oil is indispensable to Europe and 
     Japan, and to us, so that is an area where we were obliged to 
     do something.
       ``There are finite limits to what we can do and what we can 
     undertake. There is no magic line to be drawn. You cannot put 
     in 50 words or less where we should go, how we should go. To 
     define American foreign policy in 50 words cannot be done. 
     You have to decide case by case if this is something in the 
     direct American interest.
       Then, turning the telescope around, he focused on problems 
     closer to home.
       ``I think we are in a very ugly, negative time,'' he said. 
     ``I have never seen the public so turned off not only by 
     politicians as such but by the political process. Federal, 
     state, county, municipal. They want no part of it.''
       However, he said, ``I think that 90 percent of the people 
     in the House and Senate are there, in their own minds, to do 
     the right thing.
       ``The work is stimulating, challenging, exciting. Dealing 
     with situations where you think maybe you are doing the right 
     thing: that outweighs the shortcomings.
       ``We are called a participatory democracy. That means that 
     for its strength and vibrancy people have to participate. 
     Write your congressman. That's a participatory democracy. But 
     instead of that, we are sort of a complaining, griping 
     democracy.
       ``In time, we will work ourselves out of this mood. I don't 
     know when; it won't be overnight. But unless the people have 
     some degree of confidence in the public decisionmaking 
     process, there will be great agony. There is simply not that 
     degree of confidence today.''
       A man of Tom Eagleton's optimistic nature can't stay grumpy 
     long. But he is also a realist.
       ``I really hate to say this, but in all candor I see things 
     getting worse before they get better. Maybe there has to be a 
     shared sense of sacrifice. If things are not going well, 
     we've got to get together and turn this thing around. There 
     was such a shared sense during the Great Depression. Everyone 
     had a shared sense of `We've got to get out of this.' We 
     don't have that now.
       ``But the economy is pretty darned good. It ought to be 
     good enough for someone to get re-elected president.''
       For St. Louis, he has the same mix of optimism and realism. 
     ``I am generally optimistic about the greater metropolitan 
     area. I wish I could be more optimistic about the inner city. 
     When Ray Tucker was mayor, we had 900,000 people. Now it's 
     down to 380,000. The tax base goes down and the needs for 
     public services continue or even increase.
       ``What would I do if I were selling the city of St. Louis?
       ``Transportation. Railroads. Airlines. MetroLink is a real 
     plus. Fine universities. Fortune 500 companies. Excellent and 
     aggressive banks. A skilled workforce.
       ``But the St. Louis school system isn't what it should be. 
     Housing in the city is not what it should be. Distribution of 
     health care is uneven. Well, you say, there are Clayton and 
     Ladue and other county communities. But if the urban center 
     atrophies, the area as a whole atrophies.
       ``Simply because you live in Clayton or Ladue, you cannot 
     be smugly complacent and say everything is fine. Everything 
     isn't fine. We are all in this together. If the city of St. 
     Louis goes down, it will, in time, take the rest of the area 
     with it.''
       But Eagleton, the sports buff, has done more than his share 
     to lure what he believes would be a real plus for St. Louis--
     NFL football.
       ``It is an indicia of a town's future. Right or wrong, St. 
     Louis, to be a city of the future, has to have the 
     identification of major sports teams.''
       With his undying enthusiasm and positive outlook, every 
     time he goes to a Cardinals baseball game, he's thinking home 
     run.
       Now, he's added another word to his wish list.
       Touchdown!


                            John C. Danforth
       It was a few days after the November elections. Voters had 
     swept the majority party out of power like fragile leaves 
     blown away by the autumn wind. With the Republicans' stunning 
     victory, Missouri's senior senator, Jack Danforth, could have 
     known even greater power and influence than he has acquired 
     in his 18 years on Capitol Hill.
       But this is not what he wanted. To serve in the Senate had 
     been his dream since boyhood. After three terms, however, he 
     decided against running another time and opted to leave the 
     promised land on the Potomac to discover ``life after 
     politics.''
       He will find that life in St. Louis. Jack Danforth is 
     coming home to stay.
       On this autumn afternoon, relaxed and comfortable in a red 
     plaid woodsman's shirt and rough trousers, he sat in his 
     Clayton office and talked of his political and personal 
     philosophy, of the career he was leaving behind, and of the 
     new chapter of his life.
       His manner was reflective and deliberate. His deep voice 
     carried power without a hint of bluster. He often paused to 
     consider an answer, then spoke with the decisiveness of a 
     [[Page S815]] man who harbors no doubt about his convictions, 
     but his conversation was brushed with humor and a grin often 
     lightened his face.
       At 58, though his graying hair has caught up with the 
     distinctive white forelock, he is young enough to make a 
     major change in the focus of his life.
       ``I had always thought I wanted there to be an end to my 
     political life and a beginning of something after my 
     political life,'' he said. ``There was just a sense that I 
     didn't want my self-identity, the way I viewed myself, as a 
     person who had to be in public office, who had to win the 
     next election. I wanted there to be life after politics.''
       And so, the Lincolnesque figure, nurtured in childhood by a 
     grandfather who dared him to reach for the best, and loving 
     parents who helped spur him on his way, has traded the 
     nation's Congressional halls for the St. Louis law firm of 
     Bryan Cave and his Washington mailing address for one in 
     suburban St. Louis.
       Thus he is returning to his roots as St. Louis is a part of 
     him and of his heritage. He was born and reared here, 
     grandson of the late William H. Danforth, founder of Ralston 
     Purina, son of the late Donald and Dorothy Clagget Danforth, 
     brother of Dr. William H. Danforth, retiring chancellor of 
     Washington University (1977 Man of the Year), business leader 
     Donald Danforth Jr. and Dorothy Danforth Miller.
       He graduated from Country Day School before entering 
     Princeton University and, later, Yale Law School and Yale 
     Divinity School. He married the former Sally Dobson, who 
     lived across the street when they were teen-agers. Their four 
     daughters and one son, though living their early lives in 
     Washington, have maintained their ties to St. Louis and three 
     of them make their home, here.
       The Danforths are a close clan, bound not only by family 
     ties but also by their obvious affection and respect for one 
     another.
       But even with this major change in his life, for John 
     Claggett Danforth, scion of this distinguished St. Louis 
     family, reared in comfort and affluence, one essential part 
     of his life will not be altered or be left behind--his deep 
     and personal religious faith.
       A politician in priestly robes, with a bachelor of divinity 
     degree and a law degree, Danforth has conscientiously carved 
     time from his senatorial duties to give early morning 
     communion to parishioners in St. Alban's Episcopal Church in 
     the shadow of the Washington Cathedral. In this new chapter 
     of his life in St. Louis, he will carve time from his legal 
     duties to continue to serve his church.
       But Danforth is no pious recluse from the world. Rather, he 
     is a quiet-spoken, resourceful activist, a low-key 
     missionary, translating his faith in God into work for man.
       That's why he has founded InterACT, a project for St. Louis 
     congregations of all faiths, designed to create opportunities 
     for church members, as organized groups, to give help to boys 
     and girls of the inner city. This will be a major emphasis of 
     his life in St. Louis.
       ``I hope it all works out,'' he said. ``There is a big leap 
     between a concept and actually doing it. I just want to be 
     the catalyst.
       ``InterACT is built around three interrelated concepts. The 
     first is that religious people have a claim on them to live 
     beyond themselves. It is the love commandment, `Love your 
     neighbor as yourself,' but the opportunities to do it aren't 
     always apparent.
       ``The second premise is that religion, a word that comes 
     from the same root as ligaments, should hold things together. 
     Religion should be something that binds society but so often 
     it is the opposite.
       ``I think there are a lot of opportunities for religious 
     people to do things beyond themselves, not as individuals 
     only but as members of congregations.
       ``The third is the obvious need of kids in the inner 
     city.'' Danforth calls them the 20th century ``widow and 
     orphan'' of Biblical days.
       A staunch believer in the separation of church and state, 
     Danforth does not base his political opinion solely on the 
     doctrine of his Episcopal denomination. But neither can he 
     ignore his moral and ethical convictions inculcated in 
     childhood, honed as a divinity student and solidified as a 
     minister of the gospel.
       While he is a loyal and committed Republican, he has known 
     the political risk every senator on both sides of the aisle 
     must face, of voting one's conscience if it conflicts with 
     the party's position. He also has heard the screams from the 
     press and voters who disagree with him. But that's nothing 
     new for an office holder and Danforth has thickened his skin.
       ``There is a lot of room for humility in working out your 
     political position because as the Bible says, `My ways are 
     not your ways and your thoughts are not my thoughts.' You 
     can't claim that your position on tax legislation or trade 
     legislation or the crime bill is something that directly is a 
     pipeline to God. It's more of a question of just trying to do 
     your best and work things out.''
       Still, he has kept his finger on the pulse of his 
     constituents, even as he views the world around him not as a 
     narrow, militant partisan but as a moderate, and politics as 
     the art of compromise.
       ``People think politicians have lost touch with the voters. 
     Not true. They are completely in touch. They can fly back and 
     forth to seek constituents. They can take polls. They can 
     have focus groups, find out within a margin of error of three 
     percentage points what people think. They're very much aware 
     of the next election, maybe too much so.
       ``However, having said all that, it's also important to be 
     something more than a weathervane or someone who has his 
     finger out to see where the currents are blowing. Because 
     then you stand for nothing and all you want to do is to get 
     yourself elected.
       ``What it really comes down to, if there is a conflict, of 
     course you have to vote your conscience. But you do it with a 
     lot of agonizing and a lot of listening and a lot of 
     recognition that on some of the things you vote for you may 
     be wrong. Particularly, if you view politics as the business 
     of compromise, there are really few things you view as 
     absolutely terrific.'' The crime bill, he said, would be an 
     example.
       ``It was a mix, with good things and bad things. You do 
     your best and you listen to the public. But a lot of people 
     were phoning in saying to vote against it and I voted for it. 
     All complex legislation is like that.''
       He supported former President Carter and voted with many 
     Democrats on ratification of the Panama Canal Treaty because 
     he considered it ``the only responsible vote to cast.''
       ``Some issues are hard. That one was not. It was a very 
     clear case as far as I was concerned. It would have been such 
     a mess had we not ratified the treaty, I did not view this as 
     a party line issue.
       ``I am very comfortable with the basic Republican concept 
     that government should be limited and the fundamental 
     Republican principles that government should operate with a 
     light touch and not a heavy hand. The one thing that keeps 
     the Republicans together is economics, trying to keep taxes 
     low, trying to keep spending low.''
       Moving with steady grace, Danforth has risen through his 
     party's hierarchy, taking on more responsibilities and 
     gaining power and prestige. At the time of his decision to 
     leave the Senate, he had attained the rank of 21st in 
     seniority among the 100 senators.
       He was senior member of the Finance Committee, the ranking 
     Republican member of the Committee on Commerce, Science and 
     Transportation, which he chaired in 1985-86, the first 
     Missouri senator to chair a major legislative committee since 
     World War I.
       He was a principal author of legislation to require strict 
     on-the-job testing for drug and alcohol use by key 
     transportation workers, to strengthen federal and state laws 
     against drunken driving, to improve the inspection of safety 
     equipment on commercial trucks and buses, to establish 
     national standards for licensing professional drivers, to 
     increase the safety of passenger vehicles, and to expand and 
     modernize airports and the air transportation system.
       In the 102nd Congress, he was the principal sponsor of the 
     Cable Television Consumer Protection Act to stimulate 
     competition in the cable television industry and provide 
     local authority over rates in markets where service is a 
     monopoly.
       He has also been concerned with health care costs, with 
     efforts to improve education, to stimulate rural economic 
     development, to encourage soil conservation, to increase 
     Federal support for basic scientific research and to reduce 
     world hunger and malnutrition.
       Of all his achievements as a senator, he is most proud of 
     the Civil Rights Act of 1991, providing for fairness in 
     hiring, promotion and other employment practices.
       Recent Supreme Court decisions, ``had really turned the 
     clock back on civil rights.
       ``I don't think you can do that. I wanted to remedy that.'' 
     Also, he wanted his party in the forefront of the fight for 
     civil rights.
       A major disappointment was the 1986 tax act. ``It started 
     out as a good concept and turned sour. The problem was that 
     in order to come up with additional revenue to make the 
     numbers add up in conference, the bill had to scuttle more 
     and more from the tax code that I felt was important.''
       As co-chairman with Senator Bob Kerry of a commission to 
     study entitlements--Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and 
     the Federal Retirement System--he has concluded that 
     entitlement spending will consume in the next couple of 
     decades all tax revenues ``except for what we pay for 
     interest on the debt and by about 2030 we won't even be able 
     to pay interest on the debt.''
       What can be done? ``There is a variety of things, all of 
     them painful. You could means test or adjust the cost of 
     living formula. It is like a disease. The earlier you deal 
     with it, the less painful the cure, the longer it goes, the 
     more painful the cure.''
       The commission's findings describe the economic future that 
     will confront Americans during the first quarter of the 21st 
     century if the Nation fails to act.
       ``The picture that they paint is unsettling. The findings 
     are not, however, a prediction of the future. They are merely 
     the product of current budget policies if our course is not 
     changed. A better future for America can be secured if the 
     country embarks on the course of long-term reform.''
       However, he said, ``We have a system of government which is 
     ingenious and brilliantly devised more than 200 years ago by 
     people who really put it together right. We have this very 
     diverse country with all of these people, all of these 
     different backgrounds and beliefs, and they come here from 
     all over the world and bring so much.''
       The complex issues with which he has dealt in the Senate 
     could not have occurred to the boy Jack Danforth nearly a 
     half-century ago as he sat in the Senate gallery to listen 
     and watch. Certainly, he could not 
     [[Page S816]] have envisioned himself among those men. But 
     that trip to Washington changed his life.
       ``My parents had taken Don and me East partly to attend 
     Bill's graduation from Princeton. I remember going to the 
     Senate chamber, sitting in the balcony and thinking, `Gee, I 
     would like to do that sometime.'''
       And so in that hour was born a dream that would not be 
     denied. Neither of his parents was interested in politics as 
     a career but it was typical of them, Jack said, that they 
     supported and encouraged whatever their children chose.
       ``It was a wonderful childhood. They were both very loving 
     and supportive of us. They thought of us as different 
     individuals. They were non-directive. They didn't tell us 
     what to do. Rather, they encouraged our strengths.
       ``Donald Danforth was really a wonderful father, a very 
     kind man and very loving. Every memory I have of my father is 
     of a loving father, of a man who liked to hug us a lot.
       ``With my brothers and sister and me, it was never fear 
     that motivated us. It was a desire to make our parents proud. 
     That, to me, is the great motivator. Even now that they are 
     gone, I want to make them proud and make my wife proud, and 
     our kids proud.
       ``For our children, it is the same. We are very proud of 
     them. They are also very different. And they are really good 
     kids. They have good values and are nice people.''
       None has chosen to follow him into politics although two 
     have followed him into the law. The eldest, Eleanor (Mrs. 
     Allan IV) Ivie, lives here and keeps busy rearing her three 
     sons. Mary (Mrs. Thomas) Stillman has her law degree and is 
     assistant dean at Washington University. She is the mother of 
     a boy and girl. Dorothy (Mrs. Johannes) Burlin, known to the 
     family as D.D., also is a lawyer, practicing under the name 
     of Danforth. Johanna (Mrs. Timothy) Root, known as Jody, is a 
     hospice nurse in Connecticut. Thomas is a senior at St. Olaf 
     College in Northfield, Minn.
       ``In our family, the dinner table was and is important. 
     That was the time you knew the family would be together. We 
     weren't going to watch television. We would sit there and 
     talk.
       ``At the Senate I frequently got home late but it was still 
     important for us to be together. I would always ask the 
     children, `Tell me about your day.' Sally is the same way. 
     It's important just to find the chance to show interest in 
     kids and to take pride in them, to find something they can do 
     well and appreciate that, to let them know you feel they are 
     terrific. Everyone has something that you can appreciate and 
     praise.''
       Although Jack's desire to go into the ministry did not 
     blossom until his college days at Princeton when he happened 
     to have a free hour in his class schedule and a faculty 
     advisor suggested a religion course in ethics. ``I liked that 
     course and took another and ended up majoring in religion. I 
     was really interested and decided between my junior and 
     senior years that I wanted to go into the seminary so I 
     entered Yale Divinity School.
       ``It was soon apparent that this was not for me as a full-
     time career. The parish ministry was something I was not 
     equipped for so I reverted to my original idea to go to law 
     school and by the time I started unwinding my career path I 
     was two years into Divinity School.'' So in 1963, he received 
     both degrees.
       But Jack Danforth had a third string to his bow--politics. 
     In 1968, in his first race for public office, Missouri 
     attorney general, he achieved the first Republican victory in 
     a statewide race in more than 20 years and began a period of 
     reform and two-party politics in Missouri.
       He was re-elected in 1972, went to the Senate four years 
     later and was re-elected in 1982 and 1988.
       In this public life, he has received numerous honors. The 
     most recent--as co-recipient with Chancellor Danforth--is the 
     Regional Commerce and Growth Association's Right Arm of St. 
     Louis award.
       In 1988, one of the greatest honors in America--the vice 
     presidency--might have been his, rather than Dan Quayle's.
       James Baker, who was handling George Bush's 1988 campaign, 
     asked him to submit material as a potential choice for the 
     office, and although he was far from enthusiastic, he sent 
     it.
       ``I was at the convention just one day. I had just returned 
     home when I got a call from Bush saying he had selected 
     Quayle as his running mate. ``I said, `I'm happy to hear 
     that.' Bush said in disbelief, `You are?'''
       Even the top office has never tempted him. ``It would be 
     too pre-emptive of my life. The only reason to run for 
     president is to win and if you win, that's all you are for 
     the rest of your life.
       ``No, once I am out of the Senate, I am not a senator. You 
     are not a senator for the rest of your life. You close the 
     book on that even though it was a wonderful chapter.''
       Now that John Claggett Danforth has come home again, the 
     book is opened again for the next chapter.


                          selection committee

       Thomas F. Eagleton and John C. Danforth were selected as 
     the 1994 St. Louis Men of the Year by 19 citizens, each of 
     whom had been chosen in the past for the award. They are the 
     41st and 42nd to be so honored since the award was first 
     established in 1955.
       Listed on the selection committee, and in order of their 
     receiving the honor, are the Rev. Paul C. Reinert, S.J., 
     chancellor emeritus of Saint Louis University; Howard F. 
     Baer, former president of the A.S. Aloe Co. and retired 
     chairman, Bank of Ladue; Harold E. Thayer, retired chairman, 
     Mallinckrodt Inc.; W.L. Hadley Griffin, chairman of the 
     executive committee, Brown Group Inc.; Lawrence K. Roos, 
     retired president of the Federal Reserve Board of St. Louis; 
     Edwin S. Jones, retired chairman and chief executive officer 
     of First Union Bancorporation and The First National Bank; 
     Dr. William H. Danforth, chancellor of Washington University; 
     William H. Webster, former director of the Central 
     Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; 
     Zane E. Barnes, retired chairman and chief executive officer 
     of Southwestern Bell Corp.; Clarence C. Barksdale, vice 
     chairman of the board of trustees, Washington University; G. 
     Duncan Bauman, retired publisher of the St. Louis Globe-
     Democrat; Sanford N. McDonnell, chairman emeritus, McDonnell 
     Douglas Corp., Charles F. Knight, chairman and chief 
     executive officer, Emerson Electric Co.; Lee M. Liberman, 
     chairman emeritus, Laclede Gas Co.; August A. Busch III, 
     chairman of the board and president of Anheuser-Busch Cos. 
     Inc.; Dr. Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical 
     Garden; William E. Cornelius, retired chairman, Union 
     Electric Co.; Osborne E. ``Ozzie'' Smith, shortstop for the 
     St. Louis Cardinals; and H. Edwin Trusheim, chairman, General 
     American Life Insurance Co.
       Twenty-one recipients have died: David R. Calhoun Jr., 
     chairman of the board of St. Louis Union Trust Co.; Major 
     Gen. Leif J. Sverdrup, chairman of the board of Sverdrup & 
     Parcel Associates Inc.; Ethan A.H. Shepley, chancellor of 
     Washington University; Stuart Symington, United States 
     senator from Missouri; Morton D. May, chairman of May 
     Department Stores Co.; Thomas B. Curtis, United States 
     congressman from Missouri; August A. Busch Jr., chairman of 
     Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc.; Edwin M. Clark, president of 
     Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.; H. Sam Priest, chairman of 
     the Automobile Club of Missouri; James P. Hickok, chairman of 
     The First National Bank in St. Louis; Dr. Charles Allen 
     Thomas, board chairman of Monsanto Co.; James S. McDonnell, 
     chairman of the board of McDonnell Douglas Corp.; William A. 
     McDonnell, chairman, The First National Bank in St. Louis; C. 
     Powell Whitehead, chairman of General Steel Industries; 
     Frederic M. Peirce, chairman of the board of General American 
     Life Insurance Co.; Maurice R. Chambers, chairman of the 
     board, Interco, Inc.; George H. Capps, president of 
     Volkswagen Mid-America Inc. and Capital Land Co.; Armand C. 
     Stalnaker, chairman of the board, General American Life 
     Insurance Co.; Edward J. Schnuck, chairman of the executive 
     committee, Schnuck Markets Inc.; Robert Hyland, senior vice 
     president of CBS and general manager of KMOX and KLOU-FM 
     Radio; and Donald O. Schnuck, chairman of the board, Schnuck 
     Markets Inc.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. SNOWE). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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