[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 26 (Thursday, February 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2426-S2427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             A FRACTURED COMMUNITY AND SHORT OF PERFECTION

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, recently, the annual Man of the Year 
Award in St. Louis was given to two people rather than one, our two 
former colleagues, Tom Eagleton and Jack Danforth.
  They are both among our finest.
  I am pleased that the citizens of St. Louis appropriately honored 
both of them.
  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published their comments on that 
occasion, and because of our association with the two of them and 
because of what they say about government and our attitudes toward one 
another in this excessively partisan climate, I urge my colleagues to 
read their comments.
  I ask that their remarks be printed in the Record.
  The remarks follow:
           [From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1995]

                         A Fractured Community

                        (By Thomas F. Eagleton)

       I recently attended a meeting of St. Louis businessmen and 
     heard Charles ``Chuck'' Knight, chairman and CEO of Emerson 
     Electric, say the following: ``Downtown's top attractions--
     the Arch, Busch Stadium, Kiel Center, Union Station, the 
     convention center, the new football stadium, the casinos--
     will draw in excess of 12 million visitors annually. That's 
     more than Disneyland.''
       Chuck Knight is correct in his enthusiasm for downtown St. 
     Louis, Downtown St. Louis has been revived. Downtown St. 
     Louis is being rescued.
       But the city of St. Louis as a whole has not. The Arch does 
     not a city make. Busch Stadium does not a city make. The Kiel 
     Center does not a city make. A football stadium does not a 
     city make.
       A city is people. A city is neighborhoods. A city is the 
     interrelation of people with common concerns and common 
     hopes. A city is the cohesive interaction of its peoples and 
     its purposes. A city is the sum of its treasured pact and its 
     capacity to flourish in the future.
       Today's city of St. Louis can glory in its past as one of 
     America's great cities, but as presently structured, it is a 
     fading city with a troubled future.
       When I entered politics, the city of St. Louis had 850,000 
     people. Today it is 380,000. The 1994 official State of 
     Missouri demographic report says that in 2020 the population 
     of St. Louis will be between 225,000 and 275,000--much 
     smaller than the Wichita of 2020.
       There is a structural noose around the St. Louis region's 
     neck. We don't discuss it much, but the St. Louis 
     metropolitan area is the textbook example of the most 
     politically fragmented, disarrayed urban region in the 
     nation. We are America's worst-case governance scenario. When 
     we succeed, we do so in spite of our structural handicaps.
       Back in 1876, the voters approved the separation of the 
     city from the county. There were five municipalities in St. 
     Louis County at that time. There are now 90. One has 11 
     residents. There are 21 St. Louis County cities with under 
     1,000 people. Only nine exceed 20,000.
       There are 43 fire protection units and 62 police 
     departments.
       In the St. Louis metropolitan region, resource disparities 
     are staggering. The city has been tax-abated to excess. In 
     the county, there continues a frenetic, never-ending ``land 
     rush'' to capture tax base in unincorporated portions of the 
     county.
       I realize we live in a time when it is out of fashion to 
     discuss the impact of government on private decision-making. 
     I also realize that we like to cling to the sentimental 
     notion that somehow quaint Webster Groves and Ladue, for 
     example, are so self-sufficient as to have no need of 
     interaction and interconnection with governmental conditions 
     around them.
       Just as the city of St. Louis has outlived its history, St. 
     Louis County has outgrown its sentimental quaintness. Our 
     city and
      our county are an aggregation of jerry-built, haphazard, 
     fragmented, disconnected governmental units, many barely 
     treading water. We have had a succession of Boards of 
     freeholders, a Board of Electors, and a Boundary 
     Commission. All have attempted to tinker with the 
     governmental structure and for one reason or another have 
     made no discernable improvement.
       We have tried some targeted remedies, such as a Sewer 
     District, Junior College District, Zoo and Museum District, 
     and joint support for a hospital. We have Bi-State. These 
     regional efforts have helped, but the city-county disunion 
     persists.
       St. Louis and St. Louis County still remain as the foremost 
     textbook example of how free people can misgovern themselves 
     on the local level.
       Enough handwringing. What do we do?
       We have two choices.
       Creeping incrementalism. Deal with the situation at the 
     margins--tinkering with charter reform--go to the Missouri 
     legislature or voters for non-controversial changes.
       Cold bath. Just as the end of communism required a bold, 
     total leap into capitalism, so too the end of St. Louis-St. 
     Louis County disunion will require a bold, total immersion. 
     St. Louis, like Berlin, would be whole again.
       I fervently believe in the latter precept. Incrementalism 
     won't go to the root of the distress. I'll give an example. 
     Whether the St. Louis Police Board is appointed by the 
     governor or the mayor will not have an overwhelming, decisive 
     impact on the destiny of St. Louis. Only the boldness of 
     urban consolidation--one city--will be meaningful.
       Let me be clear. I am not alleging that solving the 
     governmental barriers of the St. Louis region will alone 
     create a spontaneous regeneration of a new and greater St. 
     Louis with unfettered decency and personal responsibility 
     reigning supreme.
    
    
       Eliminating the Berlin Wall has not as yet equalized East 
     and West. Eliminating Skinker Boulevard as our own Berlin 
     Wall between poverty and prosperity will not by itself ensure 
     an instantaneous panacea.
       It would allow for local government to do its part of the 
     societal job at its united best rather than at its fragmented 
     worst. It would allow for a consolidation of effort and a 
     focus of responsibility that simply isn't possible when 
     political authority is fragmented into bits and pieces.
       The day should come when St. Louis recaptures its 
     population, its tax base and its greatness.
       To paraphrase a famous Jewish sage, if not now, when? If 
     not us, who?
           [From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1995]

                          Short of Perfection

                         (By John C. Danforth)

       It is a most special honor to be joined in anyone's mind 
     with Tom Eagleton. For all of my political life, Tom has been 
     for me the model of what a public servant should be--smart, 
     energetic, dedicated, always committed to the principles in 
     which he believed. It never mattered to me that his positions 
     were not exactly my own. He was a very fine Senator, and he 
     is a very good friend, and I am proud to share this honor 
     with him.
       I don't know whether I am making much more out of it than 
     was intended, but it seems to me that there is a message in 
     this dual award--a message from St. Louis to the country--
     that it is St. Louis' own answer to 
     [[Page S2427]]  the meanness and the anger that is the 
     politics of the 1990s. The message is that politics does not 
     have to be as mean and as angry as is now the rule.
       I don't say this only because of the personal relationship 
     between Tom and me. But beyond recognizing our good 
     relationship, there is something more in the message of 
     today's awards.
       Consider what it means when there are two men of the year 
     who made careers in politics, when one is a Democrat and the 
     other a Republican, one a liberal, the other a conservative, 
     one a supporter of Carter and Mondale, the other a supporter 
     of Reagan and Bush. Consider what it means when there are two 
     men of the year, who often disagreed, who often canceled one 
     another's votes in the Senate.
       For those citizens who are in a constant state of rage 
     about government, it would be difficult to honor either Tom 
     or me; it would be impossible to honor both of us at the same 
     time. It would be difficult to honor either of us because, 
     with the thousands of Senate votes we cast, each of us has 
     done enough controversial things to make every Missourian mad 
     at least some of the time.
       And if it would be difficult for an outraged citizen to 
     honor either one of us separately, it would be absolutely 
     impossible to honor both of us together. Even those who 
     agreed with one of us could not have agreed with both of us 
     at the same time.
       If it is essential to you that your politicians reflect 
     your views, and if it angers you when they don't, then Tom, 
     or I, and certainly both of us together, must have made you 
     very angry very often. Many people have theories to explain 
     the general sense of outrage felt against politics and 
     politicians. Some point to the media generally, or more 
     specifically to talk radio or Rush Limbaugh. Some point to 
     negative election campaigns and unprincipled political 
     consultants. All of that deserves attention, but I think 
     there is something more--something broader than the latest 
     trends in the media or in campaigning. It has to do with what 
     people expect from government.
       When expectations are unrealistically high, outrage at 
     failure is sure to follow. When we believe that government 
     should have all our answers, we are angry when it has none of 
     our answers. And unrealistic expectations of government are 
     the order of the day. This is true on both the left and the 
     right. On the left, it is thought that government can manage 
     the economy and cure the ills of society. On the right it is 
     thought that government can deter crime and restore personal 
     and religious values. In each case, platforms and programs 
     are thought to hold the key to success, if only the right law 
     is enacted, if only the right people are in charge.
       We attribute our failures as a country to failures of our 
     government. We say that our politicians are out of touch. 
     They don't do things our way. They are incompetent, maybe 
     even corrupt.
       Our problems are not of our making, but of their making. If 
     only right thinkers were in power, we could get on with the 
     people's business--the business of balancing the budget and 
     cutting taxes and retaining all the benefits we demand.
       It is no wonder that we are so angry at government when our 
     expectations are so high. If government has the power to make 
     things right for us and simply doesn't do so, of course we 
     should be mad.
       But we have got it wrong, wildly wrong by any historic 
     standard. It is not that government is bad, only that it is 
     government. As such it is limited, not by accident, but by 
     design, not because it is poorly run, but because it is run 
     as our founders intended it to be.
       Government is not perfect, and it was not supposed to be 
     perfect. It is not omnipotent, because it was not intended to 
     be omnipotent. It was not intended to rule the economy or our 
     health care system or our families or our values. It never 
     had the total answer, it never had total power--it had 
     limited power and the limited capacity to make things better.
       It makes sense to honor Tom Eagleton and Jack Danforth with 
     the same award only if there is a high level of tolerance for 
     each of us, only if you see that each of us was off the mark, 
     that neither of us had all the answers, that it was enough to 
     make a good try.
       The business of government is not to reach perfection, for 
     perfection is not reached in this world. Marxism's lesson is 
     that when government attempts to reach perfection, it must be 
     totalitarian.
     

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