[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 49 (Thursday, March 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S4046]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   MIKE MANSFIELD--EXTRAORDINARY MAN

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, on March 16, 1903, Teddy Roosevelt was 
President. Civil War veterans still held annual reunions. The Wright 
brothers were testing their first aircraft, and baseball was preparing 
for the very first World Series that fall. And Mike Mansfield was born 
in Brooklyn, NY.
  Today Mike turns 92. And I ask the Senate's indulgence while I pay 
tribute to this extraordinary man.
  Mike's family moved to Great Falls, MT, when he was just 3 years old. 
When America joined the First World War in 1917, Mike--at the ripe old 
age of 14--fibbed about his age and enlisted in the Navy.
  He is one of the very few Americans to serve in the Army, the Navy, 
and the Marines. My guess is that if America had had an Air Force back 
then, he would have made all four. And at the age of 92, he is still 
the youngest World War I veteran in America.
  After leaving the military, Mike returned to his home in Montana--to 
Butte and then to Missoula. While working as a miner in Butte, he met 
and married Maureen Hayes.
  Maureen, then a Butte schoolteacher, persuaded Mike to leave the 
mines and get on with his education. And not only Montana, but our 
whole country should be grateful to her for that.
  Although Mike did not have a high school degree, he passed an 
entrance exam and was admitted to the University of Montana. And he 
never looked back. He obtained a bachelors and masters degree in 
international affairs and then became a professor of East Asian and 
Latin American history at the university.
  Then, in 1942, Mike Mansfield was elected to the U.S. House of 
Representatives. In his very first term, he was recognized as one of 
America's leading experts on East Asia.
  President Roosevelt personally selected him as a special envoy to 
China in 1944, and the report Mike filed on his return is still a model 
of depth, clarity, foresight, and sound advice on foreign policy.
  After a decade in the House Mike was elected U.S. Senator. He served 
in the Senate for 24 years. For 17 of those years, longer than anyone 
in history, he served as the Senate majority leader. And while most 
people now think first of his national and international leadership, he 
was always a great Montana Senator.
  As Mike Malone, the dean of Montana historians, puts it:

       Mansfield's protection of the state's interests in 
     Washington was legendary. He became so much a part of the 
     state's political landscape that the names Montana and 
     Mansfield seemed nearly inseparable.

  Norman Maclean recounts an example of this in his last book, ``Young 
Man and Fire'', when he talks about Congressman Mansfield in action 
after the Mann Gulch fire of August 1949:

       The act had been almost as swift as the thought. . . . By 
     October 14, little more than two months later, Mike Mansfield 
     had rushed through Congress his amendment to the Federal 
     Employees' Compensation Act doubling the amount allowed to 
     nondependent parents of children injured or killed while 
     working for the Federal Government--from a pitiful two 
     hundred to four hundred dollars. A rider attached to this 
     amendment made it retroactive to include the Mann Gulch dead.
       In our State of Montana, we would vote for him for anything 
     (in ascending order) from dogcatcher to President of the 
     United States to queen of the Helena Rodeo.

  What was true for 14 Mann Gulch families was true for the whole 
country. Mike Mansfield knew what was right and he knew how to get it 
done. Whether it was labor relations, the Vietnam war, environmental 
protection, extending the right to vote to young people, or any of the 
other great issues of the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's, Mike Mansfield 
was there and he was right.
  When Mike retired from the Senate--having served longer than anyone 
in history as majority leader--it was only to begin a new career. 
President Carter appointed Mike as Ambassador to Japan. And his 
performance was so exceptional that although Mike always has been and 
always will be a Montana Democrat, President Reagan asked him to stay 
on in Tokyo for another 8 years.
  Today, at age 92, Mike is on his third career as an East Asian 
adviser for Goldman Sachs. Although admittedly, he is taking it easy. 
He has slowed down to a mere 5 days of work a week.
  And of course, he is still the smartest, best-informed, wisest 
statesman Montana and America have. Like I told the people at the 
Governor's Conference on Aging at the Copper King in Butte last summer, 
when I really get stumped and I need the best advice there is, I go to 
Mike Mansfield.
  Mr. President, Mike Mansfield has lived the American Dream.
  From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.
  From the copper mines of Butte to private meetings with Presidents 
and kings.
  Sailor, veteran, miner, professor, Congressman, Presidential envoy, 
Senator, majority leader, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, 
banker, wise man.
  But to Montanans, always just plain ``Mike.''
  I hope you and all of our colleagues will join me in saying ``thank 
you,'' to Mike, and wishing this great and good man a happy birthday 
and many more to come.


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