[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6455-S6456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRATULATING SENATOR DOLE ON THE EISENHOWER LEADERSHIP PRIZE
Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, last night my colleague from Kansas,
Senator Dole, received the prestigious Eisenhower Leadership Prize in
recognition of his distinguished service to the United States. I have
long admired Senator Dole for his leadership and dedicated service and
am pleased that the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute and Gettysburg
College recognized him with such a high honor.
This prize is made all the more notable because Dwight D. Eisenhower,
the award's namesake, is a fellow Kansan and Senator Dole's hero. I add
my voice to the many who congratulate him on this honor and ask
unanimous consent that the remarks Senator Dole gave last night be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
I want to thank the Trustees of The Eisenhower World
Affairs Institute and Gettysburg College for this honor.
I am truly humbled to receive this award. And I thank the
Awards Committee for dipping down in the military ranks. The
first Leadership Prize went to General Scowcroft. The second
to General Colin Powell. Last year you honored Major Lloyd
Bentsen. And this year, you're down to Lieutenant Bob Dole. I
guess there's still hope for all you Privates out there.
A special word of thanks to my colleagues from the 10th
Mountain Division who joins us this evening. I've always
wondered why they assigned a kid from the plains of Kansas to
the 10th Mountain Division. But I've never wondered about the
men I served beside. You are all heroes in my book.
A few years back, the 10th Mountain veterans formed a
national association. Over the years, there have been five
Presidents of the Association, and I am honored that all five
are here this evening. At least they got to be President of
something.
I am also honored by the presence of many friends and
colleagues of President Eisenhower and of several members of
the Eisenhower family.
I have been privileged to get to know John on several
occasions--including the Eisenhower Centennial in Abilene in
1990, and a few years ago in the Capitol when we unveiled the
sign which marks the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.
Elizabeth and I are very proud to call David and Julie
Eisenhower our friends. We've also had the pleasure of
meeting their children, and can tell you that David and Julie
are as good as parents as they are authors.
And Mary Eisenhower Atwater was the one who came to my
office last year to inform me of my selection as the
recipient of this prize. The only promise I had to make to
her was that my acceptance remarks would be brief.
In fact, I am tempted to do this evening what Ike did one
evening when he was President of Columbia University. At the
end of a long evening of speeches, Eisenhower's turn came.
After being introduced, he stood up and reminded his audience
that every speech, written or otherwise, had to have a
punctuation. He said, ``Tonight, I am the punctuation. I am
the period.'' And he sat
down. He later said that was one of the most popular
speeches he ever gave.
It is a bit intimidating to talk about President Eisenhower
and his legacy before family members and friends and who knew
him much better than I.
I can say, however, that, like countless Kansans and
countless Americans, I not only ``liked Ike,'' I regarded him
as a hero. I will never forget the first time I saw him. It
was the spring of 1952. I had just finished law school, and
was serving in the Kansas House of Representatives. General
Eisenhower had come home to Abilene to officially launch his
Presidential campaign, and I was in the rain-soaked audience
that greeted him.
That campaign was, of course, wildly successful. And I took
it as a good omen that my official announcement in Topeka on
April 10 had to be moved indoors because of rain.
I did have the privilege of meeting my hero on several
occasions during his lifetime, but the truth is I knew him no
better than the countless soldiers who called him our
general, and the millions of Americans who called him our
President.
Eisenhower succeeded as a soldier and as a President for
many reasons. Intelligence. Courage. Honesty. Leadership. The
ability to place the right people in the right spots. These
were all qualities Ike possessed.
But as I look at the Eisenhower statue in the reception
area of my Capitol office, or the painting of Ike that hangs
behind my desk, one word often comes to mind. And that word
is ``Trust.''
Ike inspired trust as no leader has before or since.
Millions of Americans may have voted for Adlai Stevenson in
1952 and 1956, but everyone trusted President Eisenhower to
do what was best for America.
And there's a simple reason why America's citizens trusted
Ike. And that's because he trusted America's citizens. Don't
get me wrong. President Eisenhower believed in government--
our Interstate Highway System is proof of that. But,
moreover, Ike believed in citizens. He believed in the wisdom
of the American people.
When Ike looked at America's people he saw himself.
According to David Eisenhower, the title that meant the most
to his grandfather was not ``Supreme Commander,'' or
``President;'' rather it was the simple title that all
Americans share: The title of ``citizen.''
And David reminded me of a speech Ike made in London the
month after VE Day. Ike said, ``To preserve his freedom of
worship, his equality before law, his liberty to speak and
act as he sees fit, subject only to provisions that he
trespass not upon similar rights of others--a Londoner will
fight. So will a citizen of Abilene.''
Throughout World War II, Ike saw himself as someone who
would do what any American citizen would do when freedom was
at risk. And throughout his Presidency, Ike spoke of how all
of us shared with him the responsibility of guiding our
country.
As Ike said in his first Inaugural address, ``We are
summoned to act in wisdom and in conscience, to work with
industry, to teach with persuasion, to preach with
conviction, to weigh our every deed with care and with
compassion. For this truth must be clear before us: Whatever
America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come
to pass in the heart of America.''
What do those words mean in the America of 1995? I believe
they mean we should rededicate ourselves to remembering the
duties of citizenship: To keep informed and to become
involved in the decisions that affect the life and future of
all the citizens of our country.
And they also mean that government should trust the
American people with decisions that matter most--the
decisions that affect their families and their businesses.
To be sure, the 1950's weren't perfect. And as we look to
the 21st century, we should not seek to return to those
times. But what I hope America can return to is a
relationship of trust between the people and their
government. And if that's to happen, then we must rein in the
federal government. It's too big, too intrusive, and makes
too many decisions. I carry a copy of the 10th Amendment with
me wherever I go. It's only 28 words long. And it basically
states that all powers not specifically delegated to the
federal government should be given to the states, and to the
people. Dusting off that amendment, and restoring it to its
rightful place in the Constitution is my mandate as Majority
Leader, and I like to think that it's a mandate that Ike
would have heartily endorsed.
Perhaps Ike said it best when he responded to those who
were urging bigger and bigger government, all in the name of
providing Americans with security.
``If all that Americans want is security, they can go to
prison,'' Ike said. ``They'll have enough to eat, a bed, and
a roof over their heads.
But he went on to say that citizens want more than
security. We also want freedom. We want dignity. We want
control of our
lives. We want our government to trust us. And the lesson
that Ike taught us is that if the American people believe
our government trusts us, then we will trust our
government in return.
Americans also trusted Ike because he trusted us with the
truth. As Supreme Commander, Ike never hid the truth from his
soldiers. If a mission was dangerous * * * if some wouldn't
be coming home, then Ike laid it on the line. And, with his
Kansas candor, he spoke about issues that many in Washington
today shy away from. One of those was the federal budget.
[[Page S6456]] How much stronger our country would be if
our leaders took to heart the prophetic words that Eisenhower
spoke in his 1961 farewell address to the American people:
Ike said, ``As we peer into society's future, we must avoid
the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own
ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We
cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren
without risking the loss also of their political and
spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all
generations to come, and not to become the insolvent phantom
of tomorrow.''
As always, Eisenhower matched his words with actions. There
have been four balanced federal budgets in the last half
century. And Ike gave us three of them. He knew that it was
easy to be popular. It is easy to say ``yes'' to every
federal program. But he also knew that more important than
being popular for a moment is to provide leadership that
stands the test of time.
Along with trusting the American people, Ike also trusted
the values that built our country, and that were instilled in
him by his parents in Abilene. Values like hard work.
Honesty. Personal responsibility. Common sense. Compassion
for those in need. And, above all, love of family, God, and
country.
These are the values that built America, and they are
values that must never go out of fashion, or be regarded as
``politically incorrect,'' by our government or by those in
our entertainment industry.
Along with trusting our citizens, and trusting our values,
there's one final lesson about trust that Eisenhower's life
and career can teach us. And that's the fact that the world
must always be able to count on American leadership.
And that's a lesson I hope we especially remembered
yesterday, the 50th anniversary of VE Day. It was American
leadership that built the arsenal of democracy which made
that victory possible. It was American leadership that held
the Allies together during the darkest days of the war. And
it was American leadership which conquered the forces of
tyranny and restored liberty and democracy to Europe.
Make no mistake about it, leadership carries a price. It
did during World War II. It did during the Eisenhower
Administration. And it does today. But it is a price worth
paying. As Ike said in his Second Inaugural Address, ``The
building of * * * peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To
proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard. And to attain
it, we must be aware of its full meaning--and ready to pay
its full price.
And Ike never forgot just what that full price meant. He
said that whenever he returned to Normandy after the war, his
foremost thoughts were not with the planes and the ships or
the guns. Rather, he said, ``I thought of the families back
home that had lost men at this place.''
I was privileged to walk the beaches of Normandy and to
return to the hills of Italy where I saw action during the D-
Day commemorations last June. And I, too, thought of the
families back home that had lost men, and how we must never
forget the cause for which they fought and died. And the only
way to ensure that future generations of Americans will not
be buried on foreign land, is to continue to provide
leadership whenever and wherever it is needed.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored by the confidence
bestowed in me through this leadership award and will do my
best to meet the high expectations left by the legacy of
Dwight Eisenhower.
In closing, I want to share with you a few more words of
this American hero--and they were words he spoke on that
rainy day in Abilene 43 years ago.
Returning home led Ike to think about growing up in Kansas,
and he said ``I found out in later years we were very poor,
but the glory of America is that we didn't know it then: all
that we knew was that our parents * * * could say to us,
``Opportunity is all about you. Reach out and take it.''
By working together and trusting one another, we can ensure
that for generations yet to come, America's parents will
still be able to say those words to their sons and daughters.
This is what we owe to the memory of people like Dwight
Eisenhower and all the GIs of World War II we remembered
yesterday. But ultimately, we owe it to ourselves, to our
children, and to the future of the country we love.
____________________