[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H154-H156]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP ABDICATING ITS RESPONSIBILITIES FOR GOVERNANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying that partisanship has 
never been the major reason that I have been serving in this Congress, 
and I think, over the years, I have tried very hard in my career to 
build bridges across the aisle on all the committees I have served on 
and build bridges between regions and representatives from different 
regions of the country. But as I witness the current impasse, and have 
never seen anything like it in my career, I would have to say that we 
have a serious problem within the Republican Party.
  This week we saw that the Senate, which is in Republican control, 
pass a bill to end the shutdown, this historic shutdown of the Federal 
Government. As we have seen workers temporarily laid off, without 
checks, across this country, the House Republicans cannot find it in 
either their management or their personal skills to pass the bill that 
was passed in the Republican Senate.
  So my question this afternoon, with all due respect, is what is wrong 
with the Republican leadership in this Chamber that is abdicating its 
responsibilities for governance? I would say it is not only the budget 
that needs to be balanced, but, I think, it is the Republican leaders 
in this House that are out of balance, and it has gotten to the point 
where it is not just the Federal workers that are being affected, but 
the taxpaying public of this country that is being denied services.
  Let me say in that regard, as someone who has taken a lifelong career 
interest in veterans affairs, that today I received a communication at 
my request from the Veterans Hospital in my region of the country, 
which has jurisdiction over the Ann Arbor Medical Center, as well as 
the Toledo Veterans Outpatient Clinic in my own home district, and I 
asked the chief of medical services there, Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, for a 
report on what was happening in our region of the country, and learned 
that the personal in that particular hospital, in our outpatient clinic 
as well, received paychecks with less than half of their normal amount, 
as only time worked before December 15 was credited for pay.
  In fact, in those checks deductions were taken out in full, and that 
accounted for significantly less than half a paycheck in many 
instances.
  Dr. Jacobs indicated to me that this has caused very significant 
hardship for people working in our clinic and hospital. For example, a 
clinical pharmacist, who is the sole supporter of two young children, 
is already having trouble meeting mortgage payments for that family. 
Another single mom in that hospital, with a 13-year-old child, is 
seriously worried about adequate food until the next paycheck. And one 
employee told him about the fact that she was unlikely to be able to 
come to work because she was having difficulty buying gas and she 
really did not have her full payment.
  Before I recognize the esteemed member of the Committee on Veterans' 
Affairs here, let me just say that the doctor told me that his staff is 
now so demoralized, sufficiently distressed, and distracted that he has 
recommended, as medical center director in our region of the country, 
that they are going to diminish medical services to our veterans, 
including cutting back and stopping reconstructive vascular surgery, 
cardiothoracic surgery, interventional cardiology, and other risky and 
stressful procedures, because he is worried about the people who 
support him in the operating rooms concentrating on the operations they 
are supposed to be performing on our veterans. He wrote me saying he 
hopes this is temporary and can we not do something here in Washington 
so that he can begin doing the job the taxpayers expect him to do, and 
that is to operate on the veterans in our region who are seeking 
medical care.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. 
Montgomery].
  Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to 
me. What she said is exactly true, and is happening in all our 171 
veterans hospitals across the country. We are really headed for a 
disaster unless we come up with something to pay these people, to pay 
our bills on surgical equipment, medicines, and the things we have to 
use and do to be sure that these veterans get the proper medical care.
  It is a problem. I congratulate the gentlewoman for pointing it out. 
We have to do something. We have to pass a continuing resolution to 
take care of these veterans hospitals. If we do not, we are not taking 
care of those that marched off and did a great job for our country and 
have served well. I appreciate the gentlewoman's yielding.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would like to ask the 
distinguished gentleman from Mississippi, who has served in this 
Chamber with honor for many, many years, has he ever seen anything like 
this before?
  Mr. MONTGOMERY. Never in my 30 years.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that.
  All I can say is that one quality seems to be missing in this 
Chamber, and that is good measure, good measure, on the part of the 
Republican Party. And if I could plead with the Members who are here on 
the floor, please heal your wounds, take us away from this edge of 
brinkmanship. Pass the bill that the Senate has sent over here.

[[Page H155]]


          TRIBUTE TO 100TH BIRTHDAY OF SENATOR EVERETT DIRKSEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LaHood] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Kingston].
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to respond quickly to my friend 
from Ohio, and I think it is important that we recognize that, yes, it 
is true nothing like this debate has taken place, and yet if our 
Founding Fathers were here today, they would say, wait a minute, let me 
get this straight, we are almost $5 trillion in debt; we spend $20 
billion each month in interest on the debt; if a child is born today he 
or she owes $187,000 as his or her portion of the interest just on the 
debt, above and beyond local, State and Federal taxes? I think our 
Founding Fathers would be shocked and appalled that we are even 
negotiating a 7-year balanced budget and not an immediate balanced 
budget.
  This is a tremendous moment in history that we have got to address, 
and I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, and I would have done this 
earlier had I not been in the Chair most of the day, to insert into the 
Record an article that appeared in my hometown newspaper, the Peoria 
Journal Star. Today commemorates the 100th birthday of one of the 
greatest leaders of the U.S. Senate, Senator Everett Dirksen.
  I do not think it could be really more fitting for me to be inserting 
this article and commemorating the 100th birthday of Senator Dirksen, 
because many people have used the quote that he said, ``A million here, 
a million there. Pretty soon it adds up to real dollars.'' This is what 
we have been talking about for so long around here, the idea of a 
balanced budget.
  Senator Dirksen lived in the district that I represent, and at one 
time he was the Congressman from the district that I now represent. He 
hailed from Pekin, IL, and when he died in 1969 was the minority leader 
of the Senate; and, actually, prior to being elected to the Senate, was 
the Congressman who became ill, retired from the House, was cured of 
his illness, which was an eye problem, and then returned as a U.S. 
Senator, and had a distinguished career serving under President 
Johnson, who was a very close friend of his.
  Nobody knew more about trying to balance budgets, working with 
Members on both sides, trying to reach agreement and compromise than 
Senator Dirksen, and I do want to insert this article in the Record.
   Mr. Speaker, I also want to yield to my friend from California, who 
was actually a staffer in the Senate during the time that Senator 
Dirksen was the minority leader, and I would ask if the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Horn] would have any comments with respect to Senator 
Dirksen.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. HORN. Just briefly, Mr. Speaker. Senator Dirksen, without 
question, was one of the great legislators of the twentieth century. 
That is why his colleagues in the Senate named one of the three 
buildings of the Senate after him.
  I spent a good part of 1965 in his back office as assistant to the 
Republican whip, Senator Thomas H. Kuchel, who was his principal 
deputy, and there is no question the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was 
completely drafted in Senator Dirksen's back office by a joint 
bipartisan team from the Johnson administration, the Democratic 
majority leader, the Republican whip and the Republican leader.
  When we finished one day and his chief counsel announced to the 
Senator we were done, he said, ``Get me the President.'' When his 
secretary did, he said ``Lyndon? Everett. You now have a bill that you 
can send to the Congress of the United States.''
  That was the first major legislation since before the Franklin D. 
Roosevelt administration completely drafted in the Senate. Senator 
Dirksen was also the key person on the passage of the Civil Rights Act 
of 1964. Without Everett Dirksen's leadership, there would have been no 
Civil Rights Act. We had to break a southern Democratic filibuster of 
18 Senators, and it took 1 year to do it and Dirksen's leadership is 
what got the job done.
  Earlier in the House, Dirksen proved himself to be a true legislative 
craftsman. More than anyone else in the House, he was responsible for 
passing the only reorganization act in this century pertaining to 
Congress. That was the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946.
  So, it is correct that my friend from Illinois honors a great 
legislator and a great human being.
  Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would also add, and I 
appreciate very much the gentleman from California [Mr. Horn] 
participating in this commemoration of the 100th birthday of Senator 
Everett Dirksen, who was, as I said, from Pekin, IL.
  I would also add that in the last 1960s, when Senator Dirksen was the 
minority leader in the U.S. Senate, that was the end of the decade when 
we had balanced budgets around here. Since that time we have had a very 
difficult time balancing our budget. As I said, the quote that has been 
used so often I think really deserves to be attributed to Senator 
Dirksen. I appreciate the opportunity to commemorate his 100th birthday 
today.

              [From the Peoria Journal Star, Jan. 4, 1996]

           Dirksen Brought Sense of Reality Wherever He Went

       One hundred years ago, fathers might have dreamed that a 
     son born in a log cabin could become president. But no way 
     could Johann Dirksen have imagined Jan. 4, 1896, that his 
     baby boy's birthday celebrations one day would launch the 
     social season in the nation's capitol.
       Yet, Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen's birthday bash, usually 
     at the Mayflower hotel ballroom, was the opening ``must go'' 
     event of the social season each year in Washington, D.C., 
     even before he became minority leader of the Senate and a 
     national figure beyond the Beltway. Everybody who was 
     anybody, as the saying goes, attended from both political 
     parties and from the administration and the congress.
       Those glittering parties were a long way from the 
     neighborhood in Pekin known as ``Beantown.'' Yet, growing up 
     in Beantown may have been an important part of ``Ev'' Dirksen 
     being the toast of the town in the nation's capitol.
       Actually, the residents, themselves named it that--or 
     rather in their own language, ``Bohnchefiddle.'' They were 
     German immigrants who didn't indulge in euphemisms. They had 
     a strong sense of reality. And the reality was that rich 
     folks had flower gardens in their yards; immigrants grew 
     beans. They were who they were, and saw nothing wrong with 
     it. Beantown was just their American starting place.
  In fact, most residents in Pekin, and millions more across America, 
gardened their yards. Even a narrow small-town lot was 50 feet front, 
     150 deep, and provided space for people who didn't own a 
     horse and didn't need a barn. There was space for berry 
     bushes along the lot line, half a dozen fruit trees set 
     wide apart, orderly squares of garden vegetables, and a 
     grape arbor.
       There was a lot more than beans, and it all required care. 
     Many folks kept a small flock of chickens by the back porch 
     as well. At one time, in fact, the Dirksens raised a pig.
       The bigger boys spaded the gardens and raked them smooth. 
     Before he was old enough for school, the youngest son, Ev, 
     could help punch holes in the prepared ground with the wooden 
     split pegs used as clothespins keeping a straight line along 
     the board on which he knelt.
       Keeping clothes as clean as possible was important when 
     washing them was a major weekly chore. As the produce grew, 
     ripening in sequence, much of it had to be ``put up'' for the 
     winter in fruit jars and glasses, sealed with hot paraffin or 
     special lids, after being well cooked. Cabbage was chopped 
     and salted and then pounded and pounded until it was soaked 
     in its own brine to be kept for winter--sauerkraut.
       The Dirksen boys took part, and it was the boys who peddled 
     surplus vegetables door to door. The basics of life to the 
     German families were food, clothes, shelter from the cold and 
     cleanliness. So, before he learned to read and write, Everett 
     Dirksen became part of a family team, doing his share in 
     providing those basics, and grew up knowing from whence came 
     the necessities of life. Somebody had to do the work to 
     produce it.
       Their father had a stroke in 1901 when Ev, the youngest, 
     was only 5. By the time Ev was 9, Dad was dead. The boys were 
     raised by their mother, and the team game of survival that 
     they played put a solid foundation under his whole life.
       In those circumstances and in the absence of radio, 
     television, telephones or computers, he found school and 
     learning downright fun. Learning was an adventure and a kind 
     of game. He loved reading. He loved to discover a new big 
     word and roll it off his tongue. In books, he could explore 
     the far reaches of this world and of the world of ideas.
       Thus in his youth, and progressively thereafter, Everett 
     Dirksen combined those wonderful opposites, the 
     contradictions of idealist and a realist. It fit the Lincoln 
     tradition of central Illinois.
       With his older brothers grown and earning money, the family 
     could let young Everett go off to college. He worked nights 
     while 

[[Page H156]]
     schooling at the University of Minnesota, until World War I 
     interrupted.
       Three years of ROTC there gave him a leg up on a 
     lieutenant's bars. In France, he was an artilleryman. His job 
     was to ride a wicker basket under a rough, hydrogen-filled 
     balloon, held by a cable and linked by a primitive telephone 
     to the gun batteries, overlooking the battlefield. There, he 
     observed the fall of the artillery shells his battery mates 
     were firing and tell them how to adjust their fire to bring 
     it on target.
       Of course, such balloons like his were sitting ducks, even 
     for the primitive planes of the time.
       When the war ended, the army found his ability to speak 
     German useful and kept him in Europe. He remained overseas 
     for 18 months in all, much of the time interpreting for 
     others or dealing directly with the local German population. 
     He also knew Paris, Berlin, other German cities, and visited 
     England and Ireland. In Rome, the ambassador asked him to 
     join his staff, but Ev was homesick for Pekin.
       Thus, young Lt. Dirksen returned to Pekin and Bohnchefiddle 
     at age 24, with an extraordinary range of experiences. He was 
     now a college man, a combat veteran and an ex-officer who 
     had traveled, often in very sophisticated circles, in 
     postwar Europe.
       Back home, he married a Pekin girl and launched his 
     remarkable political career as the youngest person ever 
     elected to the Pekin City Council.
       As city councilman, he was a young man dealing with a 
     rapidly changing world. Streets needed to be paved for the 
     growing number of those new motor cars. The fire department 
     needed trucks to replace the horse-drawn rigs. The aging 
     streetcar, one car running back and forth on a single track, 
     needed replacement with bus service.
       Power plant were under construction bringing electricity. 
     The Edison resolution was on, and radio was waiting in the 
     wings. These were not hypothetical or abstract problems to be 
     solved abstractly for the young councilman. He was intimately 
     involved with the reality of finance for technology and the 
     even tougher reality of the effects and demands new 
     technology and dramatic change made on the city workers and 
     the public.
       When he grappled with these problems as a councilman, he 
     also worked delivering his brothers' bread to 50 small 
     groceries scattered about town. Everybody knew his route, and 
     at many a stop he confronted people with problems to take to 
     their councilman. Before he went to the national macrocosm, 
     this man had a thorough and heavy dose of the microcosm.
       Thus, the nature of the man was well-founded long before he 
     became one of that city's best-loved figures, before he 
     crafted the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and brought over the 
     votes to pass it with him, before he won a Grammy for 
     recording ``Gallant Men,'' before he was the confidante of 
     presidents both Republican and Democrat, and before he became 
     a darling of the once-skeptical Washington press corps.
       He brought to Washington the prestige of being the 
     Congress' best orator, a skill founded and practiced in Pekin 
     and which largely won for him his original seat in the House 
     of Representatives in the first place.
       He also brought the attention to detail, the realism, of 
     Bohnchefiddle, and was, undoubtedly, the most skilled 
     parliamentarian in the Senate of his time. He knew how the 
     system worked in every detail, and he knew who was the person 
     that counted, the person to talk to, not only in the Senate, 
     but in every department of the national administration.
       Finally, he made many friends and no enemies in the best 
     tradition of the small town where he grew up, and where some 
     of his local political foes were also lifelong personal 
     friends.
       When Everett Dirksen died, the President of the United 
     States gave the eulogy--proclaiming that Sen. Everett 
     McKinley Dirksen had more impact on history than many 
     presidents.
       That he was, and he didn't learn that in Washington. That 
     was the boy from Bohnchefiddle.

                          ____________________