[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 136 (Friday, September 27, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11478-S11483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           LEAVING THE SENATE

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, it is altogether fitting that I follow the 
remarks of my colleague from Kansas. I think those who have been 
watching have seen just an example of the kind of passion that she has 
brought to public service, the kind of strength and integrity that she 
continues to display even in the waning moments of this session. I know 
the country is going to miss her service. I am certainly going to miss 
being a partner in so many endeavors that we have had over the past 18 
years in the U.S. Senate.
  I must say, this is both a sentimental and a sweet moment for me. It 
shortly will mark 24 years of serving in both the House and the Senate. 
It is a mere blink of the cosmic eye of time, and it has all been 
telescoped into these final few moments as we conclude this session. So 
it is sentimental in that sense, but it is also sweet in another, 
because I have been standing in the glow cast by so many friends and 
their kind remarks. Last evening, Senator Byrd took the floor and gave 
an encomium to me. I was pleased that I was not here to hear it, 
because, had I been here, I would have been too embarrassed to have 
remained on the floor.
  If someone throws rocks at me, I am quite accustomed to throwing them 
back. But if you hurl a bouquet, then I am usually undone.
  So, I thank Senator Byrd for his gracious comments last night, along 
with those of Senator Nunn, who also was most kind. He and I have 
served on the Senate Armed Services Committee for the past 18 years. I 
must say it has been truly an honor for me to have served with such a 
distinguished, intelligent, and dedicated individual, one who has 
dedicated his life to promoting a sound and responsible national 
defense policy, foreign policy, and, indeed, economic policy. It is my 
hope that sometime in the future we will be able to continue efforts in 
all of these areas.
  While I have been caught up in the golden afterglow of the accolades 
of my colleagues and those of the editorial writers in my home State, I 
have always been mindful of Dr. Johnson's observation that: ``In 
lapidary inscriptions, men are not under oath.'' I suspect there may be 
some truth to that as far as the editorial comments are concerned or 
final tributes to our parting Members. I might say, for my own part, I 
have been little more than Aesop's fly on the wheel of history's 
chariot, marveling that I could kick up so much dust in a period of 
2\1/2\ decades.

[[Page S11479]]

  I have also been deeply humbled by the experience. I think it is a 
testament to the openness of the people of this country, especially the 
people of Maine, that a boy who was born in the bed of his mother on 
the third story of a tenement building on Hancock Street, in Bangor, 
ME, just a block away from what used to be described as the ``Devil's 
half acre'' could, in fact, be elected to the greatest elective body in 
the entire world.
  Maine people have always demonstrated a generosity of heart and, 
also, I believe, self-serving as it may sound, a great soundness of 
mind, to judge people not on their origins, not on their economic 
status, ethnicity or race, but on merit, and that is why, historically, 
we can point to people like Margaret Chase Smith, who stood on this 
floor so many years ago and delivered her ``Declaration of 
Conscience.''

  It is why the people of Maine elected Ed Muskie, whom we lost just a 
few months ago who demonstrated his commitment to this Nation's 
interest in helping to clean up our waterways, improve the quality of 
our air and became known as Mr. Clean, then Mr. Budget, and the 
enormous contribution he made through public service to the entire 
country. The people of Maine are very, very proud of him and are 
working to memorialize all of his work.
  They elected George Mitchell, who, in a very short period of time, 
became the Senate majority leader and one of the most effective in the 
history of this body.
  They elected Olympia Snowe to replace Senator Mitchell when he 
decided to retire. Soon I believe they are going to send Susan Collins 
to sit beside Olympia Snowe. Governor King, who is an Independent 
Governor of the State of Maine, made the comment when I announced my 
retirement, ``What do you do? What does a State do when it loses Babe 
Ruth and Lou Gehrig?'' I suspect he was referring to Senator Mitchell 
as being Babe Ruth and me as Lou Gehrig. But what do you do?
  I might say the same for Kansas. What does Kansas do when it loses a 
Bob Dole and a Nancy Kassebaum? What the people of Maine will do is do 
what the Yankees did. They will go out and recruit Mickey Mantle, which 
they have done in Olympia Snowe, and Roger Maris, which they will have 
in Susan Collins.
  I think all of us feel the sense of loss that so many are leaving--
some 13 now, with Bob Dole, 14--the U.S. Senate at the end of this 
term. We feel that perhaps things won't go on as they should. People 
talk about the ``center no longer holding, of things falling apart.'' 
But I believe it was Charles De Gaulle who said ``That our graveyards 
are filled with indispensable people.'' There will be others equally 
qualified, if not more qualified, to take our place in this 
distinguished institution.
  I had occasion to travel out to Ann Arbor, MI, yesterday afternoon to 
partake in a conference that was held at the Gerald Ford Library. The 
moderator of the panel, which consisted of Tom Foley, Bob Michel, and 
myself, hit me with a question the moment I arrived. He said, ``Why are 
you leaving? Why are you and so many others leaving?''
  Of course, I could have given a glib answer and said, ``Well, I'd 
rather have people wonder why I'm leaving than stay and have people 
wonder why I'm staying.'' But it was a serious question that required a 
serious answer.
  Each of us are leaving for different and profoundly personal reasons. 
Some are departing the Senate at the end of this session because of 
age. Some are departing because of health factors. Some are departing, 
like my colleague from Kansas, for family reasons, of wanting to be at 
home with her children and grandchildren.
  For me, I must say, there is never a good time to leave the best job 
in the world. There is never a good time to do that. But for me, it is 
the best time. I have what I would call a Gothic preoccupation with the 
relentless tick of time. I served almost a quarter of a century on 
Capitol Hill now representing the people of Maine, and I know had I 
chosen to run one more term, the pressure would have been on to say, 
``Well, now that you are chairman of one of the various committees on 
which you serve, we need to keep you where you are, so run again.'' So 
it would be 12 years from now I would then still be running after 
Senator Strom Thurmond, whom I am sure by that time would have 
renounced his late-blooming support for term limits and decided he 
wanted just one more term.

  But the subject of term limits, of course, raises another issue. The 
people of Maine passed by way of referendum a proposal to place a two-
term limitation on those who serve in the U.S. Senate. It was not 
binding, as such. It was not retroactive, and so it never would have 
applied to me or, indeed, to Senator Mitchell. But it basically said 
something about the mood of the people of our State; that they feel, or 
have come to feel, at least those who voted, that 12 years is long 
enough.
  I must say, in the back of my mind, that weighed rather heavily; that 
even though it did not apply to me in any legal sense, in spirit, some 
were at least saying, you have been there twice as long as we would 
like to see people serve in the U.S. Congress.
  I think it is a mistake. It is open to, obviously, a difference of 
opinion, with good will on both sides of this particular debate. But I 
think it is a mistake to suggest that people should only be here 12 
years and move on. It will only, in my judgment, continue the churning 
of people moving in, moving out, and we lose a sense of history that a 
Senator Robert Byrd possesses and that of Senator Moynihan and others. 
I can go down the list of people who serve with great distinction, who 
bring such a wealth of information, a sense of history, a sense of 
reverence for the finest institution in the world.
  That is a personal judgment on my part, but I think we should be wary 
of just pushing people in, pushing them out, relieving people of their 
responsibility of voting. We have term limits. We have them now. They 
are called elections. If you don't like what your elected official is 
doing, then go to the polls and vote them out. But, no, it is an easy 
way to say, ``We don't even have to think about it, it is automatic. 
You have done your 12 years; now move on.''
  So that was something that weighed at least in the corners of my 
consciousness as to whether I should stay or leave.
  I must say to my colleagues that my goal in politics has always been 
quite modest, and that is to help restore a sense of confidence in the 
integrity of the process itself, to help bring Washington a bit closer 
to the main streets of my home State. I have always tried to bring a 
sense of balance and perspective and, yes, let me use the word, 
moderation. It is not in vogue today to talk about being a moderate. We 
are frequently depicted as being mushy or weak-principled or having no 
principle, looking for compromise--another word which has somehow taken 
on a negative tone.
  I recall after supporting the crime bill 2 years ago, a call came 
into one of my district offices, and a man was very angry. He said, ``I 
am angry with your boss,'' to one of my staffers.
  I said, ``Why was he angry?''
  He said, if you excuse the expression, ``He's too damn reasonable.''
  Perhaps that will be the epitaph on my gravestone.
  I believe it is essential to have passion in politics, provided that 
passion doesn't blind us to the need to seek, find and build consensus. 
Republicans and Democrats have different philosophies. We are 
different. We see the role of Government in different ways, of either 
the need for its limitation or expansion. But we have the same goal, 
and that is to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest 
amount of people in this country. I also think it is sheer folly to 
believe that either party holds the keys to the kingdom of wisdom, and 
I think the danger to our political system is that each party is going 
to plant its feet in ideological cement and refuse to move.
  The Senate has changed since I first came here. The personalities 
have surely changed, and that is to be expected. It was inevitable. We 
had people of such stature like Senator Ribicoff, Senator Baker, 
Senator Javits, Senator Tower, Senator Jackson, Senator Rudman, Senator 
Danforth, and the list goes on. They have all departed from this 
institution, and we lost a great deal when they retired or passed away.
  So the personalities have changed, but the process has also changed.

[[Page S11480]]

 Toffler wrote a book some years ago in which he said we were entering 
the age of future shock, in which time would be speeded up by events 
and our customs and culture would be shaken in the hurricane winds of 
change.
  Those hurricane winds of change have been blowing through this 
Chamber over the past three decades as well, and has changed, 
fundamentally, the operation of the Senate itself. The introduction of 
cameras into our Chamber has changed it, some for the good and some not 
for the good.

  The House has always been able to act differently than the Senate. 
The House is a different body, a different institution with a different 
history. I served there for 6 years.
  I recall reading that Emerson with a visitor in the gallery, pointed 
to the House floor, and he said, ``There, sir, is a standing 
insurrection.'' And that is what it is. It is far more energetic and 
boisterous and full of passion because that is the House of the people. 
That is where they are closest to the people that we serve.
  The House undertook a 100-day march at the beginning of this session. 
They passed some major legislation. The pressure immediately was on the 
Senate: ``Why can't you do the same? We did all of this in 100 days. 
Why can't you do the same?'' And the answer is, the Senate was never 
designed to act in 100 days, to take up the same agenda in the same 
period of time. We were designed to slow down the process, to be more 
thoughtful about exactly what we were about, to take up major issues 
and to ventilate them, to debate them at length, if necessary, to allow 
the public to understand exactly what we were undertaking, to express 
their approbation or disapproval.
  But now the pressure is on to move faster and faster, to become more 
like the House. That is a great institution, but we should not merge 
the two identities.
  I think there has been a loss of reverence for our institutions. In 
fact, if you look, perhaps the Supreme Court may be the only 
institution for which there is a deep sense of respect and reverence, 
and perhaps that is because the mystique that surrounds it has yet to 
be torn away and shredded.
  I find it troubling that we see shoving matches outside committee 
rooms in the other body. While poets have asked, ``What rough beast 
slouching its way toward Bethlehem,'' we have to ask, ``What rough 
beast slouching its way toward the Potomac?'' Is it the Russian Duma? 
Have we come to shoving matches to make our points? It was discouraging 
to see that passions are so high that we have to resort to fisticuffs.
  Perhaps there is a recognition that we have gone too far. We can take 
some hope that Members in the other body are now holding retreats and 
actually socializing. Think about that. They are deciding to socialize, 
Democrats and Republicans, something unheard of for the past 2 years, 
and now starting to socialize to get to know each other a little bit 
better so that perhaps during the height of those passionate debates, 
they might still maintain a sense of order and respect.
  I remember during the Watergate process I served on the House 
Judiciary Committee that was debating whether to bring impeachment 
articles against Richard Nixon. It was more than 22 years ago. And I 
raised a question. I said, ``How did we ever get from `The Federalist 
Papers' to the edited transcripts? How have we come that far?'' And I 
wondered yesterday, in the same vein, how did we ever get away from the 
kind of relationships that Gerald Ford and ``Tip'' O'Neill and Tom 
Foley and Bob Michel had with each other where they could vigorously 
debate their philosophical differences but go out and play a round of 
golf or have a drink after debate ended that day, and now we find 
ourselves filing ethics complaints against each other, a volley going 
back and forth to see who can make the strongest charges against the 
other?
  Mr. President, there are many reasons why this is taking place. It 
would take a full day and longer to analyze them from a sociological 
point of view. I would prefer to defer to someone of Senator Moynihan's 
stature and knowledge, to talk about social issues. But I think radio 
and television has contributed somewhat to that stripping away of 
reverence for our institutions. We now have journalists who are 
heralded as celebrities. They have radio shows and television programs 
though which they have achieved a great deal of notoriety.

  Some of them achieve notoriety by taking the most extreme positions 
possible and using the most inflammatory rhetoric they can, and, of 
course, as the rhetoric becomes more extreme, their popularity tends to 
soar. As their popularity soars, the invitations for them to come and 
address various conventions and groups also continues to escalate, as 
do their speaking fees.
  Somehow, all of that excessive, inflated, and sometimes outrageous 
rhetoric starts to get recirculated back into the congressional 
debates, because then Members of Congress are invited to participate in 
those very shows and programs. They are then prone to come up with 
something equally extreme or quotable so that they can continue to be 
invited back on the programs.
  So a little vicious circle has been set up and set in motion, people 
then vying for the best quote, the most inflammatory, provocative thing 
they can say in order to make the news on that program or another.
  There is also the hydraulic pressure that everyone in this body and 
the other body faces from the endless quest for raising campaign funds.
  There is the rise of the negative attack ads. It is a sorry spectacle 
that we have been witnessing all too much. We all say that they are 
terrible, but all of the consultants say, ``But they work.'' So we have 
allowed ourselves to lower the sense of decency and civility in this 
country by attacking character, trying to portray our adversaries, our 
political adversaries as enemies, as evil-minded people who are set out 
to destroy the fabric of this country.
  We have witnessed the rise of special interest groups. There have 
always been special interest groups, but today they are far more 
organized, they are far more technologically advanced than ever before, 
and they have a greater capability than ever before of blunting and 
stultifying any attempt to forge legislation in the Congress.
  John Rauch wrote an article for the National Journal some time ago--I 
think since has been expanded into a book--but it referred to the 
process as ``demosclerosis,'' that the arteries of our democratic 
system have become so clogged with special-interest activities and 
organizations that it is virtually impossible to work any kind of 
change because single-minded groups have more at stake in preventing 
legislative changes than the general public has in supporting them. So 
there is that intensity of interest, and they are able to hit a button 
and suddenly flood our offices with 5,000 letters overnight or several 
hundred phone calls in the matter of a few hours.
  There is also, I must say, a reluctance on the part of the Members of 
this body and the other body to touch the so-called third rails, to 
touch politically volatile issues like Social Security and Medicare and 
entitlements. All of us have been shying away from these issues.
  We have to rethink exactly what the role of a U.S. Senator is. I 
always felt that it was the responsibility of Members of this body who 
are elected to come to Washington, to become as informed as they 
possibly could, to have an open door to all special interests--and 
everyone in this country has a special interest--to be open to all 
issues and arguments and advocates, and then to weigh the respective 
merits of those arguments, to sift through them and come to a 
conclusion and vote, and then go back to our constituents and explain 
exactly why we voted as we did, not just react to or appease the most 
vocal among our citizenry.

  Some of that has changed. We do not quite do that anymore. Today, we 
are being driven by overnight polls. Today, we are lobbied intensively 
by various groups. Today, everything has become compressed.
  Margaret Chase Smith, I mentioned her earlier. She used to sit over 
here to my right. She never announced a vote until the roll was 
called--never. And that was her particular mark, saying, ``I want to 
hear what all the arguments are before I make my decision.'' Most 
people cannot do that today. Most people are not allowed that luxury of 
waiting until debate is concluded before announcing their 
decision. Those who do

[[Page S11481]]

run the risk of being criticized editorially or otherwise as being 
indecisive, possessing a Hamlet-like irresoluteness. You mean you do 
not know how you will vote on a bill that may come to the floor a month 
from now? Have you not thought it clearly through?

  We even get ranked by various groups on legislation that we do not 
cosponsor, so that you have black marks listed next to your name if you 
refuse to cosponsor a bill that may never come to the Senate floor.
  I have on occasion taken this podium and announced that the mail 
coming to my office and phone calls coming to my office were running 
heavily against the position I was about to take. Having said that on 
the Senate floor, my office would then be flooded with immediate calls 
saying, how dare you indicate that your mail is running two or three or 
four or five to one but you are going to vote the other way? How could 
you possibly be so arrogant? Well, of course, those callers presume 
that that body of mail and that volume of calls received reflect the 
will of the people of Maine, which may or may not be the case. Much of 
the time it is so highly organized it does not reflect the general will 
of the people of the State.
  But it also presumes that we serve no function other than to tally up 
the letters and to tally up the phone calls. You do not need us for 
that. You do not need a U.S. Senator to do that. All the people have to 
do is just buy a few computer terminals and put them in our office, 
have the mail come in, count the phone calls, and then push a button 
and have a vote. You do not need us for that.
  So we have to restore the sense of what the role of a Senator is. We 
have to really work to persuade our constituents that this is not a 
direct democracy, it is a republic. It is what Benjamin Franklin said: 
``We have given you a republic, if you can keep it.''
  So we have to dedicate ourselves not to a direct democracy, or to 
voting according to the passions of the moment of what an overnight 
poll may or may not show, but to consider thoughtfully and weigh the 
merits of the opposing arguments and then take a stand on an issue and 
try to persuade our constituents we have done, if not the right thing, 
at least a reasonable thing. If we cannot do that, we do not deserve to 
be reelected. That is the way the system should operate--not, take an 
overnight poll and formulate our policy to comport to what the 
overnight poll shows. Polling is now driving our policies, driving it 
in the White House--this is not the first White House--and it is 
driving it in Congress as well.
  Mr. President, I am fond of quoting from Justice Oliver Wendell 
Holmes Jr, and the Presiding Officer as a very gifted attorney, I know, 
is familiar with his writings and his works.
  He wrote at one point:
       I often imagine Shakespeare or Napoleon summing himself up 
     and thinking: ``Yes, I have written 5,000 lines of solid gold 
     and a good deal of padding--I, who have covered the Milky Way 
     with words that outshone the stars, yes, I beat the 
     Australians in Italy and elsewhere, and I made a few 
     brilliant campaigns, I ended up in a cul-de-sac. I, who 
     dreamed of a world monarchy and Asiatic power. Holmes said, 
     ``We cannot live our dreams, we are lucky enough if we can 
     give a sample of our best, if in our hearts we can feel it 
     has been nobly done.''

  During the past 24 years, I have tried to give a sample of my best. I 
will leave it, of course, to the people of Maine to judge whether it 
has been nobly done. I mentioned a sample of the best, because 
yesterday for me was a very momentous day. I had the great privilege of 
cochairing a hearing held by the Senate Aging Committee and the Senate 
Appropriations Committee. For the first time in 18 years, I had the 
honor of sitting beside Senator Mark Hatfield, a man whom I admire 
enormously, someone who stands as tall and straight and tough as any 
individual that has ever occupied these desks.
  We held a hearing to deal with the issue of providing in some fashion 
more funding for research for medical technologies and developments. We 
had quite a remarkable group of people testifying before that joint 
committee. We had General Schwarzkopf who, having defeated Saddam 
Hussein's army on the battlefield, waged another kind of battle against 
prostate cancer. He was successful, and he is now waging a campaign on 
a national level to educate the American people of what the dread 
disease really entails and how it needs to be combated.
  We heard from Rod Carew who talked about losing his 18-year-old 
daughter Michelle to leukemia, a very painful experience for him, and 
the television program that was shown to demonstrate her lightness of 
being, her generosity of heart and spirit was moving to all of us.
  We heard from Travis Roy. Travis Roy is a young man from Yarmouth, 
ME. He was a great hockey player. He lived for the moment that he would 
take to the rink and play for Boston University. He suited up, stepped 
on to the ice, and 11 seconds later he became a quadraplegic, having 
been shoved head first into the boards. But to listen to him talk about 
what his aspirations are, that he wanted one day to have the kind of 
help, medical help that would allow him to get married, to hug his 
wife, to hug his mother, to teach his son how to play hockey, as his 
father had taught him, was quite a moment.

  We had Joan Samuelson who has been waging a 9-year battle against 
Parkinson's disease. She talked about the day-to-day struggle that she 
has to encounter, and so many others, hundreds of thousands if not 
millions of others, have to confront every day of their lives, just to 
carry out functions that we take for granted.
  We heard from a young woman from Oregon who is dedicating her life to 
become a research scientist but does not know if she will be able to 
complete that kind of education or whether the funding will ever be 
available to carry on medical research.
  It was a momentous occasion for all of us. But what was equally 
poignant for me and memorable was the reaction of our colleagues. I 
paraphrased a poet during the course of the morning, and I said each of 
us, every one of us, here in the galleries, here on the floor, we all 
prepare a face to meet the faces that we meet. Every one of us puts on 
a mask every single day. But for at least a moment yesterday, every one 
of the Senators who were there dropped the mask of being U.S. Senators 
and revealed the pain and suffering that they, too, have known.
  We had Senator Pryor who talked about his son's illness, having 
cancer of his Achilles tendon and what that entailed. We heard from 
Senator Connie Mack who talked about the loss of his brother and his 
wife's fight against breast cancer. Conrad Burns, Harry Reid, Bob 
Bennett, Herb Kohl--each one of them told a personal story of their own 
pain and suffering of that of friends and family members.
  It was not, Mr. President, an adversarial hearing. It was a 
bipartisan meeting, a realization that we have to dedicate ourselves to 
defeating on a bipartisan basis common enemies that assault us daily. 
Yesterday we spoke of disease, but there are far more enemies that 
await us as we rocket our way into the 21st century.
  There is something called a balanced budget. We can work toward a 
balanced budget on a bipartisan basis. This is not a political 
statement. This is a moral imperative. This is something that we have 
an absolute obligation to our children and our grandchildren to do. It 
does not matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or 
Independent. We have to balance the budget within a reasonable 
timeframe if there is any hope for ever solving this country's fiscal 
crisis.
  Mr. President, we can have and we have to have a bipartisan consensus 
on the need for a strong national defense and a coherent and consistent 
foreign policy. I say this not as partisan, but we have lacked 
coherency, we have lacked consistency, and it has been to the great 
detriment of this country's credibility as the only superpower in the 
world.
  I am fond of thinking back to a time when Churchill was being served 
his breakfast by his man-servant and, as the breakfast was being 
delivered to him, he said, ``Take this pudding away; it has no theme.'' 
Well, we have been lacking a theme in foreign policy for too long.
  You cannot pick up today's paper without being disheartened, if you 
look at what is taking place in Israel today, or Russia, or Bosnia, or 
Iraq, or China, or Japan. You cannot adopt the policy or the position 
that, well, I am just going to focus upon domestic issues.

[[Page S11482]]

 You can't focus just on domestic issues. You have to focus on foreign 
policy because foreign activities can overwhelm your domestic concerns 
and considerations.
  We need to develop a strong bipartisan consensus on what the role of 
the country is to be in the next century. We have to do so and put 
aside those differences that we may have on other issues. Everyone is 
fond of saying, ``We can't be the world's policeman.'' I agree, but we 
can't afford to become a prisoner of world events either. It requires 
us to be engaged, and requires us to be engaged not only with the 
President, which we have yet to be engaged fully, in my judgment, on a 
number of key issues; we have to be engaged with our allies and, 
indeed, even our adversaries. We have to have a world view. There is no 
such notion of coming back to America, of zipping ourselves in a 
continental cocoon and watching the world unfold on CNN. We have to be 
actively and aggressively engaged in world affairs. History has shown 
that every time we have walked away from the world, the world has not 
walked away from us. The history of the 20th century has been one of 
warfare. What we need to prevent the 21st century from descending into 
warfare is an active, aggressive engagement in world affairs.
  Mr. President, we need to have a restoration of individual and 
community responsibilities. We don't need to debate that issue as 
Democrats or Republicans. We have to return to the stern virtues of 
discipline and self-reliance. That should not be a matter of partisan 
debate. Everyone understands what has happened in this country by 
simply turning to Government to solve our problems. We have to get back 
to a sense of moral responsibility, fiscal responsibility, self 
responsibility, to be accountable for our own actions, and, yes, turn 
to the Government and have that Government care for individuals who are 
unable to care for themselves, be they poor, disabled or elderly.
  We also, Mr. President, must work very hard on a bipartisan basis to 
heal the racial divide in this country. The words ``affirmative 
action'' are no longer in vogue; it is distinctly out of fashion to 
talk about affirmative action in America. Many people say it is the 
obligation of Government--if not the reality--to be colorblind. Well, 
we don't live in a colorblind society. It is a fiction. We live in a 
society in which racism is still very much alive. It is an evil that we 
have to rise up and confront day in and day out.
  The notion that we are all starting from the same line, the same end 
zone, running a 100-yard dash, is pure folly. Can you imagine 
suggesting that we are starting out equal, when you have some young 
children in suburbia who go to bed with their laptops and teddy bears 
at night, and children in the urban areas who go to sleep still ducking 
bullets that are fired by gangs? Are they starting off equally in our 
society?

  Affirmative action may not be the answer to these problems, but we 
cannot adopt a position of indifference or hostility to recognizing the 
need to overcome barriers that have been erected for centuries against 
people who have been deprived of their opportunity to participate fully 
in the American dream.
  Mr. President, I could go on at length about the subject of the need 
to heal the racial divide, or the wound that has been opened up in our 
communities. I will save it for another time in a different forum, 
obviously.
  I would like to conclude my remarks by referring to a book that was 
written many years ago by Allen Drury. If ever there was an author who 
captured the essence of what this institution at least used to be like, 
it was Allen Drury in his novel ``Advice and Consent,'' written and 
published in 1959. He said something which I have carried around with 
me from those very days when I first read the book. He said about us:

       They come, they stay, they make their mark writing big or 
     little on their times in a strange, fantastic, fascinating 
     land in which there are few absolute wrongs or absolute 
     rights, few all-blacks or all-whites, few dead-certain 
     positives that won't change tomorrow, their wonderful, mixed-
     up, blundering, stumbling, hopeful land, in which evil men do 
     good things and bad men do evil things, where there is a 
     delicate balance that only Americans can understand, and 
     often they, too, are baffled.

  It was a wonderful description of Washington itself. But I have gone 
further back into the past in Mr. Drury's writings, and I found 
something even more pertinent and important to me. He kept a journal. 
He used to sit up in that press gallery and look down upon the workings 
of the U.S. Senate. He kept a journal between 1943 to 1945. It is a 
remarkable piece of writing. It is so brilliantly and eloquently 
expressed, I don't think there has been a better piece of writing since 
that time. He said something about the Senate which I would like to 
repeat for my colleagues, because I am sure that the book is not on the 
shelves of all of us. He said:

       You will find them very human, and you can thank God that 
     they are. You will find that they consume a lot of time 
     arguing, and you can thank God that they do. You will find 
     that the way they do things is occasionally brilliant, but 
     often slow and uncertain, and you can thank God that it is. 
     Because of all these things, they are just like the rest of 
     us, and you can thank God for that, too. That is their 
     greatness and their strength, and that is what makes your 
     Congress what it is--the most powerful guarantor of human 
     liberties free men have devised. You put them there, and as 
     long as they are there, then you can remain free because they 
     don't like to be pushed around any more than you do. This is 
     comforting to know.

  I don't know, if Mr. Drury were sitting up in the gallery today, that 
he would look down and find as much comfort as he did in 1943 through 
1945. But I must say that I do.
  After all that I have said in pointing out all the difficulties and 
all the problems that confront us as an institution, I take hope. I 
look at people like Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, John Breaux of Louisiana, 
Kent Conrad, John Chafee, Olympia Snowe, Slade Gorton, who is sitting 
in the Chair, Bob Bennett, Pat Moynihan, and they are just a few--in 
spite of all of the difference, all of the criticism we have witnessed 
in the past--and John Glenn who just walked through the door. I include 
him by all means in that category of people that I look to the future 
with great hope and encouragement.

  I want to just point out that, several years ago, when Senator Sam 
Nunn and Senator Pete Domenici--two more giants in this body--offered 
an amendment to curb the growth of entitlements, I thought they came up 
with a very rational, responsible proposal. It said, let us take the 
entitlement programs that are growing at such a dramatic rate and see 
if we can't rein in those spending programs a little. Everybody who is 
entitled to enter a program can still come in and we will provide a 
cost-of-living adjustment, a COLA, every year, and for the next 2 years 
we will even add 2 percent, and then we will cap it at that rate. It 
sounded eminently reasonable to me. But what happened? How many people 
voted for that? I think it was 26. Only 26 Members were prepared to 
stand up and endure the wrath of our constituents, for fear that we 
were taking away something that they were entitled to. Well, that has 
changed,
  Mr. President, thanks to people like you, the senior Senator from 
Washington, and thanks to the others I have mentioned, and so many 
more, we had a vote recently in which we presented a balanced budget 
that included some very difficult choices. It included reductions in 
the growth of Medicare. It included some tax cuts--not as much as many 
had hoped but more than perhaps many believe we are entitled to at this 
moment in time, but, nonetheless, tax cuts; Medicare reductions; 
reductions of a half of a percentage point in the Consumer Price Index. 
Some would like to have at least 1 percent, but half a percent is a 
very courageous thing from Members to do in an election year. Forty-six 
Members of the U.S. Senate went on record in favor of that. That is why 
I am encouraged that we will find men and women succeeding those of us 
who are departing and who will look into the eyes of their constituents 
and say, ``This is something that is right for us to do.''

  The Social Security system eventually will go bankrupt, the trustees 
say by the year 2029. Around 2015, revenues collected will be exceeded 
by payments to beneficiaries. Medicare will be broke in 6 years.
  It is a tragedy that the White House has absolved itself of this 
issue and has refused to come to the grips with the issue of Medicare 
solvency. I know what is going to happen. They will wait until the 
elections are over, and then, whoever wins at that time--if it is

[[Page S11483]]

President Clinton who wins reelection, I can almost guarantee that the 
first thing he will do will call for the creation of a blue ribbon 
commission to resolve the Medicare crisis. It is an issue that should 
be debated this year. It should have been resolved this year, but it 
will not be.
  I take hope, Mr. President, when I look at leaders such as Tom 
Daschle and Trent Lott. I know, again, what the reaction was when 
Senator Mitchell, my colleague from Maine--again, I point out he was 
one of the most effective majority leaders in the history of this 
body--when he left, there was a great expression of woe. ``What will we 
do?'' When our distinguished colleague, Bob Dole, left, all of us felt 
the pang and the anxiety of saying, ``What are we going to do now?'' 
Bob Dole is no longer with us--a master at bringing people together.
  I believe that we are still in good hands. I am impressed with the 
majority leader, with his drive, intelligence, and determination and, 
yes, his pragmatism, his willingness on key issues to reach across the 
aisle, and to say, ``Can't we work this out? We have our differences, 
but can't we at least come to some kind of consensus on the major 
issues confronting this country?'' I am enormously impressed with his 
talents, and those of Senator Daschle as well, both men of outstanding 
ability and good will.
  To those people who declare that ``the center can no longer hold; 
things are going to fall apart; the best are lacking in conviction 
while the worst are full of passion and intensity,'' I say nonsense. 
There are going to be people who will come to this Chamber who will be 
filled with passion, to be sure, who will argue strenuously for their 
positions. But I believe it is inevitable that they will come back to 
the center.
  The center may have shifted slightly to the right. People are more 
conservative today than they were 10 or 20 years ago. But the center 
has to hold. If the center does not hold, then you will have 
stagnation. If the center does not hold, then you will have paralysis. 
If the center does not hold, you will have Government shutdowns. When 
that takes place, the level of cynicism that currently exists will only 
deepen to a point that is so dangerous that it will afflict us for 
generations to come.
  Mr. President, Alistair Cooke summed it up for me in his wonderful 
book called ``America.'' In one of his chapters, he made the inevitable 
comparison between the United States and Rome. He said that we, like 
Rome, were in danger of losing that which we profess to cherish most. 
He said liberty is the luxury of self-discipline; that those nations 
who have historically failed to discipline themselves have had 
discipline imposed upon them by others. He said America is a country in 
which I see the most persistent idealism and the greatest cynicism, and 
the race is on between its vitality and its decadence. He said we 
have--paraphrasing Franklin--a great country, and we can keep it, but 
only if we care to keep it.

  I believe based upon the many friends that I have made here--the 
people that I admire and who are leaving with me, but those, more 
importantly, who are staying and those who will come--that there is a 
genuine desire to keep this the greatest country on the face of the 
Earth, a country that is still a beacon of hope and idealism throughout 
a world that is filled with so much oppression and darkness, and this 
will remain the greatest living institution in all of the world.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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