[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 140 (Wednesday, October 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12161-S12162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SENATOR MARK O. HATFIELD

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, quite the most notable, if at times 
little noted, fact about the American Constitution is that the Framers 
brought a

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wholly new conception of the nature of political man to the design of 
American Government. They were keenly aware of this fact, for it was 
crucial to their claim that a republic might work, given, as ``The 
Federalist'' remarks at some point, ``the fugitive existence'' of the 
ancient republics of Greece, and that of Rome. That history was 
familiar to what we would call educated persons in the 18th century, 
and it made for skepticism at best; pessimism in the main. But harken, 
said the Framers, we have developed a ``new science of politics,'' 
which radically changes the assumptions on which those ancient 
governments were founded. We would not depend on virtue in our rulers; 
virtue was too rare, too fleeting, too unforeseeable. To the contrary, 
we would take man as he is and use his defects to perfect a new system 
of government that would endure by virtue of its recognition of how 
little virtue may be depended upon. Instead, we would build into our 
Government a system of checks and balances whereby the clash of 
interests would offset one another and make up, in that wonderful 
phrase, for ``the defect of better motives.''
  Well, the Republic has endured. In the world today there are two 
nations and two only which both existed in 1800 and have not had their 
form of government changed since then. That is to say, the United 
States and the United Kingdom. And, of course, the case can be made 
that the Government of the United Kingdom is radically different, then 
from now. Ours is the very same in structure, with changes that only 
reaffirm the original purpose; reaffirm and enhance. And surely time 
has confirmed the Framers in their judgment that interest, not virtue, 
would rule the polity. Not unbridled, demonic interest; but interest 
withal.
  The more, then, may we note and ought we note the appearance from 
time to time of a political figure singular for disinterestedness and 
for virtue, as the ancients would have understood it, and which is as 
singular today as ever, and immediately recognizable. Such a person is 
Mark Hatfield of Oregon, who would never dream of calling himself the 
conscience of the Senate, although he has been just that for an 
astounding 30 years.
  I state that he would never dream of thinking himself such, much less 
encouraging others to do. For he is singularly of that great Anabaptist 
tradition which condemned government involvement in religion and which 
eventually led to the idea of the separation of church and state. Mark 
Hatfield would fear that conscience might too readily decline into 
dogma. And so, he has spoke but little of such matters. He has merely 
and singularly embodied them.
  He came of age in the Second World War, and served in the U.S. Navy 
from 1943 to 1946. At the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue there is 
carved in granite a wonderful line of John F. Kennedy: ``Any man who 
may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, 
can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, `I served in 
the United States Navy.' '' I would simply say that this would surely 
be the case had he served with the like of Mark Hatfield. A man of deep 
pacific conviction, serving his country in wartime withal.
  He returned to become a professor of political science at his own 
Willamette University. There then began a political science lesson of 
dazzling deftness and direction. First, the Oregon House of 
Representatives. Next, the Oregon State Senate. Secretary of State; 
Governor. Thence to the U.S. Senate.
  There is none of us in this body who does not treasure some aspect of 
his great, transcendent qualities. For my own part, may I record his 
dogged, affectionate, informed interest in the career of Herbert 
Hoover. Woodrow Wilson had two subcabinet members who would go on to 
the Presidency: Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoover was by 
far the more learned and experienced man, but fate was harsh. And it 
was a kind of fate, not so different from that of Wilson himself, as 
Hoover depicted it in a superb account, ``The Ordeal of Woodrow 
Wilson.'' The book, first published in 1958, was reprinted in 1992. 
Naturally, a brilliant introduction was written by Mark Hatfield.
  And so he and his beloved Antoinette return to Oregon and to his 
chair at Willamette University. We must not say we will not see his 
like again. The Constitution does not call for such, but one doubts the 
Republic can be sustained without some such as he. One or two a 
generation: capable of gaining power not for power's sake, but for 
virtue's imperatives. In our time that man has been Mark Hatfield.

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