[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 141 (Thursday, October 3, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12372-S12373]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           RETIRING SENATORS

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I intended to address the Senate and I 
shall address the Senate with respect to the distinguished Senator from 
Alabama who has joined the ranks of those reclaiming his balance of 
time pursuant to a manner that most befits the desires and the goals of 
the Senator and his lovely wife.
  I did not realize you would be here, Senator. I would not suggest 
that you deviate from whatever you intended to do while I just have a 
few words here about my dear friend, but I envy you in many ways.
  We could always start out with the thought that he brought to the 
Senate and to public service for his Nation and his State a knowledge 
of the law and a respect for the law and an understanding of the law, 
and an understanding that the Congress of the United States has the 
responsibility under the Constitution to enact the law. How many times 
have I heard him say, and others have heard him, that enacting the law 
is our responsibility--not that of the bureaucrats, the vast army of 
bureaucrats--to write the regulations. Tenaciously, he has fought for 
strict adherence of the Constitution in the law of the land and not to 
delegate it to the army of bureaucrats. Yes, I admire him for that, but 
I suppose I admire him because of the tremendous admiration and warmth 
of feeling that other Senators have for him.
  I have enjoyed several trips to remote places of the world in 
connection with military matters, I think, on most occasions, the focal 
point of the trip. Perhaps that focal point was generated by the 
somewhat disproportionate size and stature of this great Senator, but 
more often than not it was because of his display of intellect and 
grasp of the mission on which we were sent to some remote place on 
behalf of the interests of the United States and the Senate.
  I was always interested when he would come to the floor in connection 
with appointments to the Federal judiciary, particularly as it related 
to the Supreme Court of the United States. He, in a very tough, I 
believe, fair, and objective manner, laid out the qualifications or the 
absence of qualifications, in his judgment, and the Senate listened. 
The Senate listened out of profound respect for our colleague. There 
were times when his great sense of humor and his sense of camaraderie 
would give away to a parochial interest.
  I have seen him exhibit such fervor, particularly in the well of the 
Senate, as to alarm other Senators to the point that they would go in 
opposite directions rather than confront him. That happened, Mr. 
President, more often than not on peanuts. No one in the contemporary 
history of the Senate has fought harder for the peanut farmer than the 
distinguished Senator from Alabama. He would seize us by the arm and 
make certain that we had commitments from fellow Senators as related to 
peanuts. I enjoy eating peanuts, but there were times in the intensity 
of that debate that I lost all interest and appetite for peanuts. But 
there he was, and for good reason. The peanut farmers are small. Nobody 
has made a fortune in peanuts; never have and never will, in my 
judgment; that is, the farmer. It represents to him the spirit of 
American agriculture.
  He has served on the Senate Agriculture Committee throughout his 
entire career in the U.S. Senate. He has a great respect for those who 
till the soil and love the land that produces the bountiful harvests 
that we all enjoy, and really accept almost as a matter of right, in 
this country.
  Agriculture is our principal export as it relates to improving the 
balance of trade.
  There sits a Senator like a stone wall to defend the role of the 
American farmer and the agriculture of this great land. There sits a 
Senator like a stone wall to protect the freedoms of people, especially 
those freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.
  We will miss you, my dear friend. And I thank you for the opportunity 
to have spoken a few words from the heart in the deepest of gratitude 
for your friendship and your wisdom that you have so willfully given 
this country during your distinguished career.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. HEFLIN addressed the Chair
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, I am deeply humbled to hear the kind words 
of the distinguished gentleman from Virginia--and he is truly a 
gentleman from Virginia. I appreciate them very deeply.

[[Page S12373]]

  My mind goes back, as I think about our friendship, to the early days 
when we both came to the Senate. On one snowy day in which there were 
24 inches of snow on the ground, the scheduled speaker for the reading 
of George Washington's Farewell Address was Senator John Warner of 
Virginia. In order to be here, he had to walk some 2 miles in the snow 
to get here. I was the Presiding Officer of the Senate on that 
occasion. I got a ride in a jeep and came about a mile. But Senator 
Warner walked all of that way.
  Since that time I have been following in his footsteps. He has trod 
through many minefields, and he has always come out with a great sense 
of feeling for his fellow man and for his State of Virginia.
  So I appreciate very deeply his remarks. I know that he is going to 
have a long career here in the Senate. I hope that when he does leave, 
there will be another Senator who will speak words pertaining to 
agriculture concerning him because he has been a true champion of 
agriculture and a true champion of Virginia peanut farmers, too.
  So I deeply appreciate everything that he said, and I will look 
forward to many days in the future of having some sort of way of having 
a connection with him.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I may slightly revise and correct the 
record of my good friend, the distance was 4 miles. But, more 
importantly, the last one-tenth of a mile I was on the back of a 
tractor. You may recall that the farmers of America had assembled 
between the Capitol and the Washington Monument and were encamped in 
that snow with their tractors here on a protest. As I came along 
Pennsylvania Avenue, one spied me, not knowing I was a Senator but in 
the true spirit of an American farmer just extended a hand to help, and 
he put me on the back of the tractor and drove me up the Hill. I 
arrived in front of the Capitol of the United States on the back of a 
farm tractor to walk into a Chamber, Mr. President, that was totally 
empty. No one came from afar except my dear friend from Alabama to hear 
me deliver George Washington's Farewell Address.

  I thank the distinguished Senator for commenting on my career, which 
I fervently hope is not a farewell address.
  I yield the floor, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. 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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