[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 34 (Monday, March 17, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2341-S2342]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 BIRTHDAY GREETINGS TO SENATOR MOYNIHAN

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this is a most felicitous time. The ides of

[[Page S2342]]

March, so dark with shadows of Caesar's doom some 2,041 years ago, is 
safely past, and that welcome harbinger of the season's turn, the 
vernal equinox, is close at hand. On March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar 
was slain in the Senate of Rome by a group of conspirators led by 
Marcus Junius Brutus. On the following day, March 16, 2,041 years ago, 
Brutus went to the Forum to speak to the people of Rome, but he was 
forced to retire to the Capitol after threats were made against the 
conspirators. On March 17, today, 2,041 years ago, Antony, after 
negotiating with the conspirators, convened the Senate in the temple of 
Tellus. In that meeting, a decree was passed that no inquiry would be 
made into the murder of Caesar, and that all of his enactments and 
dispositions should remain valid for the welfare of the Republic. And 
that is what the Senate of Rome was occupied with on this day.
  But today in 1997, the daffodils are blooming, the grass is greening, 
the crocuses are peeping from the soil, and it is a time to celebrate 
the birth of a new season. On March 16, seven decades ago, 1,971 years 
after Brutus spoke to the people of Rome, one of our most sage and 
respected Senators was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And today, March 17, 
instead of meeting to speak on the death of Caesar, I am here in the 
Senate to honor the life of my colleague from Pindars Corners. Pindar, 
as I am sure my learned friend, the distinguished Senator from New 
York, knows well, was a Greek poet who lived from circa 522 to circa 
438 B.C. Young Daniel Patrick Moynihan soon moved to New York with his 
family, and, after a wartime tour aboard the U.S.S. Quirinus, he, 
Patrick Moynihan, launched his own illustrious academic and public 
service career.
  Now, the U.S.S. Quirinus was named after the Sabine God of War and 
was identified with the deity of Romulus.
  Senator Moynihan brings a wide-ranging background to his duties as 
the senior Senator from New York. He has served in the cabinets of four 
Presidents--Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. He has served as 
ambassador to Indian, and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United 
Nations. He has received 60 honorary degrees from colleges and 
universities--60! His talents have enhanced organizations from the 
National Commission to Reform Social Security to the President's 
Science Advisory Committee.

  As an academic and as a public servant, Senator Moynihan has turned 
his inquisitive and incisive intellect to some of the most pressing and 
enduring problems of our society. His thorough and humane understanding 
of poverty in America and of the Social Security system enlightens and 
informs our discourse. The books that he has published over the years 
on these and other subjects are remarkable for their prescience. I know 
that his statements on the floor are followed closely by Members, 
staff, and the public, and that they never fail to bring into sharp 
focus the difficult core of the current debate. To hearken back to the 
poet Pindar, I note that he observed in his ``Olympian Odes,'' ``Vocal 
to the wise; but for the crowd they need interpreters.'' Senator 
Moynihan is the Senate's interpreter on many of the important issues 
facing the country today.
  And so, Mr. President, as a septuagenarian and one who is soon to 
become an octogenarian, I welcome Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan to 
the club of septuagenarians.
  The Psalmist says, ``The days of our years are threescore years and 
ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their 
strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.''
  The Lord has blessed Senator Moynihan with the gift of having reached 
that seventieth year. I was 10 years old when Pat Moynihan was born in 
Tulsa, Oklahoma, in that year of 1927. That was the year in which 
Charles Lindbergh took off on the morning of May 20, in his plane, The 
Spirit of St. Louis, and flew from New York City to Paris, with five 
sandwiches--he ate half of one. At times, he flew ten feet above the 
water and, at times, 10,000 feet above the water. I remember the 
newspaper headlines speaking of Lindbergh's flight, saying that he flew 
over Newfoundland at the ``great speed'' of 100 miles an hour. And then 
that was the year when, on September 22, Dempsey fought Gene Tunney. 
Jack Dempsey was a former coal miner from Logan County, West Virginia. 
Of course, the coal miners were rooting for Dempsey. And as a boy 10 
years of age, I was rooting for Dempsey, also. My coal miner dad told 
me that we would listen to the fight on the radio, which was that 
marvelous invention that everybody was talking about. That was the 
first radio I ever saw when we gathered in the community recreation 
facility in that coal mining community 70 years ago. I was disappointed 
that evening because Dempsey did not regain the title, nor did I get to 
hear the fight, because there was only one set of earphones. And then a 
few days later, on September 30, Babe Ruth batted his 60th home run and 
exceeded his own record of 59 home runs. It was also in that year that 
Henry Ford brought out his new Model A Ford. Hundreds of thousands of 
people tried to get into Ford headquarters in New York to see it in 
December 1927.
  So, Mr. President, I offer my best wishes to Senator Moynihan on the 
occasion of his birthday. I thank him for all that he has contributed 
to his country and to the Senate. I hope that he and his charming wife 
Liz--and my wife Erma joins me in this--will share his day of 
celebration with their children, knowing that the respect of his fellow 
Senators and his fellow countrymen are theirs. James I said, ``I can 
make a lord, but only God Almighty can make a gentleman.''
  Only God Almighty could make a Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________