[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 18 (Monday, March 2, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1183-S1184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO ABRAHAM RIBICOFF

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, as I grow older I am obliged to bid farewell 
to some friend almost every day, and thus does the circle gradually and 
all too rapidly diminish. That great New England poet James Russell 
Lowell said it well:

     As life runs on,
     The road grows strange
     With faces new,
     And near the end
     The milestones into headstones change,
     `Neath everyone a friend

  Mr. President, it is with sadness that I take the Floor today to pay 
tribute to the memory of a departed former colleague, Abraham Alexander 
Ribicoff, with whom I served from January 3, 1963, to January 3, 1981. 
Senator Ribicoff was a man of many talents. And he was a man who had 
been honored by the people of his State and country many times and in 
many ways. After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School 
in 1933, he was admitted to the bar the same year. He became a hearing 
examiner, under the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act in 1937, 
and he became a member of the Connecticut legislature in 1938, a judge 
of the Hartford Police Court in 1941, Chairman of the Assembly of 
Municipal Court Judges for the State of Connecticut in 1941, and he was 
elected to the 81st and 82nd Congresses, a service which extended from 
January 3, 1949 to January 3, 1953. He was Governor of Connecticut 
during the years 1955-1961, and he was sworn in as Secretary of the 
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the cabinet of the late 
President John Kennedy.
  Abraham Ribicoff was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962, reelected in 
1968 and again in 1974, and served until January 3, 1981, not being a 
candidate for reelection in 1980. During this period of Senator 
Ribicoff's service in the Senate, I served in the Senate leadership as 
Secretary to the Democratic Conference, Democratic Whip, and Senate 
Majority Leader, during which time Abe Ribicoff was my close friend and 
valued advisor.
  Abraham Ribicoff was a man of high character, great character, 
sterling integrity, excellent judgment, with an unusual sense of 
history and with excellent political instincts, and with uncommon 
ability.
  His advice was widely sought by other Senators, and it was always 
kindly given. He was a popular Senator, and could easily have won 
reelection to a fourth Senate term. His career of public service 
spanned 42 years.
  Abe Ribicoff had a very rare sense of timing and political judgement. 
He was among the first to endorse Senator John F. Kennedy for 
President. He nominated John F. Kennedy for Vice President in 1956, and 
was his convention Floor Manager for the, now legendary, successful 
presidential nomination in 1960.
  Abe Ribicoff had the air and dignity of a Senator in a classic sense. 
He always dressed impeccably, he possessed faultless manners, and he 
was a gentleman in every sense of the word. Yet, he spoke forcefully, 
and he was unafraid of advocating politically difficult positions--
unafraid. He was among the first to break with the strong-armed tactics 
of certain Israeli lobby groups, and he willingly paid a political 
price for his courage. In 1978, he conducted the first major Senate 
investigation, and produced the first Senate report on the difficult 
problem of global warming. His report on the subject could well have 
been written today, some 20 years later, when global warming has now 
become fashionable as an issue. He was also an expert on international 
trade.
  I have spoken of his service during the time I was Majority Leader. 
He was then the Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, 
as well as second ranking Democrat under Senator Russell Long on the 
Finance Committee. I relied heavily on Abe Ribicoff's advice on a broad 
range of issues, from the creation of the cabinet level Department of 
Education to the fashioning of major energy legislation during the 
energy crisis of the late 1970's.
  Abe Ribicoff was a persuasive speaker, and always gave as well as he 
got in Senate debates, during the days when the Senate really did 
debate issues. Yet, his strength was as much in his ability to sense 
the appropriate compromise, and he knew how to build consensus, and to 
craft sound solutions to

[[Page S1184]]

highly contentious issues in Committee and on the Senate Floor.
  His passing, at a ripe old age, is another chapter, rounding out a 
history of remarkable men who have graced this chamber, and who have 
made their individual marks on the minds and memories and hearts of 
their colleagues and they have done it on the basis of their character, 
their instincts, and their talents. Senators would do well to read the 
story of Abraham Ribicoff's life. He came from humble beginnings and he 
made a success from his own resources, his own grit, and his own 
instincts. His life was one which can be used as a model by others on 
both sides of the aisle. He stood his ground when it really counted, 
and consequently he claimed the high road in his political life. I have 
missed Abe Ribicoff's counsel since his retirement, and I wish he had 
remained longer in this body. I wish he were here today.
  Abe Ribicoff waged many political battles in life. The battle with 
death he finally lost, as we must all finally succumb to the onslaught 
of that grim and unrelenting enemy: death. But though that grim reaper 
may lay claim to ending the battle of this life, the claim of victory 
has always and will always elude death, even though it stalks each of 
our lives from the cradle to the grave. How sweet the words of thy 
great Apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians:

     O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

  Mr. President, man was not created an animal, as we are taught in our 
universities and our high schools. Man was not created an animal, but 
as a living soul within which there is embedded a spark of the 
Divinity, a nexus with the Creator. It is that spark that lives on, a 
soul that an animal does not have, a soul that goes back, when one 
departs this earthly life, to the presence of his Maker. And we all 
have that journey to travel. Great Grecian and Roman philosophers, by 
pure reason and logic, arrived at the conclusion that there is indeed a 
creating, directing, and controlling Divine power, and an immortality 
of the soul. Throughout the ages, all races and all peoples have 
instinctively so believed. It is the basis of all religions, be they 
heathen, Mohammedan, Hebrew, or Christian. It is believed by savage 
tribes and by semicivilized and civilized nations, by those who believe 
in many gods and by those who believe in the one God. Atheists are and 
always have been few in number. But beyond all credulity is the 
credulousness of atheists, who believe that chance can make the world, 
when it cannot build a house!
  So, Mr. President, as Longfellow said:

     There is no death! What seems so is transition;
     This life of mortal breath
     Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
     whose portal we call death.

  Mr. President, we have heard the story of an old king in the Middle 
Ages who had his barons at a great banquet. They were quaffing their 
bumpers of ale. It was a bitter night outside. The storm raged. The 
snow was falling furiously. Suddenly, into the rude chamber in which 
they were gathered there flew through some crack or crevice in the roof 
a little bird. Blinded by the light and perplexed, it flew wildly here 
and there and beat itself against the rude beams. Finally, it found 
another crevice and out it went into the night again. The old king, 
advanced in years, spoke to his barons and said:

       That bird is like a life; it comes from out of the night, 
     it flits and flies around a little while, blinded by the 
     light, and then it goes back out into the night again.

  So, Mr. President, my friend Abraham Ribicoff has gone to what Hamlet 
said was ``the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler 
returns,'' but I have no doubt that the Creator, who stoops to give to 
the rose bush whose withered blossoms float upon the autumn breeze the 
sweet assurance of another springtime, has received into His bosom a 
man who was my friend, who loved his country, and who loved his fellow 
man--rich and poor, high and low, who neither looked up to the rich nor 
down on the poor--Abraham Alexander Ribicoff.
  To his dear wife Casey, a graceful, charming, and noble woman, my 
wife, Erma, and I extend our sympathy and our love.

     Let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,
     Bright dreams of the past that she cannot destroy,
     That come in the night-time of sorrow and care,
     And bring back the features that joy used to wear.

     Long, long be my heart with such memories filled,
     Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled,
     You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
     But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
  I yield the floor and 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. LOTT. 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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