[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 68 (Monday, June 1, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5490-S5492]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S5490]]
                   TRIBUTE TO SENATOR BARRY GOLDWATER

  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise to speak a word or two about 
Senator Barry Goldwater. Senator Goldwater was a man of integrity, 
ability, and dedication. When he announced he was going to run for 
President, I changed parties that year because I wanted to support this 
particular man on account of the high principles for which he stood. I 
did support him. Whether he had a chance to be elected or not, I wanted 
to have a part in supporting a man who stood for values, who stood for 
America, and who stood for the good things of life.
  Senator Goldwater served here for about 30 years. I enjoyed serving 
with him. On account of that opportunity to serve with him--I knew a 
good man when I saw one--that is the reason that I supported him for 
President. He carried my State, and he carried about five or six other 
States. I was sorry he was not elected. He would have made a great 
President of the United States.
  I extend my deepest sympathy to his family in this time of grieving.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Arizona is 
recognized.
  Mr. KYL. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I appreciate those remarks of the Senator from South Carolina who, of 
course, served with Senator Goldwater probably longer than anybody else 
in this body.
  Senator Goldwater first came to the Senate in 1952 and completed his 
service in the U.S. Senate in 1987. And, of course, we recall the time-
out when he ran for President of the United States. But the first thing 
about his service to this country, obviously, for us to note is his 
service as a U.S. Senator, serving right here on this floor.
  Mr. President, I would like to talk about Senator Goldwater for just 
a few minutes this morning but focus on a couple of other aspects of 
his life.
  It is clear that for many of us, particularly my generation, he was 
an inspiration for us to become involved in politics and to approach it 
from what he called a ``commonsense conservative point of view.''
  I remember in 1960 meeting him when I was a student at the University 
of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. He cared a lot about young people and was 
always willing to come to the university and talk to us.
  I had read the ``Conscience of a Conservative'' and was greatly 
impressed with its commonsense approach to politics at the time. 
Everywhere I have gone over the years--and when I have been with 
Senator Goldwater--I have been impressed with the fact that people from 
all over the country would come up to him and say, ``Senator Goldwater, 
you're the reason I got involved in politics. Yours was the first 
campaign that I ever got involved in'' or ``It was your election that 
was the first time I voted.''
  He inspired Americans all over the country to become more involved in 
politics and, as I said, to approach politics from his commonsense 
conservative point of view.
  For the United States as a whole, I think our history will reflect 
the fact that Senator Goldwater was one of the three people who really 
began the modern conservative movement in this country. I think he was 
the first, along with Bill Buckley, providing a lot of the intellectual 
stimulus for the conservative movement through his publication, the 
National Review. And, of course, Senator Goldwater paved the way later 
for Ronald Reagan to become elected by the American people and to serve 
two terms with the tremendous conservative mandate of the American 
people.
  I think it is generally acknowledged that without Senator Goldwater's 
activity here in the U.S. Senate, and also in his activities as a 
Presidential candidate in 1964, that the ascendancy of the Ronald 
Reagan candidacy and his election by the American people would not have 
occurred.
  So as a result, I think those of us here in the Senate reflect not 
only on his service here in the Senate as chairman of the Armed 
Services Committee, his service and very strong support for a strong 
national defense for the United States, but also for being part of the 
beginning of the conservative movement in this country. I find it 
interesting that today most people call themselves conservatives in the 
same way that Barry Goldwater did all the way back in 1958, 1960, when 
he first came here.

  Let me talk just a little bit about Senator Goldwater in a different 
sense, not in the sense of a Senator in this body, not in the sense of 
a creator of the modern conservative movement in this country, but 
rather as the individual, because in Arizona a lot of people know Barry 
Goldwater a little bit differently, a lot of people whom no one else 
knows. They are not the big important people of the world, they are 
people who grew up with Senator Goldwater. They are Navajo Indians whom 
he got to know when he helped to run his family's trading post on the 
Navajo Indian reservation. They are people all over the State with whom 
he visited when he traveled the State, hiked it, and photographed it. 
There are veterans he visited with, people in the military all over the 
country, but particularly in Arizona, with whom he was very closely 
associated. These are the people Barry Goldwater would reminisce with 
me about when I went to his home and visited with him, long after his 
Government service came to an end.
  In fact, when I went to his house to visit with him, I expected him 
to talk about Senate business and get advice from him about what we 
should be doing here. He didn't want to talk about that. He wanted to 
reminisce about people he had known way back when--the people who 
really mattered to him most. They weren't kings, they weren't 
presidents, and they weren't Senators; they were regular folks from 
whom he took a great deal of learning.
  If you read ``Conscience of a Conservative'' again, and even if you 
review the speech that he gave when he accepted the party's nomination 
in 1964 to run for President, you will see throughout a strong 
reference to the economic sense of people and the nature of people. He 
talked, in ``Conscience of a Conservative,'' about the inherent nature 
of people, and he criticized some of his liberal friends for wanting to 
remake people in their image, basically, through Government action. His 
point was, look, people are the way God made them, for better or for 
worse; we should recognize that human nature and formulate Government 
policies to help permit people to live as they would as human beings, 
without trying to have Government make them into a particular type of 
person or to direct their activities in a particular way. That is why 
he became known as the great friend of freedom.
  He was a person who did not believe Government should tell people 
what to do or even shouldn't tell people a great deal, because it would 
prevent them from helping to learn themselves. He understood human 
nature. How did he come to that understanding? Part of it is because he 
really liked people and he liked to be with people. He learned from 
them what it was that was the essence of the character of man.
  I think a lot of that began, as I said, when he was living on the 
Navajo Indian reservation, tending to his family's trading post. The 
photographs he has taken, particularly in his early life, frequently 
are commented upon as remarkable for capturing something very special, 
some inner quality of the people he photographed. A lot of the people 
he photographed were on the Navajo Indian reservation and the Hopi 
Indian reservation. I have one of his photographs hanging in my office 
of a young Navajo girl. There is something very, very special about 
that. Every one of the photographs that he took of the people, you 
almost feel that you know that person, that it is a very special 
person. There is sort of an inner quality that comes out in his 
photographs.

  How did he do that? He didn't have the greatest camera equipment at 
the time, although he has always been a fine photographer. He was 
somehow able to capture the essence of people through his photography. 
I think part of it is because he got to know the people and he would 
talk to them and ask them very nicely if they would mind being 
photographed. He was able, therefore, to capture that essence of 
humanity that I think most of us miss. We are all too busy, too busy 
with the big important things in life.
  Barry Goldwater focused a lot on the little things in life, which is 
another reason he was such a great photographer of Arizona landscape. 
He found

[[Page S5491]]

beauty in places that many of us would have passed over because we were 
in a hurry. Now we reflect on those photographs and think, how could 
anyone have captured that the way he did? Some of which, incidentally, 
Mr. President, are very valuable because they show, for example, trips 
down the Grand Canyon in areas that are now dammed up and we will never 
see them the way he saw them and the way the photographs captured them.
  My point here is that in recent years when I visited with Senator 
Goldwater, I learned a lot more from him about people than I did about 
political philosophy and what we should be doing with these great 
momentous decisions here that we debate on the Senate floor. In this 
respect, Senator Goldwater was a lot like my own father, who also had 
the privilege of serving in the U.S. Congress, representing the State 
of Iowa. He, too, is a great photographer. And he, too, sees that 
something special in people and in places that he has been able to 
photograph. He, too, thinks a great deal about individual people and 
what they meant. And he, too, likes to reminisce about people in his 
earlier years.
  I suppose that happens to all of us when we get a little bit older, 
but part of it is because not only do we remember those people, but we 
reflect, now, upon an entire life and we understand what is important 
and what isn't. We understand that part of what is really important 
about life is the people we got to know and what we have learned from 
them. I learned a great deal from my father, just as I have from 
Senator Goldwater, about human nature. I think that knowledge is better 
for us as public servants than any other schooling we could get or any 
other studying we could do.
  In reflecting on Senator Goldwater's life after he passed away on 
Friday, it just occurred to me that the things I want to share about 
him are these reflections about the individuals he knew and what he 
learned from them, something that probably will not be greatly 
commented upon by others who will reflect upon his service here in the 
Senate, his strong support for national defense, his creation of the 
modern conservative movement--as I said, his leading of that movement 
through much of the period of the 1960s. All of that was very, very 
important. That is why he will go down in the history books as a great 
American leader, as a great American patriot.
  But as I said, he was also, to me, a teacher. One of the reasons for 
his greatness was the fact that he understood the importance of the 
little things in life, the little things that create beauty, the little 
things that make us all what we are. I think if more people understood 
that human nature as Senator Goldwater did, because he experienced it 
so much in his early life, that all of us in this body and in the other 
body would be much better representatives of the people for whom we 
work, because we would better understand their desires, their hopes, 
their needs, and perhaps would better be able to reflect those hopes, 
needs, and desires in the kind of policy that we help to set here in 
Washington, DC.

  A final point in closing, Mr. President. Senator Goldwater, of 
course, was very blunt and outspoken. I think a little bit of that 
would go a long way these days, too--to say what we really think, 
irrespective of the political consequences. Now, some have said he 
could afford to do that because in 1964 he was running a race that he 
couldn't win and so he had the luxury, in effect, of just saying what 
was on his mind. If you know Barry Goldwater, he didn't just limit it 
to the 1964 campaign; he said what was on his mind, regardless of the 
circumstances, when he was beginning in politics and all the way 
through to the day he died.
  All of us, I think, could benefit by trying to be a little bit more 
candid in how we express ourselves. He and Ronald Reagan, I think, 
found the same thing. When you do that, it is surprising how 
appreciative people are and how politically popular, sometimes, you can 
be by simply saying what is on your mind. People understand when you 
are politicking versus when you are talking from the heart. It is not 
hard for people to see through what most of us say. That is why a lot 
of politicians do not have very good reputations. I think if more of us 
reflected on the way Barry Goldwater did it, we would find it is not 
only a more candid approach but it also can have very good benefits for 
people to see that all of us are willing to express ourselves in a very 
candid and a very open way.
  So he has taught us a great deal. I think as people put the parts of 
his life together, it all fits together in a mosaic that created a 
unique individual. We will find additional lessons to take from his 
long and very productive life. I am looking forward, Mr. President, to 
visiting with other Members of this body to learn of their experiences 
with Senator Goldwater, because of course I didn't have the opportunity 
to serve with him.
  In the time that he was here, Senator Goldwater, I think, represented 
Arizona in a way that permitted those of us in Arizona to refer to him 
as Mr. Arizona, a person who reflected really a great deal about our 
own State. Mr. President, it is from that standpoint that I approach, 
not with a great deal of sadness, but rather with some degree of 
celebration, the fact that he was able to serve in this body so long, 
to represent the State of Arizona for so long, to be really reflective 
of our State, and he will go down in the history books not as a great 
national and international figure, but probably as the most important 
and famous Arizonan, at least in my lifetime, and someone who I think 
all of us in Arizona were proud to have as a representative of our 
State.

  I am looking forward to joining many of my colleagues Wednesday in 
Phoenix at his funeral which, as his wife told me, will be more of a 
celebration of his life and of all of the things that he did, both for 
his State and for this country. I am sure we will hear a lot of stories 
and do a lot of laughing about Barry--and a lot of crying about the 
fact that he is gone. But the fact of the matter is that we have an 
opportunity to reflect on an individual who we have loved very much, 
and we want to make the most of that opportunity.
  Mr. President, I wanted to come here this morning to give a few 
reflections, not in the usual vein of his political accomplishments and 
what he did as a Senator, but more what I saw in him, especially in his 
later years, as an individual who just wanted to be remembered as an 
honest man.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I gather that my colleague, Senator 
Kyl, has taken some time to speak about Senator Goldwater.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I only heard about his remarks. Let me thank my 
colleague from Arizona for coming to the floor to speak. I am sure we 
will hear from Senator McCain as well, if we haven't already.
  As a Senator, I suppose, on the other side of the ideological 
continuum--if that is, in fact, even relevant; sometimes I don't think 
it is. I don't think politics has that much to do with left to right to 
center; I think it has more to do with trying to do well for people, 
and we have all reached different conclusions about how to do that. But 
it is about public service. I just want to say to the Goldwater family 
that I think Barry Goldwater really set a standard, especially when it 
comes to personal integrity and intellectual integrity and political 
integrity. And I think people in our country really yearn for that. His 
outspokenness, and especially his courage, and especially in recent 
years his willingness to speak out, even after no longer being in 
office, to continue to serve our country I think really is inspiring 
for all of us.
  I wish to add my words to the really fine words of the Senator from 
Arizona.
  (The remarks of Mr. Wellstone pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 
238 are located in today's Record under ``Submission of Concurrent and 
Senate Resolutions.'')
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S5492]]

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 
minutes as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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