[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 129 (Thursday, September 24, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1802-E1803]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO MURIEL HUMPHREY BROWN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES L. OBERSTAR

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 24, 1998

  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Muriel 
Humphrey Brown, the first woman from the State of Minnesota to serve in 
the U.S. Senate. On Sunday, Muriel died at the age of 86 in Minnesota.
  Born Muriel Fay Buck in 1912 in Huron, South Dakota, she overcame her 
natural shyness to play a vital role in one of the most revered 
political families in American history. Muriel met Hubert H. Humphrey, 
Jr. in 1934 when he was working in the family drugstore and she was a 
bookkeeper. They married two years later.
  Muriel, whom Hubert always affectionately called ``Bucky,'' was the 
very essence of calm, grace and warmth in the intensity with which 
Hubert pursued elective office and public policy issues. She was 
constantly at his side in his public life, even while performing the 
equally challenging task of seeing to the day-to-day nurturing of their 
four children. Muriel was the ever-present picture of grace and 
radiance while Hubert served as Mayor of Minneapolis in 1945, U.S. 
Senator from Minnesota from 1949-64 and from 1971-78, and Vice 
President of the United States from 1965-69, and during his campaign 
for the Presidency of the United States in 1968.
  When Hubert Humphrey lost his courageous battle with cancer in 1978, 
Governor Rudy Perpich wisely and thoughtfully appointed Muriel to 
fulfill her husband's term in the U.S. Senate. She was the only woman 
in the U.S. Senate at the time, and only the twelfth woman ever to 
serve in the Senate. ``It's the most challenging thing I've ever done 
in my whole life,'' she said later. Muriel chose not to seek election 
in the fall of 1978.
  While Hubert was constantly in the spotlight, those who followed his 
career knew that Muriel was his lifelong partner and source of inner-
strength, and that they made an enviable team. Muriel took up many of 
the causes championed by her husband: social programs and labor issues 
were particularly important to her. She brought together people with 
diverse and often contentious positions through her dedication, hard 
work, and diplomacy. Together, Muriel and Hubert made America a better 
place in which to live, work and raise a family.

[[Page E1803]]

  Recently, I heard a story that former President Jimmy Carter told 
about Muriel that epitomizes her inherent sense of fairness and 
decency.

       In 1964, when he [Hubert] became the vice-presidential 
     candidate, in Georgia, it wasn't a very popular thing to be 
     for the Johnson-Humphrey slate. . . . In that campaign, 
     Hubert and Muriel came down to south Georgia to Moultrie for 
     a Democratic rally. And because of my mother's loyalty, she 
     was given the honor of picking up Muriel at the airport. And 
     Rosalynn and my mother and Muriel and my sister Gloria went 
     down to Moultrie to attend the rally. Senator Humphrey made a 
     speech, and they had a women's reception for Muriel. And they 
     were riding around that south Georgia town getting ready for 
     the reception. Everybody in town was very excited. And as 
     Muriel approached the site, she said, ``Are any black women 
     invited to the reception?''
       For a long time no one spoke, and finally my sister said, 
     ``I don't know.'' She knew quite well that they weren't. And 
     Muriel said, ``I'm not going in.'' So, they stopped the car, 
     and my sister Gloria went inside to check and let the hostess 
     know that Muriel was not coming to the reception. But in a 
     few minutes, Gloria came back and said, ``Mrs. Humphrey, it's 
     okay.'' So, she went in and, sure enough, there were several 
     black ladies there at the reception. And Muriel never knew 
     until now that the maids just took off their aprons for the 
     occasion. But that was the first integrated reception in 
     south Georgia, Muriel, and you are responsible for it. 
     (Former President Jimmy Carter at a Washington, D.C. 
     fundraiser in December 1977 to benefit the Hubert Humphrey 
     Institute located at the University of Minnesota.)

  A year after Hubert Humphrey died, Muriel married Max Brown, a 
lifelong Republican whom she met when the two were sixth-graders in 
South Dakota. She and Max enjoyed many years of well-deserved 
retirement together out of the storm of public policy controversies, 
and tended to the personal joys of their very close, warm family 
circle.
  Hubert H. Humphrey III, known affectionately as ``Skip,'' continued 
the family tradition of public service, winning election to the 
Minnesota State Senate, and then as Minnesota's Attorney General. When 
he won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nomination for governor in the 
Minnesota primary election earlier this month, Muriel was at Skip's 
side. ``Hubert would have been proud,'' she said after her son's 
victory.
  I offer my heartfelt sympathy to Muriel's husband, her sons Bob, 
Douglas, and Skip, and her daughter Nancy Solomonson, for their loss. I 
hope, in their grief, they know that their wife and mother made a 
profound difference to the State of Minnesota and to a grateful nation. 
Her love of family, warmth in outreach to others, and tireless teaching 
by example of the very best in family values will be her everlasting 
legacy to future generations. It is a privilege to offer my colleagues 
this brief, but deserved tribute to Muriel Humphrey Brown, who gave so 
much of herself to enrich the lives of others.

                          ____________________