[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12594-S12596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RETIREMENT OF SENATOR DALE BUMPERS

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, in these last few days of the 105th 
Congress, when I come to the floor, I often look wistfully to the aisle 
just to my left here, where Dale Bumpers has trod up and down yanking 
the microphone cord and dispensing wisdom for just about twenty-four 
years now. The other day he gave his last speech here, and it was 
brilliant--an eloquent and moving reminder of the best purposes of 
politics. But now I want to look back and pay tribute to my friend Dale 
Bumpers for what he has done and what he has been for me, for the 
Senate, for his beloved Arkansas and for our country.
  Dale Bumpers was born in Charleston, Arkansas in 1925, and it's from 
that little town he first drew the values he has eloquently proclaimed 
on this floor for two and a half decades. In a small town in western 
Arkansas during the Depression, young Dale Bumpers learned about human 
suffering and deprivation, learned to believe that it could be defeated 
and came to understand, on his father's knee, that the government could 
be a force for good in that struggle. He saw typhoid in his hometown 
and saw a New Deal program put an end to it. He saw rural 
electrification light the countryside, projects that made the water 
cleaner, the roads safer, he saw the WPA and he saw the tenacity, and 
the ingenuity and the sense of community of the American people. One 
day as a boy he went to the nearby town of Booneville and saw Franklin 
Roosevelt himself, and he heard his father tell him that politics is an 
honorable profession--he took all that to heart and we are all the 
richer for it. He sometimes says, as his father did, ``When we die, 
we're going to Franklin Roosevelt.''
  In 1943, Dale Bumpers joined the Marines. He shipped out to the 
Pacific and he expected to be a part of the invasion force that would 
hit the beaches of Japan. He did not expect to survive it. The invasion 
never came, but that experience made a profound impression on him. When 
I hear him speak about the Constitution, our Founding Fathers and the 
flag on this floor it is plain how that wartime experience helped him 
comprehend the true stakes of the constitutional debate, how it 
informed his notions of patriotism and his sense of what America means. 
When he returned from the service he got a first-rate education at the 
University of Arkansas and Northwestern University Law School, all paid 
for, he is quick to point out, by Uncle Sam under the GI bill. He has 
been returning the favor to the American people ever since.
  Dale Bumpers started his career as a country lawyer in Charleston, a 
very successful one by all reports, and he got a reputation around 
Arkansas, even if he was, as he says, ``the entire membership of the 
South Franklin County Bar Association.'' As time went by, his practice 
grew, he took over his father's hardware store, he taught Sunday School 
and sang in the church choir and he and his wonderful wife Betty 
started a family. But he wasn't feeling complacent.

[[Page S12595]]

  There are a lot of great Dale Bumpers stories many people don't know. 
In the days following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, tension 
was building in the South as school integration looked more and more 
inevitable. By 1957, we had the Little Rock Crisis, but there was one 
town in Arkansas that had already integrated by then, without any great 
trouble. It was the first in Arkansas, maybe the first in the entire 
south. It was Charleston, Arkansas, where Dale Bumpers was a young 
lawyer, representing the school board. He saw what was coming and he 
knew what was right. He did a little research and he found out how much 
the district was spending to bus its black students to Fort Smith. He 
made his case to the school board about the right course, working those 
numbers into the argument. The board then voted to do what he had 
advised them to do--integrate the schools. It was not long after that 
he helped to integrate his church--the pastor of the local black 
Methodist church approached the all white congregation of his Methodist 
church, seeking help to repair a leaky roof. Why spend all that money 
and have two churches, why not just join our two churches together, 
said Dale Bumpers, and it was done. Those are two quiet little pieces 
of history that tell us plenty about the principles and the persuasive 
powers of Dale Bumpers.
  Well, after a while, school board politics were getting to him, so 
Dale decided he would like to be the Governor of Arkansas. So off he 
went, eighth out of eight in the early primary polls, to do battle with 
Orval Faubus and other established politicians. His critics said he had 
``nothing but a smile and a shoeshine.'' But then the people of 
Arkansas heard what he had to say. He beat everybody but Faubus in the 
primary, beat Faubus in the runoff and then he beat Winthrop 
Rockefeller. Arkansas had never seen a governor like Dale Bumpers. He 
reformed everything from education to heath care and gained the lasting 
affection of the people while doing it.
  After four years as Governor, he decided he wanted to go to the 
Senate. All that stood in his way was J. William Fulbright, an 
institution in his own right. But Bumpers won, and he came to the 
Senate. As we have seen, this chamber is the place where he always 
belonged.
  When I came to the Senate, I had heard of Senator Bumpers' 
intelligence, his quick wit, his impatience with wasteful spending, his 
vigorous defense of the environment and his role as a relentless 
guardian of our Constitution. When it comes to amending the 
Constitution. Dale Bumpers always says, ``I'm a founding member of the 
`Wait Just a Minute' club.'' That is a great line, but it tells of a 
Senator who has risked defeat, has felt real contempt from those who 
disagree, all because he would not stand for the political use of the 
Constitution. He gave a great speech once called ``The Trivialization 
of the Constitution'' in which he made the case that we must never 
casually fiddle with our Constitution for political gain or to deal 
with transitory policy issues. His work to defend the Constitution and 
inject sobriety into the constitutional debate, all by itself, 
qualifies him as a great patriot and senator. Let the record reflect 
that I too am a member of the ``Wait Just a Minute'' club.
  Dale Bumpers' leadership in cutting wasteful spending and his fiscal 
foresight are unsurpassed. In 1981, when Ronald Reagan was calling the 
shots in the budget debate, Dale Bumpers was one of only three Senators 
to oppose Reagan's tax cuts and support the spending cuts. If their 
position had prevailed, the budget would have been balanced in 1984. 
That was fourteen years ago. Now there's a fiscal role model.
  Senator Bumpers went after what we now call ``corporate welfare'' 
years before the term was coined, and years before others were willing 
to focus on the problem of government waste. From the international 
space station to the 1872 Mining Law, Senator Bumpers has been resolute 
in his pursuit of excesses in the federal budget. He has gone after 
sacred cows and hidden pork, and faced strong opposition from both 
sides of the aisle. But he has continued his work, tirelessly and often 
thanklessly, because he knows he is doing what is right for the 
American people. I have often felt great pride standing with Dale 
Bumpers on an amendment, even when we knew we would lose, because when 
he made a stand, his allies knew they were doing the right thing.
  His campaign against government waste is matched only by his efforts 
to protect the environment as Chairman and Ranking Member of the Energy 
and Natural Resources Committee. Senator Bumpers has been an 
outstanding leader on the committee, and has exhibited a conservation 
ethic unparalleled in the U.S. Senate. Dale Bumpers was the first 
Senator to sound the alarm about the ozone layer and the danger of 
ozone-depleting gases, long before most of us had ever heard of them. 
And he always remembered his father's hardware store--there never was a 
more relentless defender of small business in the Senate.
  I have been honored to work with him on a number of conservation 
efforts, including public land reform and nuclear energy issues, and I 
know the Senate will miss his leadership in that area. His work to 
reform the 1872 mining law is the issue where his environmental 
stewardship and his determination to cut wasteful spending have gone 
hand-in-hand. I have been proud to join him in this fight, because it's 
a crucially important one, an ``outrage,'' as he calls it, that 
wouldn't be under scrutiny today if it weren't for the work of Senator 
Bumpers. And I am confident, Senator Bumpers, that your view will 
prevail on the mining law soon enough, because you are right and 
everybody knows you're right.
  Everybody thinks of Dale Bumpers first and foremost as an orator, a 
story teller, a raconteur and a dispenser of folk wisdom. He is common 
sense with a silver tongue and a sense of history. So let me finish my 
remarks with a tribute to his oratorical style. Dale Bumpers often 
decried the idea that we could eliminate the deficit by cutting taxes 
and raising spending, he said ``That reminds me of the combination 
taxidermist/veterinarian in my hometown. His slogan was `Either way you 
get your dog back.' '' When he saw a flaw in his opponent's argument he 
jumped on it like a duck on a junebug. He might declare. ``His argument 
is as thin as spit on a rock!'' Why is he such a masterful debater? 
Because he can explain the complex in a simple way, and expose the 
truth in uncomplicated language, without demagoguery or distortion. As 
he would say, ``You gotta throw the corn where the hogs can get at 
it.'' He hated deficit spending, and when he saw a budget full of red 
ink, he said, ``Well, you pass that and you'll create deficits big 
enough to choke a mule. That's just eating the seed corn!''
  Being in this body, and having the honor of serving with Dale 
Bumpers, has given me an invaluable chance to get to know a remarkable 
man, and to understand what his legacy in this body will mean for 
generations to come. The greatest thing he has taught me is not to fear 
the tough votes. Time and again, from the Panama Canal to the flag 
amendment, he has cast the hard votes. Time and again, he has gone home 
to Arkansas and made his case, explaining his votes to the people. He 
didn't always persuade them all, but he convinced them that his were 
votes of principle--and the poeple's confidence in his integrity has 
sustained him in the affection of even those Arkansans who disagreed.
  Dale Bumpers has plenty to be proud of, but he has always remembered 
who he is and where he came from. He mixed it up with the best of them 
during debate, but never with rancor. He is quick to point out the work 
of other Senators and his staff when things are accomplished. The other 
day he stood on this floor and thanked his grade school teacher, Miss 
Doll, for encouraging him more than sixty years ago! He never fails to 
credit all his success to his remarkable wife Betty, who has achieved 
so much in promoting peace and the health of children. He speaks always 
of his family as the wellspring of his values and the source of his 
priorities.
  So now he leaves the Senate having enriched this country and this 
institution in a thousand ways. His wisdom and courage and his 
persistent voice will echo long into the future. To every member of the 
Senate, on both sides of the aisle, Dale Bumpers is an admired friend 
and colleague. To those of us who share his principles and have learned 
from his leadership, he is nothing less than a hero. He is one of the

[[Page S12596]]

great ones--and you don't need to be all broke out in brilliance to 
know that. Thank you Dale Bumpers and good luck! I yield the floor.

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