[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 26, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13144-S13146]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN HONOR OF SENATOR JOHN CHAFEE

  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, I want to say a word about my friend and 
colleague, Senator Chafee. Having had the honor and privilege of being 
his friend for the 10 months I have been here, the thing that struck me 
most about Senator Chafee was his kind and gentle nature. It was the 
sort of thing I am afraid we need more of in government in general and 
particularly in this body. He was a thoughtful leader who showed 
exactly the kind of leadership we desperately need in our country 
today. He was also a thoughtful, nonpartisan voice on issues that were 
not partisan, issues we ought to be able to work together on, issues 
that are good for America.
  It is an extraordinary loss for me personally to lose Senator Chafee. 
He was someone I looked up to and admired in my brief time here. I 
don't know anyone here who did not love and adore him. I can certainly 
add my voice to those who will miss him dearly.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon for just a few 
moments to add my voice to the chorus of leaders in the Senate, in 
Congress, and throughout the Nation who have expressed in the last 2 
days their admiration and respect for our colleague, Senator John 
Chafee of Rhode Island.
  Upon coming to this Chamber almost 3 years ago, one of the first 
things I did was to try to search out role models who put principle 
ahead of politics, who held people more important than political 
parties. John Chafee was such a role model.
  As has been mentioned many times on this floor, as a young marine who 
battled at Guadalcanal, to the Rhode Island Statehouse as Governor, to 
the floor of this Chamber, John Chafee answered the call of his 
country. While he was never afraid to fight for his country or for his 
principles, as we all know, he knew that common ground provided a 
better place to find solutions than the battleground. That is one of 
his most outstanding legacies to this body, to his State, and to our 
Nation.
  Throughout his public career, John Chafee was a tireless fighter for 
America's children and their families. He correctly perceived that the 
future of our country would be dictated by how we treated and nurtured 
our children and set about to create laws, policies, initiatives, and 
programs which prepared them for the future.
  We were all privileged to work with him on many issues. I was, 
indeed, privileged to work with him on a particular issue of which he 
was so proud: The Adoption and Safe Families Act. I spoke on the floor 
about this act, of which he was a tireless advocate and leader, just a 
few weeks ago and said in its first year 37,000 children had been moved 
from foster care to a place of limbo, to a place where they were not 
certain anyone wanted them, to families of their own. That was a 32-
percent increase over the previous year. John Chafee had a great deal 
to do with making that happen.
  As leaders retire or pass on, as in this case, through our meager 
ways we try to construct buildings, highways, and bridges and name them 
in their honor. I am sure Senator Chafee will have the prerequisite 
number of bridges or buildings or statues in his honor. I think knowing 
him the way I did, the way we all did, the legacy of which he will be 
most proud is that he spent an entire career building up families, 
building up children, building up people. There will be millions of 
families built stronger and nurtured and provided for because of the 
great work he did, not only on the floor of this Senate but in the many 
ways he has served his State and Nation.
  I also want to mention his legacy in regard to the environment. I 
find, unfortunately, few voices of reason on a subject that is so 
important to the future of our country. I was so proud, as we all were, 
to work with Senator Chafee on many issues regarding the environment. 
He was one of our outstanding leaders working to find a permanent 
source of funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, funding of 
Teaming with Wildlife programs, for wetlands, for estuaries, for 
endangered species. I am confident that as we continue the work in 
these areas, many of his dreams and aspirations on these initiatives 
will come to pass.
  In addition, his passion for history and historic preservation was 
evident until the end. Fittingly, his last public appearance was at the 
50th anniversary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, just 
this last Thursday at the National Cathedral. In his final speech, he 
wisely warned of the danger to America's future if it forgets its past. 
It was a fitting tribute to 50 years of tremendous work, 25 years or 
more by a leader in this particular area.
  The poet Abraham Joseph Ryan wrote:


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       A land without ruins is a man without memories.  . . . A 
     land without memories is a land without history.

  John Chafee understood that. Today we honor his memory. Let us never 
forget his example as an excellent role model, a tireless crusader 
forfamilies and for children, and a tremendous and reasoned voice in 
our debate on how to balance the needs of our Nation and our world with 
the great need to preserve and protect our environment.
  Today there is an emptiness in this Chamber that we all sense, a 
terrible emptiness because a grand man, a great man, has left us. We 
hope our work in these areas will be pleasing to him so we can carry on 
many of the initiatives he started.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak regarding the late 
Senator John Chafee. I have a few comments I want to make.
  I was privileged to be presiding whenever our colleagues spoke about 
Senator Chafee and what a great man he was. People have gone through 
his resume. It struck me as I was listening that it is rare for us to 
recognize giants when they are among us. It is generally only after 
they leave us that we recognize the giant of the individual.
  Senator Chafee was such a giant. For all the things he has done and 
for which he has been recognized--his work for his country, his 
fighting for his country, his service in this body, his service in 
Rhode Island--he was truly a giant among us. Only now do we measure his 
true greatness because we have this void in that he is no longer with 
us. He was a great giant, he was a humble giant, he was a kind giant, a 
giant of a man, and a giant of a soul.
  We can look at his desk and see the flowers--and they are beautiful 
flowers. As I look at Senator Chafee's desk, I see this giant oak tree. 
It is a soaring oak tree, and it has limbs that branch out everywhere. 
It has leaves that are providing shade and support and nurturing and 
housing for so many people. It glistens and reaches all the way across 
America. That is the kind of person he really is. He is a giant of that 
stature and that nature. The other thing about him is, he doesn't even 
want to be noticed that he is there. He just wants to do that. He just 
wants to provide this great shade and this great tree and this great 
support for this country. He really doesn't even want to be noticed.

  When you said, my, isn't that great; he just kind of said, no, I just 
wanted to do this. I just wanted to help the people in this country 
whom I love so much, these people who are here for whom I feel so 
strongly. I believe that I have been given much. To whom much is given, 
much is expected. I am just providing what I think I ought to.
  That was the kind of humble man he was.
  I have my own personal experience and memory, as all of us do, about 
working with him. I am a newer Member, so I didn't have the length of 
service others did. But I was working with him on a rails-to-trails 
bill that had a particular problem for Kansas. This was a program he 
deeply loved. Yet I was having a particular narrow problem. Normally, 
one would think--I am a new Member and this is a program he loves; I am 
having a problem with it--that he would kind of quickly shuffle me to 
the side, that that would have been the normal experience. Yet he was 
the kindest man about it. He said: I know you have a problem with this. 
Let's see if we can work it out. He could have easily said: I really 
don't have time for this. I have more important things to do. But my 
problem was his problem. He worked with me, and he worked with me in 
kindness and in gentleness to try to deal with the problem I had with 
which, in many respects, he disagreed. Yet that was the kind of man he 
was. There was a great kindness about him.
  In my estimation, few have carried greatness so gently as John Chafee 
carried it. If pride is the first sin, humility is the first grace. And 
John was a truly humble man. John was a man of grace. We will all miss 
him dearly, as we see this giant that is no longer amongst us. We loved 
him. God loves him. Our prayers will be with him and his family.
  I only hope his memory can stay with us as long and that we can 
recognize that giant who was amongst us and in many respects that giant 
tree which is still there.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The Senator from New 
Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Chair for an opportunity to join my voice 
with others who have talked about our dear friend, John Chafee.
  This place is sadder these last couple days because of the unexpected 
passing of Senator John Chafee. His death has left the Senate and the 
entire country mourning the loss of one of our most admired and 
respected elected leaders.
  Senator Chafee belonged to a breed of public servants who have become 
a vanishing species in American politics. He was always a gentleman, 
even under attack while defending causes about which he felt deeply. He 
always stood for moderation and common sense over political extremism.
  Senator Chafee was a consensus builder. He believed in bipartisan 
solutions as an alternative to the typically partisan bickering which 
is now often a feature of congressional debate.
  I served for 15 years with John Chafee on the Environment and Public 
Works Committee--some of those years, obviously, before he became 
chairman, and these recent years when he was chairman of the committee. 
He and I were allies on many battles for a cleaner environment. Even 
when our approaches diverged, his commitment and leadership were always 
to be admired. He worked tirelessly to make our air cleaner, to keep 
pollutants from being dumped into our oceans, and to preserve those 
species that were endangered.
  He had a wonderful patience factor in his being. Senator Chafee and I 
spent years trying, in good faith but, unfortunately, unable to reach a 
consensus on a Superfund reform bill. The reason we failed to reach a 
consensus was not for lack of effort Senator Chafee put in to try to 
get a Superfund bill out that was satisfactory to both sides and a 
majority view.
  Senator Chafee played an important role in most of the major 
environmental bills that have come before the Senate since 1977. In 
standing up for the environment, he often had to stand firmly against 
overwhelming pressure from powerful special interest groups--not to 
mention, by the way, pressures from members of his own party, and 
certainly from some pressures on our side as well--to try and form the 
consensus we so much wanted to have. He was a role model for all of us 
in public service and for anyone considering a career in government. He 
voted his conscience on issues as diverse as child care, welfare 
reform, tobacco, and transportation, even when voting his conscience 
meant crossing party lines.
  I was particularly proud to have Senator Chafee agree with me, when 
he supported my bill to require background checks at gun shows. These 
were not easy votes to make because most of the Members of his party 
felt differently about that. But he stood up for what he believed in 
and voted that way and spoke that way and was honored for his 
views. His own gun safety initiatives made him a hero to me and to all 
Americans. This was noteworthy, considering his wartime experiences in 
the face of deadly combat. In World War II, he fought with the Marine 
Corps in the invasion of Guadalcanal. In 1951, he reentered the service 
and commanded a rifle company in Korea. His political career was 
exemplary, including 6 years in the Rhode Island legislature, 3 terms 
as the State's Governor, and 3 years as Secretary of the Navy. And his 
four highly distinguished terms here in the Senate made him one of the 
most treasured figures in American politics.

  In his home State, Senator Chafee was known directly as ``the man you 
can trust.'' No one was more deserving of that trust or worked harder 
to earn it. His constituents in Rhode Island and all of us here always 
knew where Senator Chafee stood on an issue. That was true largely 
because he believed in the Government's ability to help people, to make 
their lives better. He didn't buy into the notion that Government was 
the people's enemy.
  Mr. President, Senator Chafee's death is an incalculable loss to the 
Senate and the American people. He set an example that all of us here 
would be proud to emulate. I know I speak for everyone in the Senate 
when we extend our deepest sympathies to his wife Ginny, whom we have 
gotten

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to know over the years, and his entire family. Senator Chafee's unique 
style and his physical and moral courage are irreplaceable. The country 
has lost a great public servant. We are all poorer with his demise, and 
we will all miss him.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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