[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 138 (Saturday, October 28, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S11303]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SENATOR ROBERT F. WAGNER

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise for the pleasant purpose of 
noting the decision by the Committee on Rules to add two names to that 
very special group that is portrayed in our reception room--six of the 
most distinguished Senators in our history. We have now added two--or 
shortly will have done so--Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan and 
Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York.
  The story of Robert F. Wagner is a quintessential and essential one, 
describing the life of a poor immigrant child born on the east side of 
New York, who, by steady succession made his way to this Chamber. In 
the process, he changed the United States, recognizing, at long last, 
that we had become an urban Nation with needs, in legislative terms, 
that such a transformation requires.
  The census of 1920 determined, for the first time, that the majority 
of Americans lived in urban areas--rather loosely defined, but still--
and intensely so on the island of Manhattan. It may seem difficult to 
believe, but in 1910, the population of Manhattan was twice what it is 
today, and the conditions were difficult indeed.
  Yet there was a degree of social order, a very powerful and 
progressive political organization, Tammany Hall, which dates from the 
Revolutionary War days. Aaron Burr was the head of Tammany at one 
point. And in the person of Charles Francis Murphy, it became 
unexpectedly, but unmistakably, the single most powerful source of 
progressive ideas for social legislation in our history--ideas that 
became law that changed lives.
  Perhaps the critical event was the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911. 
In downtown Manhattan, there were women in a sweatshop, as we would 
call it. A fire broke out. The doors were locked. They were left to 
leap from eighth-story windows. And the city never got over it. Frances 
Perkins, having tea in Gramercy Park, five blocks away, never got over 
it. But it was Robert Wagner and Al Smith who did something about it.
  They had gone to Albany under the auspices of their district leaders, 
big Tom Foley in the case of Al Smith, from the lower east side, and 
McCardle from the upper east side.
  Smith became speaker of the assembly; Wagner, President pro tempore 
of the Senate.
  They chaired together a commission on the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. 
They came out with legislation calling for safety and sanitary 
conditions, restricting child labor, limiting the hours of working 
women and protecting the activities of trade unions--events which never 
before appeared on the legislative calendar of any State legislature, 
much less the Congress. And they passed.
  Smith went on to become Governor of New York and created, with his 
company, a legislative agenda which Franklin D. Roosevelt, who 
succeeded Smith as Governor, would take to Washington. We call it the 
New Deal.
  Wagner had already arrived in Washington and was well positioned to 
take up his work, beginning with the National Industrial Recovery Act 
in 1933, and, in 1935, the defining Wagner Act, which is technically 
the National Labor Relations Act. It created the National Labor 
Relations Board and gave labor unions a right to exist and to be heard 
and not to be harassed.
  He went on under President Truman. He allied himself with Robert 
Taft, and the first major housing legislation passed this body. Then 
health care was proposed by Wagner, with Truman's support. A half 
century has gone by, and we are still dealing with that issue. But it 
is well that we recognize the person--a person, not the only one--who 
singularly brought this matter to the nation's agenda.
  I, as a New Yorker, am pleased, as all New Yorkers will be. I hope 
Senators will recognize that a just and honorable choice has been made. 
I am a member of the Rules Committee so it would not be appropriate to 
congratulate the Rules Committee, but I certainly thank the chairman 
and the ranking member, Senators McConnell and Dodd.
  I see my friend from New Mexico is on the floor, and I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I don't know the parliamentary 
situation. I need 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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