[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 97 (Friday, June 27, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8842-S8843]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN REMEMBRANCE OF STROM THURMOND

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise to speak about my friend, Senator 
Strom Thurmond. I do not have any prepared remarks but I want to speak 
for a few moments about Senator Strom Thurmond.
  Senator Strom Thurmond spent many, many years sitting in the seat, 
for those observing the Senate Chamber, right next to the seat where 
the distinguished majority leader is sitting right now.
  I have eight children. Senator Thurmond, as everyone knows, lived a 
very long life with his first wife without children. I don't know if 
that had anything to do with his huge interest in asking people such as 
me how my children were, and I am not one who is very loathe to tell 
people about my children's successes.
  So he used to say to me, and to anyone around, he would point at me, 
and say: ``There is the Senator with all the smart kids.'' Of course, I 
was embarrassed, and I would bend down and say: ``Senator, there are 
lots of Senators with smart children.''
  Then he would say: ``Well, you told me about one'' . . . and he would 
explain what I told him. He would ask, ``how is that one doing?''
  Well, obviously, those days are gone now. I was privileged, with my 
wife Nancy, to go to the wedding of his daughter here in this town not 
too many years ago. It was a beautiful wedding, a big wedding. It was a 
beautiful daughter and a beaming father, Strom Thurmond.
  He was already past 90, for certain, and how thrilled he was to walk 
down the aisle and to be part of the normal wedding activities.
  I note that with all the blessings he has received in his life, and 
all the legacy that he leaves, he got one blessing that he deserved; 
that is, that wedding and that marriage yielded his first grandchild. 
And I just wonder because he had already left the Senate; he was no 
longer here; he was in a hospital, but I just wonder, how happy that 
day must have been for him. He had a grandchild at that very old age.
  There are Senators, such as from his home State, who have known him 
through campaigns and actions and activities that I hear of. I have 
read of these activities, but I did not participate in them, so they 
will do better than I in talking about him. But I am 71. I am very 
lucky, I feel, in that I have spent 31 years in the Senate. The only 
thing I did prior to that is, 6\1/2\ years before I came here, I 
accepted a dare from a group of friends to run for an office. I ran and 
got elected. And that office was for city council, which put me in a 
mayorship of sorts in our biggest city.
  So you know, if you write down, at 71, what I have done: I ran for a 
nonpartisan office, got elected, served 4 years, waited 2 years, got 
elected to the Senate, and came here. But we all know, if we are going 
to put down what Strom Thurmond has done as a public servant, all of 
which clearly is one's legacy, it would take me quite a while to 
discuss it all. Just his military career would be a rather good speech 
and a rather good talk on the Senate floor.
  The other thing that, to me, is of such rare, rare importance is that 
when you consider 100 years, and that 80 or 79 of those years he was an 
adult, you just think of all the things that have changed during his 
adulthood. Governance, governmental changes, cultural changes, 
philosophical leanings and tendencies of our great country changing. 
You have to conclude that this man, who represented a State that also 
changed and had become a great industrial State, and a great 
educational State, with fantastic educational institutions, that this 
great man also learned how to change. He changed with time, not 
changing in the sense of giving up but rather of gaining more for 
himself and becoming more rather than becoming less.
  Now, I have known a lot of great Senators, more than most, because 
there are only five or six Senators who have been here longer than I, 
as of today, maybe five. So I have known a lot of them. I think it is 
only fair to say, for his family, for Nancy, for his children, there 
really have never been any Senators like him that I have been 
privileged to know.
  He was indeed unique. He was so different that you cannot forget him. 
First, he was so personal to everyone. He was never forgetting. He was 
always considerate. He spent more time and effort at little things.
  I know nothing about his constituent work. Let those who know speak. 
I speak of little things here in the Senate. The Chair and I both 
watched during a week at the end of a day's work, we watched Strom 
Thurmond while he was still around and healthy and walking. We watched 
what he did. He went with his staff from one event to another, perhaps 
three, four, five events an evening, because he had been invited and 
because it was somebody who said: ``Would you come to my party?'' 
``Would you come to my fundraiser?'' ``Would you come to my birthday?'' 
``Would you come and join me; we have visitors from my State.'' What it 
was that made him that kind of person, who knows? I don't know. You 
don't know. The Senate doesn't know. I am not sure his family knows. 
But the truth is, we know he did that.
  All of these would appear, what I have said so far, to be things that 
one might say are not very important.

[[Page S8843]]

Well, I stated them because I think they are very important. They are 
of utmost importance. I think they are the essence of who he is and 
what he is and what he was.
  But don't let anyone think he didn't do his work. When you look at 
the committees he chaired, the events that happened during those chair-
filled years, be it on the Judiciary, on Armed Services, or whatever, 
you have to know he had a great capacity for work and he did his work 
and got it done.
  Can you just imagine not having a chance to know him when he was a 
judge? What a great judge he would have been. Can you imagine, not 
having a chance to know him, what a good school superintendent he must 
have been? Can you imagine not getting to know him, what a good 
commissioner he must have been at the local level where he governed? 
For I believe he is what he was. And it is probable that he took care 
to do everything right and he took care to be concerned and worried 
about people, as he did his job, and that he never forgot the people 
who were good to him and meant something to his success.
  I, for one, am very sorry we will be going to a funeral. But, I guess 
it is really only fair to say that he has been very blessed. After all, 
we won't, any of us, ever go to a funeral for a fellow Senator who has 
lived 100 years--none of us. This will be the only one. Because he has 
been very, very blessed. The Lord has been kind and decent to him. 
Those around him should be very proud. Obviously, his kinfolk are sad.
  I remember at that wedding, while we were celebrating youth, his 
daughter was a young lady. I remember meeting his sister, two sisters I 
believe. They were alive and there. I don't mean to cast any aspersions 
about the fact they were alive. They were lively, I assure you. They 
knew a lot. They were talking. They were carrying on conversations. 
Strom Thurmond was talking with them about us and my wife Nancy.
  They were quick to ask us to sit down, and you could hardly believe 
that a man almost 100 was there with sisters at a wedding for a very 
young daughter of his, who has just since then had his first 
grandchild. What a beautiful, beautiful tribute all of this is to Strom 
Thurmond's family, to their heritage, and to those around them and 
those who love them.
  My wife Nancy and I extend our heartfelt condolences to Nancy and all 
of the other kinfolk, to his relatives, and clearly to his daughter and 
son-in-law who have that young grandchild of whom he must be so proud.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mrs. DOLE. Mr. President, last evening we received the news of the 
passing of a dear friend and leader in this Chamber, Strom Thurmond. 
Strom Thurmond retired this year at the age of 100 after more than half 
a century serving the people of South Carolina and our Nation as a 
Senator, as Governor of South Carolina, and as a State legislator.
  Remarkably, his career in the Senate spanned the administrations of 
10 Presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush. His passing 
last night certainly will be felt by so many Members of this Chamber 
who had grown accustomed to the courtly gentleman from South Carolina. 
But his life leaves a lesson for us all in compassion, respect, 
civility, dedication, and hard work.
  Before he was elected to the Senate in 1954, as the only write-in 
candidate in history to win a seat in Congress, Strom Thurmond was 
elected county school superintendent, State Senator, and circuit judge. 
He resigned his judgeship to enlist in the Army in World War II. He 
landed in Normandy as part of the 82nd Airborne assault on D-Day and, 
the story goes, flew into France on a glider, crash-landing in an apple 
orchard. He went on to help liberate Paris, and he received a Purple 
Heart, five Battle Stars, and numerous other awards for his World War 
II service.
  My husband Bob and I were honored to have known Strom Thurmond for so 
many years and to count him among our very special friends. He and Bob 
shared a great deal of common history, dating from their World War II 
days. And his southern gallantry always had a way of making this North 
Carolinian feel right at home.
  I first worked with Strom Thurmond when I served as Deputy Special 
Assistant to the President at the White House. Even then he was an 
impressive Senator. President Reagan praised his expert handling as 
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee of nominees to the U.S. 
Supreme Court.
  In fact, it was Strom Thurmond's skill as chairman that helped to 
shepherd through the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor as the Nation's 
first female on the U.S. Supreme Court. I had always admired Strom 
Thurmond for his constant dedication to the people of South Carolina 
and to the industries of that State.
  Bob Dole has joked that someone once asked if Strom had been around 
since the Ten Commandments. Bob said that couldn't have been true; If 
Strom Thurmond had been around, the 11th commandment would have been: 
Thou shalt support the textile industry.
  And that industry still needs a lot of help. In fact, when President 
Reagan called Strom to wish him a happy 79th birthday back in 1981, 
Strom Thurmond, with his constant attention to South Carolina 
interests, used the opportunity to talk to the President about the 
textile industry.
  Indeed, South Carolina is full of stories of how the senior Senator 
from South Carolina managed to cut through redtape to make sure that 
his residents got the things they needed. And whenever South 
Carolinians called, or anyone else for that matter, Strom Thurmond 
could always be counted on to show up--at a Fourth of July parade, a 
county festival, or a State fair, armed with his trademark Strom 
Thurmond key chains.
  North Carolinians developed a fondness for Strom Thurmond. He often 
flew in to Charlotte before driving to his Edgeville, SC, home. He 
became so familiar in the airport that many of the workers there knew 
him, and he knew them all for stopping to share a kind word or a funny 
story.
  I was so honored that just before Strom went home for good to South 
Carolina, he came in his wheelchair, with Nancy's help, to my little 
basement office to welcome me to the Senate.
  Bob and I send our heartfelt condolences to Strom's family, our dear 
friend, Nancy, and the children, including daughter Julie, who worked 
with me at the American Red Cross. He was a loving husband, a proud 
father, and new grandfather, and, of course, the people of South 
Carolina, for whom he worked tirelessly throughout his career in public 
service and to whom he chose to return when his work was done in the 
Senate.
  Today as I remember him, his life, and his legacy, I think of the 
Bible in the 25th chapter of Matthew when the Lord said:

       Well done, thou good and faithful servant. . . . enter thou 
     into the joy of thy Lord.

  May God bless him and his family.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (Mrs. DOLE assumed the Chair.)

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