[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 169 (Thursday, November 20, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15274-S15275]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD, FDR, FREEDOM FROM FEAR, AND COURTING YOUR GIRL 
                     WITH ANOTHER BOY'S BUBBLE GUM

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is an honor to take the floor now to 
join all Senators on both sides of the aisle in extending our warmest 
birthday wishes to the Senator who in so many ways is respected as Mr. 
United States Senate by us all, our friend and eminent colleague from 
the State of West Virginia, Senator Robert C. Byrd.
  Senator Byrd is 86 years young today, with the emphasis on ``young,'' 
because he truly is young in the same best sense we regard our Nation 
itself as young, inspiring each new generation to uphold its 
fundamental ideals of freedom and opportunities and justice for all.
  Senator Byrd's personal story is the very essence of the American 
dream, born to a hard life in the coal mines of West Virginia, rising 
to the high position of majority leader, a copy of the Constitution in 
his pocket and in his heart, insisting with great eloquence and equally 
great determination, day in and day out, year in and year out, that the 
Senate, our Senate, live up to the ideals and responsibilities that 
those who created the Senate gave us. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, 
Madison, Franklin, Webster, Clay, Calhoun--they each live on today in 
Senator Robert Byrd, and they would be proud of all he has done in our 
day and generation to make the Senate the Senate it is intended to be.
  On a personal note, I am always very touched on this day in 
remembering the unusual coincidence that Senator Byrd was born on the 
same day as my brother Robert Kennedy and in the same year as my 
brother, President Kennedy, and was married on President Kennedy's 
birthday.
  In the many years we have served together, he has taught me many 
thins about the Senate, especially how to count votes. He did me one of 
the biggest favors of my life, although I did not feel that way at the 
time. On that occasion over 30 years ago, we were each certain we had a 
majority of democratic votes. We couldn't both be right, and Senator 
Byrd was right. All these years later, like so many others among us, I 
still learn from his eloquence whenever he takes the floor and reminds 
the Senate to be more vigilant about living up to our constitutional 
trust.
  Senator Byrd has received many honors in his brilliant career, and 
the honor he received last Saturday in Hyde Park in New York was among 
the highest. He was honored with The Freedom from Fear Award by The 
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. The award is named for one of 
the Four Freedoms--freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from 
want, and freedom from fear--in President Roosevelt's famous State of 
the Union Address to Congress in 1942, a few weeks after the Second 
World War began. The award also harks back to FDR's First Inaugural 
Address in 1933, in which he rallied the Nation from the depths of the 
Great Depression with the famous words, ``The only thing we have to 
fear is fear itself.''
  In his address accepting the award, Senator Byrd emphasized the 
importance of renewing our dedication to the Nation's ideals in the 
very difficult times we face today, when the temptations are so great 
once again to put aside our freedoms in order to safeguard our 
security. As Senator Byrd said so eloquently, in a lesson each of us 
should hear and heed:

       Carry high the banner of this Republic, else we fall into 
     the traps of censorship and repression. The darkness of fear 
     must never be allowed to extinguish the precious light of 
     liberty.

  Senator Byrd's address in Hyde Park also contains a very beautiful 
and moving passage about the person who has been his lifelong best 
friend and strongest supporter all through these years, the coal 
miner's daughter he married 66 years ago, his wife Erma.
  I wish them both many, many happy returns on this special day, and I 
ask unanimous consent that Senator Byrd's extraordinary address on 
receiving the Roosevelt ``Freedom from Fear'' Award be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                        Courage from Conviction

       I thank Ann Roosevelt and William ``Bill'' vanden Heuvel 
     (the Great!) and the Board of the Roosevelt Institute for 
     this distinct, unique honor. I also thank my colleague, a 
     colleague sui generis. Yes, Senator Hillary Clinton came to 
     my office and she said that she wanted to be a good senator. 
     And she said, ``How shall I do it? How shall I go about it? I 
     want to work for the people of New York. I want to be a good 
     senator.'' And I did say, ``Be a work horse, not a show 
     horse.'' She took that to heart, and she has been a fine 
     senator. She has never forgotten that admonition. She has 
     been a good senator and I am delighted to be here in her 
     state this morning. This is an extraordinary award, for which 
     she recommended me so graciously.
       I am humbled to be deemed a practitioner of President 
     Roosevelt's great vision. I am proud to be associated once 
     again with my friend and quondam colleague, former Senator 
     and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. Ah, what a shame, 
     as we have witnessed the lowering of the Senate's standards. 
     And how proud I would be to be able to vote for a great 
     federal judge to grace the Supreme Court of the United 
     States, George Mitchell. I would have no doubt that he would 
     honor this Constitution of the United States of America. And 
     I hope that, I trust that, the Great Physician, the Great 
     Lawgiver, might bless me so that I might live to see that 
     day.
       I congratulate the other exceptional laureates, and I am 
     proud to be their colleague. I am proud to be numbered with 
     the previous Four Freedom recipients.
       Franklin Delano Roosevelt--ah, the voice! I can hear it. I 
     can hear it yet as it wafted its way through the valleys, up 
     the creeks and down the hollows in the coal camps of Southern 
     West Virginia. That voice--there was nothing like it. 
     Franklin Roosevelt was a man of tremendous courage. A leader 
     of uncommon vision and optimism. An orator of compelling 
     passion. He looms large, oh so large, in my boyhood memory. I 
     grew up in the home a of coal miner. I married a coal miner's 
     daughter. I thank her today for her guidance, her advice, her 
     constant confidence in me that she has always shown.
       Studs (Terkel), I tell you how I won the hand of that coal 
     miner's daughter some 66 years ago. We had in my high school 
     class a lad named Julius Takach. He was of a Hungarian 
     family. His father owned a little store down in Cooktown, 
     about 4 miles from Stotesbury, where I grew up. And each 
     morning, Julius Takach would come to school with his pockets 
     full of candy and chewing gum from his father's store's 
     shelves. I always made it my business to greet Julius Takach 
     at the schoolhouse door upon his arrival! And he would give 
     me some of that candy and chewing gum. I never ate the candy. 
     I never chewed the chewing gum. I proudly walked the halls of 
     Mark Twain High School to see my sweetheart as the classes 
     changed, and I gave her that candy and chewing gum. Now do 
     you think I told her that Julius Takach gave me that candy 
     and that chewing gum? Why, no! Studs, that's how you court 
     your girl with another boy's bubble gum!
       The stock market crashed in October 1929. I was 12 years 
     old. I had $7 that I had saved up selling the Cincinnati 
     Post. I had that $7 in the bank at Matoaka, West Virginia. 
     The bank went under, and I haven't seen my $7 since. I 
     struggled to find my first job working at a gas station 
     during the Great Depression. I was 24 when the Japanese 
     bombed Pearl Harbor.
       I can remember the voice of President Roosevelt on the 
     radio in those days. His voice carried over the crackle and 
     static of my family's old Philco set. President Roosevelt 
     understood the nation. He understood its history. He 
     understood its character, its ethos. He understood the 
     Constitution. He respected the Constitution.
       In Marietta, Ohio, in 1938, President Franklin Delano 
     Roosevelt said: ``Let us not be afraid to help each other--
     let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an 
     alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are 
     not a President and senators and congressmen and government 
     officials, but the voters of this country.'' President 
     Roosevelt was right.
       Especially in these days, when we find ourselves in 
     dangerous waters, I remind the nation of President's 
     Roosevelt's charge: the government is ourselves. I have 
     called on my colleagues in Congress to stand as the Framers 
     intended.

     I saw them tearing a building down
     A group of men in a busy town
     With a ``Ho, Heave, Ho'' and a lusty yell
     They swung a beam and the sidewall fell.

     I said to the foreman, ``Are these men skilled?
     The type you would hire if you had to build?''
     He laughed, and then he said, ``No indeed,
     Just common labor is all I need;
     I can easily wreck in a day or two,
     That which takes builders years to do.''


[[Page S15275]]


     I said to myself as I walked away,
     ``Which of these roles am I trying to play?
     Am I a builder who works with care,
     Building my life by the rule and square?
     Am I shaping my deeds by a well-laid plan,
     Patiently building the best I can?
     Or am I a wrecker who walks the town
     Content with the labor of tearing down?''

       That's what we see today. I call on my colleagues to stand 
     as the Framers intended, as a check against an overreaching 
     executive. I have urged the people of America to awaken to 
     what is happening and to speak out against those who would 
     tear down the fabric of Constitutional liberty. To speak out, 
     for it is the duty of each citizen to be vigilant to what his 
     or her government is doing, and to be critical, if need be. 
     It is not unpatriotic to speak out. It is not unpatriotic to 
     ask questions. It is not unpatriotic to disagree. Speak out, 
     lest the right of dissent, the right to disagree, be trampled 
     underfoot by misguided zealotry and extreme partisanship.
       I have been in Congress now close to 51 years, longer than 
     any other person--out of 11,707 individual persons who have 
     served in the House or Senate or both--with the exception of 
     two. And I have never seen such extreme partisanship; such 
     bitter partisanship; such forgetfulness of the faith of our 
     fathers, and of the Constitution. Never have I seen the equal 
     of what I have seen in these last three years.
       But let us not fear. The individual mind remains an 
     unassailable force. The individual voice can inspire other to 
     act. A single act of bravery can lead an army against great 
     odds. At a time when dissent is labeled unpatriotic, the 
     strength of a single individual can give hope to the 
     hopeless, voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless.
       ``The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand 
     quail. A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will return the 
     tide of battle, and rally to nobler strife the giants that 
     had fled (Martin F. Tupper, 1810-1889).''
       During these troubled times, the legacy of Franklin Eleanor 
     Roosevelt is not forgotten. Again, I thank Ann Roosevelt and 
     the inimitable William vanden Heuvel (the Great!), and the 
     Board of the Roosevelt Institute for this great honor. I 
     thank again my protege in whom I have great pride, Senator 
     Hillary Clinton. And I thank each of you here this morning. 
     This day has inspired me to carry on with new energy.
       I close with words from President Roosevelt's first 
     inaugural address: ``[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear 
     itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which 
     paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.''
       If I may be so bold as to add, let us take courage from 
     conviction. Carry high the banner of this Republic, else we 
     fall into the trap of censorship and repression. The darkness 
     of fear must never be allowed to extinguish the precious 
     light of liberty.
       May we remember the words of the Scripture (Proverbs 
     22:28): ``Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers 
     have set.''

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