[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 51 (Tuesday, April 20, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E568-E569]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E568]]
                   TRIBUTE TO MR. WILLIAM R. STEWART

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 20, 2004

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a constituent and 
distinguished public servant, Mr. William R. Stewart. Mr. Stewart 
served as Chief Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 
the first African American to do so. For his service, Mr. Stewart was a 
recipient of the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian 
Service, the only NLRB lawyer to receive this honor its entire 69-year 
history. Upon bestowing this tribute, President Clinton spoke of Mr. 
Stewart as ``instrumental in winning national labor law cases that have 
had a major impact on American workers.'' The President further noted 
Mr. Stewart's contributions, such as ``protecting the rights of the 
blind workers and preserving the ability of workers to vote by mail in 
union elections.''
  Mr. Stewart was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. He graduated from 
Indiana University with a bachelor's degree in government in 1954 and 
was elected Phi Beta Kappa. An ROTC student, upon graduation, he was 
commissioned in the Army as a second lieutenant. He served in Germany 
in an armored division and was later selected to be the courts and 
boards officer and assistant adjunct of a combat command of more than 
5,000 men. Upon completing his tour of duty in 1957, he returned to his 
home State to complete law school at Indiana University. During his 
time at Indiana Law, he was elected to the Order of the Coif, an honor 
society for law school graduates from the 77 member schools.
  Immediately following law school, Mr. Stewart worked as an attorney 
for the Atomic Energy Commission, though he soon joined NLRB where he 
served with great distinction for most of his professional career.
  On February 16, 2004, William R. Stewart passed away at the age of 
71, in Washington D.C. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this 
opportunity to extend my heartfelt sympathy to Mr. Stewart's family, 
including his two brothers Stanley and Richard. My district, and the 
Nation, lost a great public servant with the passing of William R. 
Stewart.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. 
William B. Gould IV. Mr. Gould was Chairman of the NLRB during Mr. 
Stewart's final years there, as well as his dear friend. He has 
provided me with a copy of the eulogy he delivered for his friend, and 
I respectfully ask that it be included in the Record.

    Memorial to William R. Stewart--Remarks of William B. Gould IV, 
             Arlington National Cemetery February 27, 2004

       First, allow me to extend my heartfelt condolences to Bill 
     Stewart's brother here in attendance, Stanley Stewart, Bill's 
     nieces, Standish Stewart, Sherry Weaver, and Belinda Jones, 
     and his nephew, Kent Bell.
       For the many who knew him or had some contact with him--and 
     most especially for those many who loved him--William Rufus 
     Stewart incorporated many characteristics in that multi-
     dimensional personality of his. Two features override all of 
     them--his commitment to excellence--this is what prompted 
     President Bill Clinton to characterize his contributions to 
     the NLRB to be ``unparalleled''--and his compassion for 
     humanity and life.
       Every February or March for the past five years subsequent 
     to my departure from Washington, Bill would come to 
     California and visit with my wife and myself at our home on 
     the Stanford campus. Here he had a set routine which he would 
     follow with or without the two of us.
       Sometimes he would sit in on a class or two and provide me 
     with a good critique--just as he would do here in our 
     Washington days together. Bill would begin each morning--and 
     sometimes the afternoon as well--with a long walk through our 
     beautiful campus, returning full of observations about the 
     trees and flowers and other things that he had seen along the 
     way. On one occasion he and my wife spotted a coyote 
     sauntering calmly through an open park, and this quickly 
     became one of those stories which he loved to tell and 
     retell.
       Usually he timed his visit with the Stanford baseball games 
     at our lovely Sunken Diamond. This past rainy weekend the 
     University of Texas was in town and it made me think of 
     Bill's comments about a splendidly executed extra inning 
     Stanford-Texas baseball game two years ago, again in the 
     winter rain which turned on and off while we sat soaking in 
     our seats.
       For almost a year, Bill had been telling me about an 
     outstanding left-handed pitcher from his hometown of Terre 
     Haute, Indiana, whom Stanford had snatched away, he said, 
     from professional baseball. Ironically, on this past Sunday, 
     there he was, as Bill had described him, pitching a 
     magnificent three-hitter against hard-hitting Texas in his 
     very first college start. I wanted to call Bill on the phone 
     and I thought of how, at least until a little more than a 
     month ago, we had planned to see that game together.
       There were certain trigger points for which Bill could 
     produce predictably automatic and voluble reactions, one of 
     them being Indiana basketball and its former coach Bobby 
     Knight. We often laughed together when I pushed some of his 
     buttons by mentioning an individual for whom I knew he had 
     either great devotion, as was the case with Knight, or those 
     individuals and organizations for whom Bill possessed little 
     regard and occasional scorn--and he would always oblige me 
     with an uproarious reaction to my button pushing. The most 
     fun in those exchanges was the knowledge that Bill knew that 
     I was putting him on and then would oblige me without fail 
     with one of those patented Bill Stewart eruptions.
       Just as Bill's views were not capable of modification on 
     matters like Bobby Knight, it was difficult to get him to 
     back down in most discussions or arguments--and we had a few 
     of those--about the National Labor Relations Act, the 
     National Labor Relations Board, and society generally. But he 
     was nothing if not intellectually curious, and that trait led 
     to a good deal of back and forth. The fact that he was always 
     imaginative and probing in his search for new approaches as 
     well as so resolute, served me well as both Chairman and his 
     friend.
       Our mutual friend, Professor Herman Levy of Santa Clara Law 
     School, who served with Bill at the Board in the '60s as 
     well, has told me how Bill, as the assertive and sometimes 
     disputatious president of the NLRB Professional Association 
     in the '60s, insisted that Herman be excluded as a 
     supervisor. Herman--and Bill and I often spoke of Herman's 
     unyielding points of view--was of the view that he was not a 
     supervisor and ultimately the two of them were to devise a 
     sensibly balanced compromise whereby Herman was able to sit 
     in on the union meetings, but not to have a vote--and perhaps 
     not, given Bill's perspective, a voice either!
       I can remember in the period of 1963-64, when Bill and I 
     first became friends, his attendance at the newly-opened 
     Arena Theater and his love for opera and classical music. The 
     arts were a big part of Bill's life. Whenever I went to 
     exhibits or concerts in Washington, he would gently needle 
     me, implying that I was only a superficial philistine. There 
     was so much laughter and conviviality with him in this kind 
     of back-and-forth banter.
       Indeed, laughter is one of the things that I treasure most 
     about Bill. So many times my confidential assistant, Mary Ann 
     Sawyer, and I would be smiling at one another as Bill and Al 
     Wolff or some other individual would be howling at something 
     that they found amusing! The loud and sustained laughter 
     would frequently cascade into the anteroom where Mary Ann 
     sat--and through my adjacent office as well.
       As someone who loved the arts, it seemed appropriate that 
     Bill also had a great sense of the dramatic--I always 
     remember his description of his first meeting with a former 
     Board member with whom Bill was trying to negotiate some kind 
     of arrangement prior to my arrival in Washington. Bill would 
     go into a semi-crouch, putting his hands up near his face: 
     ``We were circling one another like two cats in a ring,'' 
     said Bill on countless occasions in describing this meeting. 
     Incidentally, Bill accomplished that mission, and he and the 
     individual in question soon became the best of friends.
       Bill possessed the very highest professional standards and 
     this was one of the reasons why he was so valuable to me and 
     to the NLRB. He elevated the level of what would be 
     acceptable for me and the staff. He best exemplified public 
     service as a high and noble calling.
       In reviewing any of my opinions or speeches, Bill would 
     always flyspeck them carefully, and quoting his former 
     colleague on the General Counsel side, Bob Allen, he would 
     say: ``We have to make sure that it is pretty,'' i.e., that 
     all the i's should be dotted and the t's should be crossed 
     (Bill would always be careful to say, ``This is what Bob 
     Allen would say''). This kind of meticulous care is one of 
     the reasons why President Clinton praised his work so 
     unqualifiedly.
       As many of you know, Bill was the first and only NLRB 
     employee in its entire 69-year history to receive the highest 
     honor that any civil servant can receive--the President's 
     Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service. Bill was a 
     lawyer par excellence who not only set the highest standards, 
     but was a role model and inspiration to me and innumerable 
     others. He was the first and only African American ever to be 
     appointed to the highest non-Presidential appointee level at 
     the Board, i.e., the rank of Chief Counsel, serving with me 
     from 1994 to 1997. And he was a tower of strength, expertise 
     and wisdom for me, the NLRB, and the United States 
     government. In the tumultuous '90s when our Board was under 
     such attack from within and from without by many who do not 
     believe in the purposes of the Act, Bill, along with the 
     wonderful Mary Ann Sawyer whom Bill identified for me and 
     recruited, were the nerve center of the agency. More than 
     anyone that I know, they kept the Board going in its most 
     difficult days.
       Bill was the gatekeeper through which everyone and 
     everything went. Bill's public service was vital to the rule 
     of law in labor-management relations.
       But there is another dimension to Bill Stewart which is 
     even more important and goes to the essence of this good man.
       Last year when Bill came to visit us in California, he 
     could not come in February or March as was his practice. The 
     reason was that he was helping two friends who themselves 
     appeared to be in their last days and

[[Page E569]]

     who thus were in the midst of enormous and considerable 
     distress. Bill had to be there for them, and thus could not 
     come to California until June. That was the kind of man that 
     he was.
       When he retired from the NLRB in 1997 and when the parties 
     that we had for him were still fresh in all of our minds, one 
     of his first professional works was to represent a paraplegic 
     in a disability case. And Herman Levy told me when they 
     recently went together on a cruise to Alaska, it was Bill who 
     would make sure that Herman, needing assistance, had a 
     wheelchair and made sure those in charge of the ship were 
     aware of his problems.
       Bill loved his family. He was proud of his family--his 
     parents and his siblings--and was particularly solicitous of 
     their children. Indeed, he was solicitous and helpful to 
     young people generally, not only in the legal profession and 
     on our staff, but also to my own sons, with whom he would 
     never fail to sit down and talk when they came to Washington 
     and with whom he would sometimes meet when he was on the Los 
     Angeles portion of his annual California visit.
       Bill Stewart was devoted to Indiana University as well. It 
     gave him his start in life. He often spoke fondly of his work 
     as personal assistant to Herman B. Wells, Chancellor of the 
     University. Thus, it was meet and right that in 1999 Bill was 
     elected to the Indiana University Academy of Law Alumni 
     Fellows, the most distinguished honor for an Indiana law 
     graduate--and that he was to enjoy a reunion with Mr. Wells 
     at that time.
       Bill never stopped grieving for his deceased partner, Bill 
     Dresser, who accompanied him when we went to the White House 
     in October 1997 to meet President Clinton to commemorate 
     Bill's Award.
       Counsellor in all senses of the word . . . So often during 
     these past two weeks since Bill's death on February 16, I 
     have awakened in the middle of the night, finding it 
     difficult to believe that he is gone. But on one occasion a 
     week ago, I awoke and began to think about a problem of my 
     own completely unrelated to the terrible events of February 
     16--but which seemed almost equally insoluble. I decided that 
     it would be important for me to speak to someone about it. It 
     was 5 a.m. and my mind automatically focused upon area code 
     301 and the number for Bill's home. That was my first 
     instinct.
       I have often thought that most of us will be extremely 
     fortunate if we are remembered beyond one or two or five 
     years subsequent to our respective deaths.
       Bill will not be forgotten.

                          ____________________