[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 62 (Thursday, May 6, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E778-E780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMARKS BY THE HONORABLE DAVE OBEY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TAMMY BALDWIN

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 6, 2004

  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to submit the humble, humorous and 
insightful remarks of my dear friend and Dean of the Wisconsin 
Congressional Delegation, the Honorable Dave Obey. The gentleman was 
the honored guest recently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's 
Department of Political Science as it celebrated its Centennial. I was 
given a copy of his remarks and was captivated. Written with his 
characteristic no nonsense Wisconsin affect, this wonderful speech is a 
treasure to be shared. To that end, I submit it for the Congressional 
Record.

       I came to Madison in 1958--after two years at the UW-
     Marathon County Center in Wausau--to get a poly-sci degree.
       Arthur Henderson, my high school history teacher, who had 
     worked with the great William Hesseltine, told me that I 
     should seek out Ralph Huitt as my faculty advisor and take as 
     many courses from him as possible if I wanted to understand 
     how government and politics really worked. That's exactly 
     what I did.
       I had many other fabulous professors: Leon Epstein, Bernie 
     Cohen, Fred von der Mehden, David Fellman, John Armstrong, 
     Henry Hart, to name a few.

[[Page E779]]

       And in the history and econ departments, people like: Selig 
     Perlman, Michael Petrovich, George Mosse, David Granick.
       It's amazing to me how much of what they taught me has had 
     direct relevance in my later life. I treasure what I learned 
     here--in and out of class--and I treasure the memories.
       I attended here at the same time as Bill Steiger, who later 
     was my Republican opposite image in Congress and one of the 
     finest politicians I have ever known. Bill was elected to the 
     State Assembly in 1960; I followed him in 1962. He was 
     elected to Congress in 1966; I followed 27 months later. But 
     in the late 1950s, we were both still here and had two 
     classes together.
       One was Constitutional law with Dave Fellman. For those of 
     you who do not know Fellman, his style was much like the law 
     professor played by John Housman in the TV series ``Paper 
     Chase''--dry and acerbic.
       Steiger was ``Big Man on Campus.'' His father, Carl 
     Steiger, was President of the Board of Regents, and Bill was 
     well known and active in everything. On the first day of 
     class, Steiger walked into Fellman's class about 5 minutes 
     late. Chagrined, he walked gingerly to his seat. Fellman 
     paused, peered at Steiger over his glasses, and said icily, 
     ``Please pardon me, Mr. Steiger. Ordinarily we would have an 
     usher escort you to your seat. Unfortunately, our carnations 
     have not yet arrived.'' Bill turned blood red. No one in that 
     class was late after that.
       I remember in 1960 the first time I met Jack Kennedy. 
     Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey were running against each other 
     in the Wisconsin presidential primary. I was running 
     Humphrey's campaign on campus.
       One evening I was chairing a meeting in the student union. 
     We knew Jackie Kennedy was upstairs at a fashion show, but we 
     didn't know that Jack was with her. Halfway through our 
     meeting, the door to our room opened and Kennedy poked his 
     head in. ``I understand this is a meeting of the Young 
     Democrats he said.'' ``Not quite,'' I responded, ``this is a 
     meeting of the Humphrey for President club.'' ``Well, do you 
     mind if I come in and say hello?'' he asked. ``Of course 
     not,'' I responded. Kennedy came in, shook hands around the 
     table, wished us luck but not too much, and moved on.
       That same year I met Jackie Robinson and wound up wanting 
     to strangle him. Gaylord Nelson, the new Governor, called me 
     one afternoon. Nelson was officially neutral, but personally 
     favored Humphrey over Kennedy. When he called me, he said, 
     ``Dave, Jackie Robinson is coming to town to endorse Hubert. 
     Get a room at the union, build a crowd, and you can introduce 
     us.''
       We had a huge crowd for him. I emceed the meeting and 
     introduced Gaylord, who introduced Robinson. Robinson gave a 
     ringing endorsement of Humphrey and then opened up to 
     questions. The first question from the press was, ``Mr. 
     Robinson, you have endorsed Senator Humphrey, but what if he 
     loses to Senator Kennedy in the primary?'' Robinson said, 
     ``Why then I'll endorse Nixon.'' The crowd gasped and the 
     press ran for the phones to call their papers. What was 
     supposed to be a good day for Humphrey turned into an even 
     better one for Nixon.
       As you know, Kennedy did win the nomination and squared off 
     against Nixon. The last week of the election it was announced 
     that Nixon's plane would touch down for an early Saturday 
     morning rally at Truax field on the way to California. Bill 
     Whitford, Tom Eckerle, and I decided we wanted to crash the 
     rally. We went down to GOP headquarters and wheedled a bunch 
     of Nixon Lodge signs (Nixon's running mate that year was 
     Henry Cabot Lodge). We cut Lodge's name off the bottom of the 
     sign, moved it to the top, added the letters ``D-1-S'' in 
     front of Lodge's name so the signs read ``Dislodge Nixon'' 
     and sounded a small dissent at the rally the next morning.
       After the election we needed the help of the faculty to get 
     one of our friends out of trouble. In 1961 the Republican 
     Leadership in the Legislature called upon Governor Nelson to 
     fire his Secretary, Esther Kaplan, after she had circulated a 
     petition calling for the abolition of the House Un-American 
     Activities Committee. The Republican Leadership introduced a 
     resolution praising HUAC and held a Nelson bashing hearing on 
     it in the State Assembly Chambers. My friend, Dave Sheridan, 
     was so angered by the resolution that he put on his ROTC 
     uniform, walked down to the Capitol, and testified against 
     the resolution.
       ``I know that you are claiming that anyone opposed to HUAC 
     is either a traitor or a communist dupe,'' Sheridan said. 
     ``I'm wearing this uniform to demonstrate that while I may be 
     a dupe, I'm certainly no traitor.'' The Republican Leadership 
     was enraged and moved to have Sheridan thrown out of the ROTC 
     program because he had worn his uniform to testify--in 
     violation of Army rules.
       A number of Dave's friends on the faculty went to Ralph 
     Huitt and several others to get some advice on how to save 
     Sheridan's hide. Huitt (or someone else on the faculty) 
     called Carlisle Runge a UW law professor who had been named a 
     high Pentagon post by Kennedy, and got Sheridan off with a 
     reprimand. Years later it was to be my great pleasure to cast 
     a vote that disbanded HUAC.
       And there were some other pleasures. In his course on 
     legislation, Huitt scheduled a Mock Senate, role playing 
     exercise one weekend in the State Assembly Chambers at the 
     Capitol. Each student was assigned to play an individual, 
     real life U.S. Senator. Fittingly, Bill Steiger was assigned 
     to play Everett Dirksen, the Republican Floor Leader. I was 
     assigned to play Senator William Fullbright. It was my task 
     to try to push a foreign aid bill through the Senate. I had 
     no idea that 25 years later I would Chair the Foreign 
     Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, which had the 
     responsibility to handle all foreign aid appropriations.
       And there were so many other links in the chain.
       A large part of that Foreign Operations Committee 
     responsibility would be to shape development aid to the Third 
     World, the region that was the focus of Fred von der Mehden's 
     and Henry Hart's courses on Third World politics.
       Another strong focus for the committee was the Middle East. 
     Next to the Soviet Union, my main regional interest in 
     Congress has been the Middle East. That interest was first 
     triggered by series of debates that two faculty members at 
     the UW-Marathon County Center, Dr. Sam Weiner and Dr. Bob 
     Najem, had conducted after the 1956 Mid-East war.
       Of course, I knew nothing of those future linkages then. 
     Certainly, in graduate school under John Armstrong where I 
     focused on Russian area studies and expected to wind up 
     teaching Russian government somewhere, I had no idea that 30 
     years later I would be partnering with Indiana Congressman 
     Lee Hamilton to shepherd through Congress aid packages for 
     Russia and Eastern Europe after Gorbachev allowed the Soviet 
     block to crumble, virtually without a shot.
       I'm grateful for all those memories and for the substantive 
     grounding the University gave me to prepare me for my 
     congressional responsibilities. But the grounding I received 
     from the University was not just because of the courses I 
     took. It was also because of the spirit, the philosophy, the 
     progressive mind-set that defined the University and set it 
     off as something special in the American experience.
       You simply cannot live in Wisconsin and go to the 
     University of Wisconsin without recognizing the centrality of 
     the La Follette progressive tradition that is at the heart of 
     Wisconsin history, and the linkage the University has with 
     that tradition.
       The greatest public servant Wisconsin ever produced was 
     Robert La Follette. Before La Follette led his Progressive 
     revolution, Wisconsin's politics was owned lock, stock, and 
     barrel by the railroads, the mining companies, and the timber 
     interests. Government was geared to promote the welfare of 
     those engaged in the production of wealth. The interest of 
     the working class was an after thought. La Follette changed 
     all that--aided and abetted by the University. La Follette 
     changed the focus of Wisconsin government from enriching the 
     few at the expense of the many to enriching the few by 
     enriching the many. In short, he was Hubert Humphrey before 
     Hubert Humphrey.
       The original Wisconsin practitioner of the art of 
     ``Percolate Up'' rather than ``Trickle Down'' economics, La 
     Follette's mission and passion was to keep the big boys 
     honest in order to include everybody in the circle of 
     prosperity and progress. He was the Andrew Jackson of his 
     time and place.
       He understood that America is a capitalist economy, but it 
     is also more than just an economy; it is democracy. And as a 
     democracy, it is supposed to stand for the greatest good for 
     the greatest number, even as it respects the rights of the 
     individual.
       He understood that capitalism works through market forces 
     that cannot be repealed, but that democracy is not just ``Of, 
     By, and For the Markets.'' It is designed to be ``Of, By and 
     For the People!'' He believed that Darwin's law of the 
     survival of the fittest might be good enough for the animal 
     world, but not good enough for the world of man. He wanted 
     balanced capitalism, not a new feudalism in disguise. And he 
     intended to use the tools of government to achieve it. And he 
     used the resources of the University to help him in his task.
       Helped by scholars, such as Frederick Jackson Turner, 
     Richard Ely, and John R. Commons, he began the process by 
     writing legislation to loosen the stranglehold of the 
     railroads on Wisconsin's farmers and economy. What La 
     Follette began, before he moved to the U.S. Senate, reached 
     its zenith under Governor Francis McGovern.
       The legendary Charles McCarthy, a University product, 
     created Wisconsin's pioneering Legislative Reference Bureau. 
     He and more than 40 other University figures were at the 
     center of pioneering progressive achievements--
       Achievements like: The nation's first workers' compensation 
     program, workers' safety legislation, a State Industrial 
     Commission, limits on the hours of work for women and 
     children, forest protection legislation, the nation's first 
     progressive income tax, and so many others.
       In his autobiography La Follette explained his passion for 
     economic justice and the role the University played in 
     nurturing and furthering it. In that autobiography, a 
     Follette wrote the following. ``I shall never forget the 
     speech I heard the old Chief Justice of Wisconsin, Edward G. 
     Ryan, make to the graduating class at Madison in June of 1883 
     just before I entered the University,'' La Follette said:
       ``There is looming up a new and dark power . . . the 
     enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate 
     combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching not for 
     economic conquest only, but for political power. For the 
     first time really in our politics money is taking the field 
     as an organized power . . . The question will arise in

[[Page E780]]

     your day . . . which shall rule--wealth or man; which shall 
     lead--money or intellect; who shall fill public stations--
     education and patriotic free men or the feudal serfs of 
     corporate capital?''
       La Follette then goes on to say that that speech kindled in 
     him the spirit he carried throughout his public service. As 
     La Follette described it, ``It grew out of the intellectual 
     awakening . . . the very center and inspiration point of 
     which in Wisconsin was then, and has been ever since, the 
     University at Madison. It is difficult indeed to overestimate 
     the part which the University has played in the Wisconsin 
     revolution,'' La Follette said. ``For myself,'' he said, ``I 
     owe what I am and what I have done largely to the inspiration 
     I received while there. It was not so much the actual courses 
     of study which I pursued; it was rather the spirit of the 
     institution--a high spirit of earnest endeavor, a spirit of 
     fresh interest in new things, and beyond all else, a sense 
     that somehow the state and the University were intimately 
     related and that they should be of mutual service.''
       La Follette's attachment to the University was 
     understandable and fitting. He was the first graduate of the 
     University to become Governor. The legendary Charles Van Hise 
     was a member of that same graduating class--the first person 
     to obtain a PhD from the University, he was later effectively 
     appointed University President by La Follette.
       And I must say that it was that same sense of the spirit of 
     the institution, so intimately connected to Wisconsin's 
     progressive traditions, which sparked my passion for public 
     service.
       What I learned here that inspired me is that while La 
     Follette and other Progressive Reformers like George Norris 
     and Theodore Roosevelt were regarded as secular men, they 
     really were at the moral core of a movement that had deep 
     roots in the Jewish Prophetic Tradition and the Christian 
     Social Gospel, which implied that there were certain norms of 
     decency that must be the objectives of political choices in a 
     democracy.
       That tradition was rooted in the belief that politics must 
     be more than merely transactional. It must be more principled 
     than ``who gets what.'' That it could and should be, as Bill 
     Moyers has said, transformational--that it must try to ``even 
     the starting gate so that people who are equal in humanity 
     but not in resources have a reasonable opportunity to pursue 
     a full and decent life.''
       The Wisconsin tradition dictates that political leadership 
     must challenge people to see beyond their own self-interests 
     and prerogatives. That is why whenever anyone comes into my 
     office asking me to do something, I first ask them to read 
     aloud a sign hanging on the wall which asks, ``What do you 
     want me to do for someone besides yourself that is more 
     important than whatever it is you want me to do for you?'' If 
     you cannot answer that question you are failing the ultimate 
     test of good citizenship in a democracy.
       For the past 40 years, in the Legislature and the Congress, 
     I have tried to pursue that special Wisconsin vision of the 
     role of government in shaping a more just society. Wisconsin 
     has so often in its history been informed by a special sense 
     of commonwealth--of using our common wealth to invest in 
     efforts to spread the blessings of society more broadly.
       I wish I could say that we are still following that special 
     calling today, but we have drifted away in so many ways. Over 
     much of the last three decades we have seen the country 
     retreat from those ideals. Anna Quindlen has written that 
     ``America is a country that now sits atop the precarious 
     latticework of myth. It is the myth that work provides 
     sufficient rewards, that working people can support their 
     families. It's a myth that has become so divorced from 
     reality that it might as well begin with the words ``Once 
     upon a time.'' Why does Quindlen say that? Because one out of 
     every four American workers makes less than $8.70 an hour--
     poverty level for a family of four.
       La Follette and the past greats of the University would be 
     stunned to see that in one generation America has gone from 
     being the industrial society with the smallest gap between 
     rich and poor to the one with the largest.
       They would be astounded to see that the safety net, which 
     they fought so hard to construct, has not been nearly strong 
     enough for large portions of our population.
       They would be appalled that the number of Americans without 
     health insurance has grown by 4 million people in less than a 
     decade.
       They would see shame in the fact that the most well off 1 
     percent of America's families enjoy control over 33 percent 
     of the nation's wealth while the bottom 50 percent struggle 
     to maintain 2.8 percent of the nation's wealth.
       They would be dismayed to see how little heed has been paid 
     to the warning of Adam Smith, the founding high priest of 
     capitalism, that without fair rules of the game to keep 
     markets honest that capitalism could be misaligned into a 
     system that provided insufficient protection for the 
     legitimate interests of workers and consumers alike.
       They would find it unbelievable that the percentage of 
     American workers who belong to unions has contracted rather 
     than expanded over the last half century.
       They would be outraged that the ownership of news outlets 
     is much more heavily concentrated today than it was in their 
     era.
       They would not be surprised, but they would be repelled by 
     a tax system that provides greater rewards for accumulated 
     wealth than it does for work.
       And most of all, La Follette himself would be disheartened 
     by the growing financial barriers to opportunity that are 
     encountered by the children of so many working families who 
     seek to attend this very University.
       La Follette himself is Wisconsin's most distinguished 
     example of how crucial it can be to eliminate financial 
     barriers to higher education. In his autobiography, La 
     Follette made the following observation:
       ``My single term at the University law school had been 
     rendered possible only through the consideration of the 
     faculty in making an extraordinary exception in my case and 
     permitting me to enter without paying the usual matriculation 
     fee. I had no money . . .''
       How little we have learned, despite all the blather uttered 
     by both political parties about how much we have expanded 
     opportunity for higher education. UW Chancellor John Wiley 
     observed in a speech last November that the median family 
     income in Wisconsin is a little over $45,000, but the median 
     family income for this year's new freshman at Madison is 
     $90,000.'' Think about that for a moment. As Wiley pointed 
     out, ``The distribution of brains, talent, ambition, and 
     creativity is independent of family income. We will ignore 
     that fact and freeze out the children of average and low 
     income families at our peril.''
       Now tie that to another fact. Pell Grants, the principal 
     student aid program for low income students, now pay for only 
     one-half of the cost of instruction that they paid for in 
     1976. I feel acutely about this because I'm the Ranking 
     Democrat on the Appropriations Committee and the Subcommittee 
     that funds all education programs. Next, add in another fact. 
     More than half of all college graduates graduate with debts 
     above $15,000.
       If La Follette were planning to go to law school today, he 
     couldn't afford it. How many La Follettes or Gaylord Nelsons 
     or Bill Steigers are we today passing over?
       What would he and the University greats of old say about a 
     government which, when struggling with a $500 billion 
     deficit, a huge Social Security deficit, record long-term 
     unemployment, and 44 million people without health insurance, 
     decides that the number one priority in the budget next year 
     is to provide a $155,000 tax cut to someone making a million 
     dollars while we short fund elementary and secondary 
     education by $9 billion and continue to tolerate a two-tier 
     system for access to higher education or quality health care.
       We all love this country. In spite of all its short 
     comings, this is a great country. But shame on us for 
     allowing such an outcome. We must do better.
       I thank the University--and you should, too--for its 
     tradition of producing graduates and citizens who are never 
     satisfied, for it's tradition of saying ``We can do better!'' 
     For the sake of the kind of country we want America to be, 
     let's all do our part to live up to that tradition.
       Now, I'm sure that some of you may strongly disagree with 
     the thrust of what I have said today. That's o.k. As Will 
     Rogers observed, ``If two people agree on everything, one of 
     them is unnecessary.'' That difference would probably be 
     rooted in the fact that we follow different philosophers. 
     Some of you may follow Plato or Aristotle or even Ayn Rand, 
     God Forbid. But my favorite philosopher is Arch the 
     Cockroach.
       Archy was a character invented by a writer by the name of 
     Don Marquis in the 1920s. He was supposedly a poet who had 
     died and had come back to life in a body of a cockroach. He 
     lived in a newspaperman's office and every night would crawl 
     out of the woodwork, climb onto the typewriter, dive head 
     first on the keys, and leave little messages which would 
     appear in the newspaper the next day. He had a thought for 
     every occasion. One of the things he said was this:

     ``did you ever
     notice that when
     a politician
     does get an idea
     he usually
     gets it all wrong''

           But my favorite was this:

     ``im too small
     to feel great pride
     and as the pompous world
     goes by
     i see things from
     the under side''

       Like Archy, I try to see life from the underside. I make no 
     apology. I learned it here!

                          ____________________