[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 14 (Wednesday, February 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E114-E115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO SENATOR EUGENE J. McCARTHY

                                 ______
                                 

                    HON. JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 8, 2006

  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, as we resume our business I want 
to pause for a moment and note the death of a giant in American 
political history. On December 10, 2005, the Honorable Eugene Joseph 
McCarthy, former Representative and Senator from Minnesota, departed 
this life at age 89. Although many Americans, especially the young, may 
not know much of McCarthy's career or his role in our country's 
history, we are all fortunate that he chose public service and once 
trod the halls of this Capitol as a Member.
  In the days following the Senator's death here in Washington of the 
effects of Parkinsonism, much has been written about him. Born on March 
29, 1916, McCarthy grew up in Watkins, Minnesota, where, he once said, 
the culture revolved around baseball, the church, and the railroad. 
After earning a master's degree at the University of Minnesota, 
following initial diversions through study for the priesthood and a 
semi-professional baseball career, McCarthy became a college professor. 
He worked in the War Department during

[[Page E115]]

World War II and married, having three daughters and a son. In 1948, 
the historic election ultimately featuring the erroneous Chicago 
Tribune headline ``Dewey Defeats Truman,'' McCarthy won a seat in the 
U.S. House, representing St. Paul. Taking his seat in 1949, Eugene 
McCarthy embarked on a solidly liberal voting record in the House, 
whose Members included John F. Kennedy, Gerald R. Ford, and Richard M. 
Nixon.
  It immediately became clear that Eugene McCarthy had uncommon 
political courage. During his first term, another McCarthy, Republican 
Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, created an uproar in a February 
1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, by waving around an alleged 
list of Communists in the State Department.

  Joe McCarthy's subsequent Red-baiting rampage through the early 1950s 
thus began, destroying numerous peoples' careers and intimidating 
countless more. In 1952, Eugene McCarthy, then a second-term 
Congressman of the minority party, had an opportunity and the courage 
to confront the author of ``McCarthyism'' in a nationally broadcast 
television debate, one of the earliest of its kind. Observers of the 
``McCarthy vs. McCarthy'' debate considered the outcome a draw--in 
reality, a tremendous victory for the mild-mannered Congressman from 
Minnesota.
  After five terms in the House, during which he helped to found the 
Democratic Study Group, an organization committed to advancing liberal 
public policies, Eugene McCarthy successfully challenged the incumbent 
conservative Republican Senator Edward Thye. For Democrats, the 1958 
election yielded spectacular results, and McCarthy joined a large class 
of new Senators, one of whom, the distinguished senior Senator from 
West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, serves to this day.
  In the years to follow, the new Senator McCarthy continued his 
solidly liberal voting record, supporting civil rights, anti-poverty 
legislation, and the creation of Medicare. He decried racism and the 
ills of poverty, and supported most proposals of the ``New Frontier'' 
and the ``Great Society'' during the Kennedy and Johnson 
administrations.
  Of course, the momentous event of Eugene McCarthy's 22 years in 
Congress was his courageous, insurgent campaign for the 1968 Democratic 
Presidential nomination, which changed the course of history for 
America and the world.
  Like 87 other Senators, Eugene McCarthy had voted for the Tonkin Gulf 
Resolution in August 1964, which gave President Johnson authority to 
wage war in Vietnam. The climate in which that vote had occurred, a few 
days after an alleged attack by North Vietnamese patrol boats against 
two American destroyers, made the resolution virtually impossible to 
oppose. But Senator McCarthy, who served on the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee, came to regret his vote when it became clear to 
him that the Johnson administration would expend vast sums and 
thousands of lives in a conflict that even the President himself, we 
now know from taped telephone conversations, doubted could be won.
  McCarthy believed the war was not only unwinnable, but morally wrong. 
Defying the administration, he urged a new course and called for a 
negotiated settlement in Vietnam. By the time he announced on November 
30, 1967, that he would seek the 1968 Democratic Presidential 
nomination, more than 15,000 American service men and women had died, 
along with tens of thousands of Vietnamese, with no end in sight.
  Senator McCarthy's decision to challenge President Johnson shocked 
and divided the Democratic Party and the country. But dissatisfaction 
with the war policy had found a champion. Senator McCarthy argued that 
the billions of dollars being spent in Vietnam could be better put to 
work, and that withdrawal from Vietnam would not hurt American national 
security. He launched a campaign focusing on four States scheduled to 
hold Democratic primaries, beginning with New Hampshire.
  In addition to others eager for change, the McCarthy campaign 
attracted the support of thousands of college students from across the 
country, many of whom flocked into the State and rang doorbells in 
support of the Senator, explaining the problems with the war and his 
vision for a rational solution. To respond to the charge that only 
``hippies'' and ``communists'' opposed the war, young men shaved their 
beards and went ``clean for Gene.'' Ben Shahn and other famous artists 
painted campaign posters, entertainers, including singers Peter, Paul 
and Mary, who remained the Senator's lifelong friends, wrote and 
performed.

  In the New Hampshire Democratic primary, the Senator received an 
astounding 42 percent of the vote, to the President's 49 percent, 
leading the President to withdraw from the race later that month. The 
McCarthy campaign continued, exhilarated by the result. But after 
Senator McCarthy demonstrated the vulnerability of the President and 
overall dissatisfaction with the war, Senator Robert Kennedy entered 
the race also on an anti-war platform, and fellow Minnesotan Hubert 
Humphrey, the Vice President, entered as the ``establishment'' Democrat 
after President Johnson's withdrawal. Following the assassinations of 
Dr. Martin Luther King, who had endorsed Senator McCarthy in the 
California primary, and Senator Robert Kennedy, Vice President Humphrey 
amassed the delegates needed to win the nomination, and nearly defeated 
Richard Nixon in the general election.
  After leaving the Senate in 1970, McCarthy remained a vital force in 
American politics, offering an independent point of view on issues, 
especially campaigns and elections. He wrote dozens of books, poetry, 
and continued making his unique contribution to our culture until his 
death.
  Mr. Speaker, although the Senator's wife Abigail and their daughter 
Mary preceded the Senator in death, their daughters Margaret and Ellen 
survive, along with son Michael. In a personal note, as many of our 
colleagues know, daughter Ellen McCarthy serves on the Democratic staff 
of the Committee on House Administration. Every day, Ellen skillfully 
helps our Committee, other Members and their staffs to navigate the 
maze of rules, regulations, and other issues they confront in the 
course of their work here in the House. Speaking for the Committee, we 
are grateful that Senator McCarthy's dedication to public service led 
to Ellen's work with us, and we share not only her loss, but also her 
intense personal pride in her father's accomplishments in this world.
  Mr. Speaker, all Members of this Congress, and indeed every American, 
should give thanks for the life and career of Eugene McCarthy. He had 
the wisdom to see a wrong, and the courage to act when it mattered, all 
at great political peril, and ultimately, sacrifice. We have too seldom 
seen his like before, and I fear we shall not soon see his like again.

                          ____________________