[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 21, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3514-S3515]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IN MEMORY OF SENATOR THOMAS EAGLETON

 Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to add to the praise of 
a great statesman and a great friend: Senator Thomas Eagleton of 
Missouri.
  Those of us who knew Tom remember him as a man of nearly endless 
drive and boundless energy. Those qualities carried him to a career in 
Missouri politics unmarked by a single defeat: the youngest St. Louis 
circuit attorney, the youngest Missouri attorney general and Lieutenant 
Governor, U.S. Senator at the age of 39.
  Tom spent his political career, as his hometown paper put it, as ``a 
force of nature. He worked crowds with a fervor, sweating like a mill 
worker, chain-smoking Pall Malls, shaking hands, trading insults, 
telling jokes, remembering names and pet causes.'' As he conceded 
himself, ``I campaigned myself right into the hospital.''
  Thankfully, Tom emerged to serve as one of the most eloquent liberal 
voices in Congress. His achievements should make his constituents proud 
and his fellow Senators a little envious.
  He was crucial to the enactment of the Clean Air Act and the Clean 
Water Act, legislation that still forms the backbone of our 
environmental defense today.
  Tom sponsored the amendment that ended American bombing of Cambodia 
and helped bring an end to the Vietnam war.
  He was a longtime opponent of unchecked Presidential powers to wage 
war; and I am sure I speak for many of my colleagues when I say that we 
could sorely use his example and his counsel in the months ahead.

[[Page S3515]]

  But fairly or not, news of Tom Eagleton's death brought many of us 
back to 2 tumultuous weeks in 1972.
  Every piece of social progress has a melancholy side: the memory of 
those born too soon to profit by it. The career of Senator Eagleton, 
distinguished as it was, was just such a case.
  Today we recognize depression as a physical illness, as treatable as 
an ulcer. But in 1972, when Tom Eagleton ran on the Democratic ticket, 
it was a mark of shame. Exposure of his psychiatric hospitalization 
cost him his place on that ticket, and part of me wishes he had had his 
chance in a slightly wiser time. What a difference it would have made 
for our country.
  ``If had it to do over again, I'd have kept him,'' said George 
McGovern, the Democratic candidate that year. ``I didn't know anything 
about mental illness. Nobody did.'' Thanks in part to Tom Eagleton, our 
knowledge today is much deeper.
  We know, as Abraham Lincoln learned from his own experience more than 
160 years ago, that ``a tendency to melancholy is a misfortune, not a 
fault.'' And we know that it can be the dark obverse side of our 
brightest virtues.
  One memory of Tom stands out the clearest. We were in a meeting of 
Democratic Senators, talking about the upcoming agenda. As we went 
around the room, each stood up to speak of some interests in our own 
States. But Tom interrupted and gave an impassioned, impromptu speech 
on the importance of representing the entire Nation. I wish someone 
taped it; but whenever I am afraid my range of vision is narrowing, I 
remember Tom's words and remember his wide view of the common, national 
good. To me, those words symbolize Tom's greatest strength, something 
one of our colleagues called his ``moral passion.''
  Those who knew Tom will remember that passion first of all, his 
guiding spirit for 77 years. Our thoughts are with his wife Barbara, 
his entire family, and all those who looked up to this bold and 
steadfast leader.
  I shall miss a remarkable public man, but more personally, a 
delightful, warm, loyal friend.

                          ____________________