[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 9, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6452-S6453]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                MEMORIAL SERVICE OF SENATOR JESSE HELMS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on one other item, yesterday we said 
goodbye to our former colleague, Senator Jesse Helms. A significant 
number of our colleagues were in attendance at the funeral in Raleigh. 
Since his passing was expected, we certainly did not suffer from shock. 
It was anticipated that our friend and colleague would soon pass away, 
so in many respects it was a celebration of the life of a unique and 
great American.
  I was honored by Mrs. Helms to be asked to do one of the eulogies at 
the funeral yesterday. I ask that my remarks be printed in the Record 
for any of our colleagues who might want to see what I had to say on 
behalf of our friend and colleague yesterday as we bid him farewell.
  I ask unanimous consent to have those remarks printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                Memorial Service of Senator Jesse Helms


 Remarks of U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, July 8, 2008

       Dot, Jane, Nancy, Charles, members of the Helms family, Mr. 
     Vice President, Senate colleagues, Reverend Bodkin, 
     distinguished guests, and friends of Jesse Alexander Helms.

[[Page S6453]]

       Many good things have been said about Jesse Helms since he 
     left us early Friday morning. And none, I think, was more 
     true than a note that was sent to the Helms Center over the 
     weekend. ``He was caring about those he knew and didn't 
     know,'' it said. ``He wanted others to succeed.''
       In the Senate, he always sought them out. Whether it was 
     the schoolchildren that he met with by the thousands; the 
     staff members he didn't call staff, but family--the Helms 
     Senate family; or the Senate pages he would always stop to 
     talk to, and who would send him notes later on in life to 
     thank him for a kindness, a word of encouragement, or to show 
     him pictures of a newborn baby.
       Over the years, anyone who passed by Jesse Helms in the 
     Capitol, or worked in his office, would remember him as one 
     of the kindest men they ever knew. No matter who you were, he 
     always had a thoughtful word and a gentle smile. He put duty 
     above all else--duty to God, to country, and to family, yes--
     but also a duty that's often overlooked: the simple duty of 
     treating other people well.
       He never let the seriousness of his job in the Senate 
     become an excuse for pretense.
       Just ask the Senators who always had to make room for 
     Jesse's constituents on the senators-only elevators. Or the 
     tourists from all the other states who noticed that Senator 
     Helms always put visitors from North Carolina at the front of 
     the Senate subway car when he rode with them. Or the 
     constituents who weren't even from North Carolina, but who 
     could always count on the Helms Senate family to help if 
     their own representatives didn't. Their boss always made sure 
     of it.
       One of the more notable features of being a member of the 
     U.S. Senate is that you get to see how different the public 
     image of certain well-known senators is from the men and 
     women you actually get to know as colleagues and as friends. 
     No one seemed to suffer more from this peculiar disconnect 
     than Jesse Helms. And no one seemed to care about it less.
       I remember walking into his office for the first time and 
     being disarmed by his kindness, and then stepping into his 
     private office and being disarmed again at seeing an entire 
     wall covered with some of the nastiest political cartoons I'd 
     ever seen. Every one was critical of Jesse. And he loved 
     them. Visitors would come into his office, look at the wall, 
     look back at Jesse, and he'd just smile.
       There was a lesson here: you can let your adversaries beat 
     you down, or you can let it roll off your back. Jesse taught 
     many of us to do the latter, and we were grateful for the 
     advice.
       Staffers learned how to deal with the critics too. One 
     time, after a particularly harsh editorial in the New York 
     Times, a new Helms staffer dashed off a harsh response and 
     brought it in to the boss for his review. Jesse read it, 
     patted the young man on the shoulder, and said, ``Son, just 
     so you understand: I don't care what the New York Times says 
     about me.''
       He had a kind of preternatural calm about what other people 
     said. But for Jesse, standing on principle and fighting back 
     in defense of one's views was never to be confused with 
     animosity for ones adversaries. Political disagreements were 
     never a reason to treat others badly. As one of his 
     Democratic colleagues put it over the weekend: ``He was 
     always a gentleman.''
       When he fought back, he did it in the most effective way he 
     knew how. Nobody knew the rules of the Senate better than 
     Jesse Helms, and no one used them against his adversaries to 
     more frustrating effect. There's a saying in Washington: 
     Whenever a member of Congress looks into the mirror, he sees 
     a future president. But Jesse Helms was always an exception 
     to the rule. He never saw himself as anything other than a 
     senator. And he played the role masterfully.
       Of course, there was one person whose opinion did matter. 
     And, as I recall, she was never one to hold back. If Jesse 
     gave a speech that was a little too long, he'd be sure to 
     hear about it in the car ride home. And, unlike the editorial 
     writers, Jesse always took Dot's wise counsel to heart.
       It's ironic, of course, that Jesse Helms would find his 
     wife in a newsroom--ironic that someone who had so little use 
     for newspapers would have started out at one. But he always 
     remembered those early days at the News & Observer fondly. He 
     remembered that the best path to his desk was the path that 
     led him past Dorothy Coble's [COE-BULL] desk.
       He took that path often. And soon enough, he and Dot were 
     covering the news together, and becoming close friends over 
     late-night steak dinners at the Hollywood Cafe. Decades 
     later, looking back on all the state dinners and all the 
     visits from various dignitaries and world leaders, Jesse 
     would say those dinners with Dot at the Hollywood Cafe were, 
     for him, the most memorable.
       Dot, you had the perfect partnership. We miss you in 
     Washington. And we honor you today too, for your devotion and 
     your strength, especially in these last years, which haven't 
     been easy, we know.
       Jesse Helms was not above sharing the secret of his success 
     with anyone who asked.
       One time, a college student who admired him called his 
     office on a whim to see if Senator Helms would be willing to 
     speak to a college group he ran. The boy was shocked when 
     Senator Helms himself cut in on the phone line and said, 
     ``I'll do it.'' But he was shocked even more when, on the day 
     of the speech, he asked Senator Helms for the one piece of 
     advice he'd give a young man just starting out in politics. 
     ``Son, find yourself a good wife.''
       It has been noted by many others how fitting it should be 
     for a man who spent his entire adult life talking about the 
     ``Miracle of America'' to pass away on Independence Day. It 
     was no less fitting, I should think, for a man who did so 
     much to promote the vision of the American Founding to have 
     come from as modest a background as so many of the men who 
     secured it in battle.
       That too, of course, has always been a part of the Miracle 
     of America: that an army of castaways, one third of whom 
     didn't even have shoes, could defeat the British Army. That a 
     boy from Kentucky whose father couldn't even sign his own 
     name would go on to write the words of the Gettysburg 
     Address. Or that a policeman's son from Monroe, North 
     Carolina, could, in his own time, have such a powerful effect 
     on the course of human events. Jesse Helms rose the way so 
     many others in our country have from its earliest days, not 
     by inheriting something, but by building something.
       He was a product of the public schools, but his most 
     important education came from the home. In the Helms 
     household, Jesse said, it was not uncommon for him to wake up 
     and find his mother cooking breakfast for the hobos that his 
     father had rounded up the night before. And on Sundays, the 
     whole family would worship together at the First Baptist 
     Church on Main Street in Monroe.
       It was the kind of home where a young boy could learn a 
     boundless hope in the promise of America. It was the kind of 
     place where a young boy could learn about the importance of 
     strong principles, and the importance of fighting for them, 
     regardless of the personal cost.
       I remember once, as a young senator, walking into the 
     Republican cloakroom, and seeing what that kind of tenacity 
     looked like: a lone senator, sitting in the corner. Jesse had 
     put the rest of us in some parliamentary tangle about one 
     thing or another. He'd ground the place to a halt. And he was 
     completely comfortable with the whole situation. It was truly 
     something to behold.
       Once, after a disastrous early battle in the Revolutionary 
     War, John Adams was asked for an explanation. ``In general,'' 
     he said, ``their generals outgeneralled our generals.'' For 
     the last three decades of the 20th Century, the same would 
     never be said of a certain North Carolina lawmaker whenever 
     he decided to take on an issue in the U.S. Senate. Jesse 
     Helms always held his ground.
       Many others who never saw Jesse Helms on the Senate floor 
     have noted with admiration the same qualities over these past 
     days. One man from Florida wrote that Cuban Americans will 
     never forget his staunch opposition to the Castro Regime. And 
     one of Jesse's many unlikely friends on the international 
     stage, Bono, left a tribute at the Helms Center that many men 
     could only dream of.
       ``Give Dot and the family my love,'' it said. ``And tell 
     them there are two million people alive today in Africa 
     because Jesse Helms did the right thing.''
       Today, we are sad at the passing of our friend, but we are 
     consoled by the promises of a God he loved. Jesse Helms was 
     once asked whether he had any ambitions beyond the Senate. 
     ``The only thing I am running for,'' he said, ``is the 
     Kingdom of Heaven.''
       Now that day which comes to all of us has come for Jesse 
     Helms. And we are confident that he has heard those words he 
     longed to hear: ``Well done, good and faithful servant . . . 
     Come and share in your Master's joy.''

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.

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