[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 57 (Wednesday, April 21, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S2486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO SENATOR DENNIS CHAVEZ

  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute 
to a man who served New Mexico and the entire country with distinction 
for more than three decades in Washington, a man who dedicated his life 
to being a champion for the least of us. That man is Senator Dennis 
Chavez, the Nation's longest serving Hispanic U.S. Senator. This month 
we mark the 122nd anniversary of his birth. In everything he did, 
Senator Chavez showed his concern for the underdog. He fought for 
public education because he knew what it could do to help the children 
of struggling families become successful adults. He supported farmers 
because he knew how difficult life can be in the small communities 
where the trains don't stop and the roads don't go. And he fought for 
civil rights because Senator Chavez believed equality of opportunity is 
the core of the American creed.
  Dennis Chavez fought for the underdog because he was an underdog. 
Born into poverty in Valencia County, NM, Chavez walked along a 
difficult road to the pinnacle of political power. A child of an 
isolated small town, he would see the world and help to shape it. A 
high school dropout, he earned a law degree and became a lawmaker. A 
victim of ethnic discrimination, he wrote legislation that would 
eventually make employment discrimination illegal and, then, 
unthinkable.
  Dennis Chavez was a man of conviction. He also was a man of courage. 
At the height of anti-Communist sentiment in the 1950s, Senator Chavez 
was one of the first to denounce the activities of Joseph McCarthy. 
Here is what he said on the Senate floor during the McCarthy hearings 
in 1950:

       I should like to be remembered as a man who raised a voice 
     . . . and I devoutly hope not a voice in the wilderness . . . 
     at a time in the history of this body when we seem bent upon 
     placing limitations on the freedom of the individual. I would 
     consider all of the legislation which I have supported 
     meaningless if I were to sit idly by, silent, during a period 
     which may go down in history as an era when we permitted the 
     curtailment of our liberties, a period when we quietly 
     shackled the growth of men's minds.

  My father, who died last month, served in the U.S. Congress with 
Dennis Chavez in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He always said what he 
saw in Senator Chavez was a visionary and a man of courage. When 
Senator Chavez left this world in 1962, he was eulogized by Vice 
President Lyndon Johnson. In that eulogy, Vice President Johnson 
remembered Senator Chavez as ``a man who recognized that there must be 
a champion for the least among us.''
  Four years later, when the U.S. Congress placed Senator Chavez's 
statue in Statuary Hall, Rev. John Spence summed up the man nicely. 
Spence said Senator Chavez was ``ever a champion of the underdog, the 
poor and oppressed.''
  But it is the quote inscribed at the bottom of the statue that best 
reveals the legacy of Senator Dennis Chavez. Written in three 
languages, Spanish, English and Navajo, it reads simply:

       He left a mark that will never be forgotten in the hopes 
     that others would follow.

  El Senador makes me proud to be a New Mexican and humble to follow in 
his footsteps as a Senator representing the great State of New Mexico. 
America is a better place because of Senator Chavez. For that, we honor 
him today.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeMINT. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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