[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 180 (Wednesday, November 14, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6947-S6949]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Remembering Claiborne Pell

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, next week will mark what would have been the 
100th birthday of my predecessor, Senator Claiborne de Borda Pell, who 
was born on November 22, 1918. This year, appropriately enough, the 
date falls on Thanksgiving.
  We lost Senator Pell nearly 9 years ago after a long struggle with 
Parkinson's disease, which robbed him of his mobility but not his 
spirit. He was sustained by the love of his wonderful family, 
especially his beloved wife, the late Nuala Pell.
  A person who dedicated his life to selfless service to Rhode Island 
and the Nation, Senator Pell would not want a showy commemoration of 
his centenary. He was not one to seek the limelight. Moreover, for him, 
his birthday--November 22--became a somber day for remembrance and 
mourning the loss of his dear friend, President John F. Kennedy.
  But at a time when differences seem more striking than our common 
cause and when there is a question of whether America's role in the 
world community should be guided solely by narrowly defined self-
interest or by our democratic ideals, it is helpful for us to recall 
the example and standard Senator Pell set--both his accomplishments and 
the civility he maintained throughout his career.
  He was born into a family of great wealth and privilege, yet 
Claiborne Pell never exhibited a sense of entitlement. At a defining 
moment in the history of our country and a defining moment in his life, 
Claiborne Pell demonstrated that privilege and wealth was not a way to 
avoid the rigors of life. Rather, for him, they offered the opportunity 
and responsibility to meet the challenges of the times with vigor and 
wisdom and optimism.
  As World War II approached, Claiborne Pell, with family connections, 
poor eyesight, and a high draft number, could have easily secured a 
sinecure, a safe posting to ride out the war. Instead, before Pearl 
Harbor, he decided on his own to enlist in the Coast Guard and 
eventually sailed the dangerous North Atlantic convoy runs. 
Significantly, Claiborne chose to enlist not as an officer but as a 
seaman so that he could get a chance at sea duty.
  The complete lack of regard for status or pretense, which he showed 
in his World War II service, would continue to mark his public service 
and endear him to generations of Rhode Islanders. For 36 years, 
Claiborne Pell did not simply represent Rhode Island in the U.S. 
Senate; he represented the ideal of what a public servant should be.
  He said that his motto or statement of purpose was to ``translate 
ideas into action and help people.'' And that is what he did. One 
hundred years after his birth and 58 years after his first election to 
the Senate, millions of Americans continued to be helped by his ideas 
translated into action.
  He believed that government had a critical role in providing 
opportunity, particularly the opportunity for a good education for 
every American, and he knew that there were unbounded horizons for the 
initiative, invention, and innovation of these well-educated sons and 
daughters of America. Truly, they would continue and enhance the great 
endeavor that is America.
  He authored the legislation that established the Basic Education 
Opportunity grant, now known as the Pell grant. Today, roughly 7.5 
million students rely on Pell grants to help pay for college.
  He wrote the legislation that created the National Endowment for the 
Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. To this day, these 
agencies support artistic, educational, and cultural programming in 
communities large and small across the Nation, fulfilling Senator 
Pell's commitment to strengthening and preserving our national cultural 
heritage for all Americans.
  He led the effort to establish the Institute of Museum and Library 
Services, helping libraries and museums across the Nation transform 
their communities through access to information and opportunities for 
lifelong learning. According to the Institute, people visited libraries 
over 1.3 billion times in 2015, and 55 million student groups visit 
museums each year.
  The vision he articulated in the early 1960s for high-quality 
passenger rail service connecting the major population centers on the 
east coast into a megalopolis led to the creation of Amtrak and the 
Northeast Corridor. Decades later, it is interesting to see not only 
how much of his vision has been achieved but also how much of his 
vision is now reflected in ideas like Elon Musk's ``hyperloop.''
  Touched by the death of two members of his staff who were killed by 
drunk drivers, Senator Pell authored the first Federal anti-drunk 
driving bill in 1976--4 years before the founding of advocacy group 
MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Senator Pell's legislation became 
the model for Federal policy efforts to combat impaired driving by 
giving the States strong incentives to toughen their laws.
  Senator Pell was also deeply committed to America's role in securing 
world peace. His notion of a powerful America leading the world--not 
standing apart from it--and his notion that our values, our system, and 
our commitment to human decency would prevail in the face of 
totalitarianism were wisdom of the ages. In his service on the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee, he espoused those views, seeking to remind 
us that our destiny would take us far beyond what simply a military 
operation or our economic power might because of our ideals and 
commitment to creating a world community.
  Senator Pell's approach to legislating was unfailingly kind and 
civil. In his farewell speech to the Senate, he laid out his guiding 
rules. In his words: ``First, never respond to an adversary in ad 
hominem terms.''
  In his six campaigns for the U.S. Senate, Claiborne Pell never ran a 
negative ad or attacked his opponent personally. Rhode Islanders 
rewarded him with an average vote of more than 60 percent for each of 
his elections.
  ``Second, always let the other fellow have your way.''
  For Senator Pell, winning an ally to achieve a legislative victory 
was more valuable than getting exclusive credit.
  

  ``Third, sometimes half a loaf can feed an army.''
  

  He lived by those rules, but he feared that our politics and our 
media were pulling us in the opposite direction. That is why he used 
his farewell speech to urge us to stay true to a practice of politics 
worthy of our Democratic tradition, saying:

       If I could have one wish for the future of our country in 
     the new millennium, it would be that we not abandon the 
     traditional norms of behavior that are the underpinning of 
     our democratic system.
  

       Comity and civility, transcending differences of party and 
     ideology, have always

[[Page S6948]]

     been crucial elements in making Government an effective and 
     constructive instrument of public will. But in times such as 
     these, when there is fundamental disagreement about the role 
     of Government, it is all the more essential that we preserve 
     the spirit of civil discourse.

  Those words ring very true and relevant today as they did when he 
gave them in his farewell address.
  Following in Senator Pell's footsteps, I am one who is in awe of his 
presence and accomplishments and feel a deep responsibility to 
continuing his legacy. He forged an enduring bond with the people of 
Rhode Island. He put ideas into action to help people. He was always 
civil and ready to find common ground.
  As we celebrate Senator Pell's 100th birthday, let's take inspiration 
from his spirit of service and collegiality. Let's translate ideas into 
action and help people.
  Mr. President, I know my colleague Senator Whitehouse is here. Mr. 
Whitehouse is someone who knew Senator Pell well, and he continues in 
the image and spirit of Senator Pell by being someone who brings his 
great talents and skills to serve the people of Rhode Island and the 
Nation with dignity, civility, and great energy. With that, Mr. 
President, I would like to yield to my colleague Senator Whitehouse.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking my senior 
Senator, Jack Reed, for calling us to the floor to reflect and 
memorialize a truly splendid Senator who represented the State of Rhode 
Island, our friend and a great Rhode Islander, Claiborne Pell.
  I think my senior colleague has done an exemplary job of following in 
Senator Pell's footsteps of decency, civility, and quiet determination 
in the seat that Senator Pell once held. I cannot claim to hold the 
seat the Senator once held, but I can claim to have the desk at which 
Senator Pell once sat. If you look here right under where it says 
``Pastore''--a Rhode Island Senator--in carved letters, you see in very 
small letters ``P-e-l-l'' and then ``R.I.''--like anybody needed to 
know that Claiborne Pell was from Rhode Island.
  Claiborne Pell was very important in my political life. He spent 
years--in fact, decades--refusing to get involved in primaries. ``It is 
up to the party,'' he would say. When I ran for attorney general the 
first time I ran for elected office, I was in a three-way primary, and 
Claiborne Pell, for the first time in his career, endorsed me in that 
primary. He more than endorsed me; we went to a little park near his 
house in Newport, and he allowed me to film myself walking with him and 
conversing with him for my first commercial. Well, you can imagine, in 
a State like Rhode Island, when a legend like Claiborne Pell in the 
Democratic Party suddenly appears in your commercial in a primary--let 
me just say it was not a good day for my primary opponents. It was 
incredibly generous of Claiborne Pell to break a multidecade tradition 
on primaries in order to launch my first political effort, and I hope I 
have conducted myself since then in such a way that I never gave him or 
his family cause to regret it.
  As Senator Reed pointed out, one of the significant lessons from 
Claiborne Pell's career here in the Senate--and it is one that I think 
of all the time--was that he looked beyond the scrum of the moment. 
There is always something going on here in the Senate. There is always 
some fight or some issue that is on the front page of the Washington 
Post and on the news channels. That is always, always, always going on, 
and that bright, shiny object very often attracts an enormous amount of 
attention in this body. I suspect that Senator Pell paid less attention 
to that daily scrum than almost anybody who has served in the Senate. 
He had a much more patient soul and steadily and quietly and modestly 
worked away at his priorities.
  He used to make fun of himself for his interest in ``choo-choos.'' He 
would say ``choo-choo.'' Well, we have Amtrak in large part because of 
Senator Claiborne Pell's work. The Pell grant is named after him 
because of persistent leadership making sure that such a grant existed. 
Over years of work, he finally got it done. It was ultimately named for 
him, and it remains today an important part of how many young people 
here in the United States actually get to college and move toward their 
dreams.
  He fought for years to create the National Endowment for the Arts and 
National Endowment for the Humanities, and those institutions still 
exist. They are still doing great work today.
  In Rhode Island, we are very proud of Sea Grant. Sea Grant has 
programs in all of our coastal States. Sea Grant was the invention of 
Claiborne Pell and Dean John Knauss, later dean of the Graduate School 
of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.
  When you look back and think of who the Senators were at the time 
that Claiborne Pell served, you can go through all these desk drawers 
that I showed you, and there are lots of names of Senators. Many of 
them are ones you never heard of. They were certainly important in 
their day, but their day is done and their names are no longer 
remembered. Senator Pell is remembered. He left lasting legacies like 
those, and he did it by quietly and patiently sticking with his 
priorities, which he knew were Rhode Island's priorities and America's 
priorities. He might not have been on the talk shows as much as other 
Senators. He might not have been quoted on the front page of the 
Washington Post as much as other Senators. He was not as attentive to 
the daily scrum of Washington conflict. But, my goodness, when you look 
back at the legacy that he left that still operates today, it is hard 
to find somebody of his era whose footprint is larger than that of this 
shy, quiet, patient, civil, and persistent man.
  I would add to Senator Reed's comments about Claiborne Pell's 
philosophy a statement that he made to me that he made quite often. He 
said:

       One of the things that you must learn in politics, Sheldon, 
     is how to let the other fellow have it your way. Always let 
     the other fellow have it your way.

  What does it mean to always let the other fellow have it your way? 
What I take from that is that it means you have to stand by your 
principles. You have to achieve the goals you have set out for yourself 
and for your constituents, but on the way to getting there, if you can 
give others credit, if you can let other ideas join yours, if you can 
let other people have it your way, you are more likely to succeed. To 
this day, I still repeat that quote to new hires in my office.
  The picture of Claiborne Pell that he signed for me is still right 
there on my bookcase, and I see it every time I sit in the chair in my 
office. He was a remarkable and special individual. He was not your 
standard-issue U.S. Senator. The particular way he chose to go about 
his duties has left a larger footprint than most of his colleagues were 
able to leave.
  I will end with a story about one of my final memories. Senator Pell 
was out of the Senate. His illness had caught up with him to the point 
where he was barely able to speak any longer. His friend Ted Kennedy, 
who sat in this space right here--at a different desk but right here at 
this spot on the Senate floor--was sailing through Rhode Island, and he 
called up Senator Pell, and he said: I would like to take you out on my 
boat. So it was arranged that Senator Pell would go out on his 
sailboat. That required getting a wheelchair onto a sailboat, over the 
tippy docks that Senator Kennedy's boat pulled up to. Sure enough, we 
all grabbed a piece of the wheelchair and hoisted it up and stepped 
over into the boat and set his wheelchair down in the cockpit of the 
boat. Senator Kennedy started up the motor and drove it off down into 
Newport Harbor and then shut off the motor and put up the sails. As the 
wind caught the sails, the boat heeled over, and this old 
coastguardsman, Claiborne Pell, smiled a smile that I will never forget 
as the wind took the boat and we began to move out into Narragansett 
Bay.
  The only other thing that was really fun about that was, because 
Senator Pell could barely speak any longer, he was actually a perfect 
fit for Senator Kennedy, who could basically not stop talking. There 
was this wonderful conversation with Teddy Kennedy and Claiborne Pell 
wherein Teddy Kennedy did all the talking for the both of them, and 
they both had a lovely time. They reflected on decades of friendship 
and service here. It was a real privilege to have a chance as a very 
new Senator to share that moment with those two

[[Page S6949]]

very different but mutually beloved lions of the Senate.
  I particularly thank my distinguished senior colleague for organizing 
our chance to come here and reflect on our friend Claiborne Pell. I 
think nobody better than he carries on the Pell tradition.
  I thank Senator Reed.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. I again want to thank my colleague Senator Whitehouse for 
his very eloquent words about a great American, Claiborne Pell.
  Just a final comment. If you ever want to feel truly beloved, 
embraced by constituents, respected and admired, do what I did several 
times--march in a parade with Claiborne Pell and pretend they cheer for 
you.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.