[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 188 (Thursday, November 29, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7237-S7238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING PHILIP H. HOFF

 Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, Philip H. Hoff, who passed away on 
April 26, 2018, was one of the great Governors of the State of Vermont 
and someone I respected enormously. On May 12, 2018, at a memorial 
service in Burlington, VT, a close friend and colleague of Governor 
Hoff's, Rich Cassidy, delivered a very moving eulogy which I enclose.
  The material follows:

                   A Tribute to Philip Henderson Hoff

       Theodore Roosevelt said:
       ``It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points 
     out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds 
     could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man 
     who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust 
     and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who 
     comes short again and again, because there is no effort 
     without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive 
     to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great 
     devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the 
     best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and 
     who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring 
     greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and 
     timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.''
       Philip Henderson Hoff did not shy away from the arena. He 
     confronted the issues of the day, and often, the issues of 
     the future.
       He played high school football and tasted victory, scoring 
     the winning touchdown in the longstanding rivalry between his 
     hometown, Turners Falls, and arch-enemy Greenfield. He went 
     to Williams College, but left early to do his bit in World 
     War II. He signed up for training as a pilot, but after he 
     damaged his third trainer, the Navy persuaded him that it was 
     not to be. So, he volunteered for the submarine service.
       He met Joan while he was training in Connecticut. On one 
     date, he took a red kerosene lantern from a construction site 
     and gave it to her as a gift.
       Phil saw combat in the Pacific Theater aboard the USS Sea 
     Dog, a submarine, where he earned two battle stars.
       After the war, Phil returned to Williams College. Joan 
     heard that he was back and had asked about her, so she boxed 
     up the red lantern and sent it to him with a note: ``Phil, 
     it's your turn to polish it for a while.'' The lantern 
     rekindled their romance and led on to almost 70 years of 
     marriage.
       Phil finished at Williams and went to Cornell University 
     Law School.
       In 1951, Phil accepted an invitation from another Cornell 
     graduate, J. Boone Wilson, to come to Burlington, and join 
     the respected law firm then known as Black and Wilson.
       Phil developed a successful law practice with Boone. He was 
     good with a jury and had the largest jury verdict in a 
     personal injury case of the 1950s.
       Phil and Joan settled in a lovely home on South Prospect 
     Street, where they raised their 4 daughters, Susan, Dagny, 
     Andrea, and Gretchen.
       Phil is often given credit for making the Democratic Party 
     dominant in Vermont, and for ushering Vermont into the 
     American mainstream. He deserves a great deal of credit on 
     both counts, but even he would not claim it all. Politics and 
     government are team sports, and Phil would be the first to 
     acknowledge that what was accomplished was not his alone, not 
     by any means.
       But to see how broad and deep his legacy is, it is 
     important to put it in context. Vermont in those days was a 
     sleepy state. Most Governors acted as caretakers. The real 
     political power in the state rested with the towns. Vermont 
     had more dairy cows than people.
       And the Democratic Party was sleepier still. A Democrat had 
     only held the Governorship only once in history. For many 
     years a handful of Democratic cronies traded the nominations 
     for statewide offices, not in hopes of getting elected, but 
     to have a stake in distribution of political patronage from 
     Washington.
       How sleepy was it? In the 1946 election, Vermont's 
     Democratic National Committeeman was asked who the party's 
     candidate for Governor was. Unable to remember, he replied 
     ``Oh, some fellow from up north.'' ``But we don't concede his 
     defeat.''
       Change was in the wind. In 1950's two of Phil's friends, 
     Bob Larrow and Bernard Leddy, ran between them, three serious 
     campaigns for Governor. Leddy came within 719 votes of 
     victory. In 1959, the Party hired its first full time 
     executive director, Sam Miller, who is with us here today. We 
     were poised for victory.
       Phil ran for Burlington Board of Alderman in the winter of 
     1960. He lost, but politics was in his blood. That fall he 
     was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives.
       In the House, Phil helped bring together a group of young, 
     well-educated and energetic legislators, Democrats and 
     Republicans, who wanted to see government take a more active 
     role in the development of the state. Its members included 
     many who would play important roles in the days ahead. 
     Together, among other things, they set out to end the poll 
     tax. At the time they failed. But they started a political 
     revolution that has not ended yet.
       In 1962, Phil and Joan ran an energetic and charismatic 
     campaign against the incumbent Governor. The Hoffs were 
     everywhere, even at my mother's door in Rutland. With the 
     help of about 5,000 votes on two independent party lines, 
     Hoff prevailed. Phil told the crowd in Winooski that night: 
     ``100 years of bondage broken.''
       Winning is one thing; governing is another. Phil found that 
     state government could neither forecast expenses nor revenue. 
     Within weeks, he appointed a series of task forces made up of 
     legislators, officials and citizens, who reviewed the state's 
     problems and inventoried its needs.
       By the beginning of the 1964 legislative session, Hoff came 
     forward with a substantial legislative program.
       The accomplishments of his six years as Governor changed 
     the face of Vermont: Hoff opened state government's first 
     planning office, ended the Overseer of the Poor system of 
     administering welfare benefits, and founded the Vermont 
     District Court, and the Judicial Nominating Commission. He 
     established the Governor's Commission on Women, the Vermont 
     Council on the Arts, and the Vermont Student Assistance 
     Corporation. He promoted regionalization in the delivery of 
     government services, establishing regional airport and 
     library systems. He presided over the reapportionment of the 
     Vermont legislature to comply with the principle of one man, 
     one vote.
       And as important as those accomplishments were, the issues 
     he took on dominated the political agenda for the rest of 
     century and on to today.
       Phil took on the cause of racial justice in Vermont. As 
     freshman legislator he proposed prohibiting race 
     discrimination in employment. The bill failed, but after his 
     election as Governor, his bill was adopted and included a 
     prohibition against discrimination based on sex. He 
     established the Vermont Human Rights Commission with 
     jurisdiction to prohibit discrimination in housing and public 
     accommodations.
       And then, in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin 
     Luther King, Jr.--with more than 100 American cities still 
     smoking from riots that followed--Phil worked with New York 
     City Mayor John Lindsay to form the New York/Vermont Summer 
     Youth Project, bringing hundreds of African-American and 
     Hispanic high school students from New York City together 
     with Vermont high school students to build understanding by 
     working together on educational and recreational programs.
       When an African-American minister's home in Irasburg was 
     raked with shotgun fire--night rider style--some tried to 
     blame the victim. Phil insisted on a fair investigation even 
     in the face of stern opposition.
       Phil fought to import and sell public hydroelectric power 
     from Quebec. His plans were frustrated by the big power 
     companies, who claimed that electricity from Vermont Yankee 
     would be ``too cheap to meter.''
       He sought to equalize the burden of the cost of public 
     education and to bring efficiency to it through 
     regionalization.
       Phil had been befriended by President Lyndon Baines 
     Johnson. In 1967, Johnson sent him to Vietnam to get a 
     firsthand look at the ``light at the end of the tunnel.'' But 
     Phil knew an oncoming train when he saw one and was the first 
     Democratic governor in the nation to split with Johnson over 
     the Vietnam War.
       Phil endorsed the antiwar candidacy of Bobby Kennedy and 
     became an important spokesperson for him. After Kennedy's 
     assassination, Phil laid aside his grief, and supported the 
     campaign of Gene McCarthy. At the convention, Hubert Humphrey 
     seriously considered offering Phil the vice-presidential spot 
     on his ticket before settling on Phil's friend, Ed Muskie.
       In 1970, Hoff challenged incumbent Senator Winston L. 
     Prouty for a seat in the United States Senate. The war, gun 
     control, and racial justice were dominant themes of the 
     campaign. Although Phil mounted a vigorous effort, Prouty was 
     reelected.
       In the 1970s, Phil practiced law and in 1972 and 1973, 
     served as chair of the Vermont Democratic Party. But most 
     importantly, he took on his own personal demon, alcohol. He 
     won the that battle but lived ever after with

[[Page S7238]]

     an understanding and sympathy for the victims of addiction.
       In 1982, Hoff returned to elective politics, winning a seat 
     in the Vermont Senate and serving three terms. In the Senate, 
     he was instrumental in revitalizing the Vermont Human Rights 
     Commission and promoting prevention of social and health 
     problems. Hoff remained steadfastly committed to the cause of 
     racial justice, serving for many years on the Vermont 
     Advisory Commission to the United States Civil Rights 
     Commission.
       Phil's efforts in the world of politics overshadow his 
     contributions to the practice of law. But they are not to be 
     forgotten. In the early 1980s, he chaired a blue-ribbon 
     commission that reorganized the Vermont Bar Examination and 
     established the first mandatory continuing education 
     requirement for Vermont lawyers. For many years he chaired 
     the Vermont Judicial Nominating Commission. As a trustee at 
     Vermont Law School from 1983 to 1999, and as its President 
     from 1990 to 1995, he helped lead the school's continuous 
     growth in clinical and experiential education, in building a 
     strong faculty, and in adding a new library and classroom 
     buildings.
       Phil inspired and supported scores of young people to 
     become involved in the political process. And he supported 
     the political campaigns of virtually every successful 
     Democrat candidate since 1962. Most notably, in May 1966, he 
     called a young lawyer in his law firm and told him to meet 
     him at the Chittenden Courthouse the next day. The young 
     lawyer was Patrick J. Leahy, and Phil swore him in as 
     Chittenden County States Attorney. The senator still claims 
     it's the best job he's ever had!
       Phil was the first mainstream politician to endorse Bernie 
     Sanders during his historic independent run for congress in 
     1990.
       With his friend and former state police driver, 
     Representative Michael Vinton, Phil was an early supporter of 
     the adoption of civil unions and same-sex marriage.
       I think Phil's attitude towards public life was summed up 
     by his answer to a question that his grandson, Nathaniel, 
     asked him:
       ``Why is it that people won't stand up for the things they 
     really believe in anymore?''
       Phil told Nathaniel. ``There's been a tendency for people 
     who are in office to simply be involved with re-election as 
     opposed to what they really should do. If you're only 
     interested in holding the office, what's the sake of holding 
     the office? It seems to me you ought to stand for what you 
     believe. You may lose, but in the overall thrust of history, 
     you will make a difference.''
       Phil Hoff made a difference. He tasted victory and defeat. 
     If you're looking for his legacy you don't have to look far. 
     The state we live in today reflects the courage with which he 
     grappled with the issues.
       The death of Philip Henderson Hoff came as no surprise to 
     those of us who loved him He had certainly lived a long and 
     full life. Still, we grieve. I am reminded of Robert Kennedy 
     speaking on the night of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. 
     Kennedy quoted his favorite poet, Aeschylus. He said:
       ``He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, 
     which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, 
     until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom 
     through the awful grace of God.
       I finish, as Bobby Kennedy finished later that evening, and 
     in the spirit of the life of Philip Hoff:
       ``Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so 
     many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle 
     the life of this world.''
     Richard Cassidy.

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