[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 27668-27669]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        TRIBUTE TO LEO MARSHALL

 Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, under the daily 24-hour assault of 
our highly competitive news media, constantly in search of the latest 
event and the most readily available personality, it would be easy to 
confuse leadership with celebrity. However, there are in every 
community, men and women whose names are rarely found in the headlines 
and whose faces rarely appear on the television screen, but who 
nevertheless contribute real leadership day in and day out.
  In my state of Delaware, one of those invaluable if rarely recognized 
leaders is Wilmington City Clerk, and Democratic City Chairman, Leo 
Marshall. A Wilmington native and a lifelong Wilmington resident, Leo 
Marshall does not often make the morning headlines or the evening 
broadcast news, but he is easily familiar to many Wilmingtonians 
because he never joined the migration to the suburbs that drained the 
energies and economies of many of our older cities--he has lived and 
served among them for four eventful decades.
  Leo Marshall is, in many ways, the ``Mr. Wilmington'' of an older and 
increasingly diverse city he has helped to guide through the social and 
economic challenges that have marked our urban landscape from the 
confrontations of the Sixties to, in Wilmington's case, the dawning 
rebirth of the Nineties. He would be the last to claim major credit for 
the city's successes; he will tell you that the city has survived and 
got to its feet again at the hands of a succession of progressive city 
administrations--but knowledgeable Wilming-
tonians will tell you Leo Marshall has built and maintained the strong 
political structure that has made progress possible in the relatively 
small city that is nevertheless Delaware's largest and most thoroughly 
urban community.
  Like another Democrat prominently in the news today, Leo Marshall 
first came to public notice with a basketball in his hands, but as a 
proud product of Wilmington's still highly coherent Polish-American 
community, he was not willing to stop there. He turned his attention to 
city government, and the same intelligence and fiercely competitive 
spirit that had been so evident on the basketball court soon marked him 
as a leader in the rough-and-tumble of city politics.
  He was and is a frankly partisan Democrat, and he has made Wilmington 
a Democratic stronghold in most of our elections; but he has always 
reserved his most intense partisanship for his city itself. He never 
loses sight of the city's interests, and he will vigorously defend them 
against all comers, regardless of party. Those of us who encounter him 
as Democrats learn quickly, if we expect to enjoy the relationship, 
that Leo Marshall will almost invariably be found among the most 
progressive of Democrats when it comes to issues or candidates, local, 
state or national--but only when he is assured that the city's 
interests have been taken into constructive consideration. In those 
cases, he is capable of being a statesman who can help pull a party, a 
city or a state together; but if he feels the city is being attacked or 
neglected, he takes off the frock coat and rolls up his sleeves--and 
his opponents rarely enjoy the contest that ensues.
  If it sounds like I am characterizing Leo Marshall as an old-
fashioned ``city boss,'' there is some truth to that notion; he came to 
party leadership out of the tradition of bare-knuckle ward politics 
that was the hallmark of most American cities of the day. But he has 
survived and successfully carried his leadership into a far different 
day because he has proved to be a boss with a

[[Page 27669]]

difference--in a city significantly and persistently marked by rapid 
and challenging social and economic changes, he has been able to adapt 
his outlook, his leadership and his party to one major transition after 
another to the benefit of both his party and his community.
  Such adaptable behind-the-scenes party leadership invites a 
consideration of the current state of our political parties. Much is 
said these days of how ``entrepreneurial politics'' has reduced our 
parties to mere shadows of their former selves, and those of us who 
must regularly place our records and our hopes for the future before 
the judgment of our constituents are well aware that that analysis 
comes uncomfortably close to the truth. Replacing party conventions 
with primary elections, struggling to meet the staggering costs of 
campaigning and coping with a swollen press corps that dogs our tracks 
at all seasons has inevitably thrown onto the shoulders of individual 
candidates much of the burden that historically was borne by the 
political parties.
  But we should not let that fact blind us to the continuing 
contribution our political parties make to our national life. They 
remain the institutions that embody the political values we place 
before the voters when we campaign for office. They still provide the 
structure upon which our whole political system is based. They may not 
wield the overwhelming political influence they once possessed--and 
most of us would agree that they should not--but they are not without 
identity, they are not without purpose, and they are not without 
continuing value. They deserve our continuing attention, and leaders 
who maintain them to serve our nation's political life--leaders like 
Leo Marshall who have adapted those parties to the realities of our 
day--deserve our thanks and our admiration.
  Mr. President, the great American humorist Will Rogers was as wise as 
he was amusing, and never more so than when he said, ``God will look 
you over, not for medals, diplomas or degrees-- but for scars!'' 
Wilmington's Leo Marshall need fear no such examination; he bears the 
honorable scars of many a political battle, all of them acquired in the 
service of his city and his party, but also on behalf of his state and 
nation. He does not often make the headlines, but he has made his mark 
on the history of his community, and that is the truest legacy of 
leadership.

                          ____________________