[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Page 25819]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 25819]]

                      TRIBUTE TO SENATOR MOYNIHAN

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, the last colleague I want to spend a few 
minutes talking about is one we have all come to know and appreciate 
for his valued service in the Senate and his valued service to this 
country over many, many years.


  Pat Moynihan is a special Senator and a special individual. It is 
exceedingly difficult to summarize in words what this remarkable man 
has meant to the Senate, what he has meant to our Nation, and, indeed--
and this is no exaggeration--what he has meant to the world in which we 
live.
  As a soldier, a teacher, an author, an ambassador, and, over the past 
number of years, a Senator, very few have done so much so well. Few 
have put so much learning and such deep understanding to the service of 
the common good.
  If America is the world's indispensable nation, it can be said that 
Patrick Moynihan is one of America's indispensable leaders. He is the 
only American ever to serve in four successive Presidential 
administrations.
  Two of those administrations were headed by Republican presidents and 
two by Democrats--reflecting a bipartisan appreciation of this man's 
rare gifts of insight and effective action.
  Pat Moynihan served as a leading domestic policy advisor under 
Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Later he would be selected by 
President Nixon to serve as United States Ambassador to India, and by 
President Ford to serve as our Nation's representative to the United 
Nations.
  Pat Moynihan has written or edited some eighteen books. The subjects 
of those books reflect the extraordinary range of his intellect--from 
poverty, race, education and urban policy to welfare, arms control, 
government secrecy, and international law. The list goes on.
  He has received over sixty honorary degrees from institutions of 
higher learning all across the globe.
  He has received countless awards which, like his writings and his 
honorary degrees, speak to his vast curiosity and accomplishment.
  Among these awards are: the American Political Science Association's 
Hubert Humphrey Award for ``notable public service by a political 
scientist''; the International League of Human Rights Award; the John 
LaFarge Award for Interracial Justice; the Agency Seal Medallion of the 
Central Intelligence Agency for ``outstanding accomplishments . . . 
with full knowledge that his achievements would never received public 
recognition''; the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture from 
the American Institute of Architects; the Thomas Jefferson Medal from 
the American Philosophical Society for Distinguished Achievement in the 
Arts or Humanities; and the Heinz Award in Public Policy for ``having 
been a distinct and unique voice in this century--independent in his 
convictions, a scholar, teacher, statesman, and politician, skilled in 
the art of the possible.''
  Earlier this year, the United States Courthouse on Pearl Street in 
New York City was named after the senior Senator from New York. It is a 
fitting and appropriate honor. No one has done more than he to make our 
Nation's public buildings and public spaces reflect the high ideals and 
common purposes of America's citizenry.
  For four decades he has labored to transform Pennsylvania Avenue in 
our Nation's capital. More than anyone else, he is responsible for 
reviving this majestic boulevard--in fulfillment of L'Enfant's noble 
vision of a ``grand axis . . . symbolizing at once the separation of 
powers and the fundamental unity in the American government.'' Today, 
his guiding hand can be seen in even a cursory glance down that 
avenue--in the Navy Memorial, Pershing Park, the Reagan Building, and 
Ariel Rios--not to mention neighboring masterpieces such as Union 
Station and the Thurgood Marshall Building.
  Thomas Jefferson once said that ``Design activity and political 
thought are indivisible.'' The sentiments behind those words are not 
just shared by Pat Moynihan. They have functioned as a kind of code of 
conduct in his careful approach to developing America's public places. 
And perhaps no American since Jefferson himself has had a more profound 
impact on the look and feel of those places than the man to whom I pay 
tribute today.
  But he has not only worked to enshrine our ideals in our public 
places. He has ennobled our public discourse, and enhanced life for all 
Americans. In so many areas he has made a deep and lasting 
contribution. He has worked to protect our natural treasures, as well 
as our man-made ones. He has been a leader--and often a visionary--in 
supporting cleaner, safer, faster modes of transportation. He has 
fought a long and sometimes lonely battle for humane and effective 
welfare policy.
  He has rung a warning bell to call upon our Nation to reform 
retirement programs for future generations. And always, always, he has 
worked to promote peace and freedom throughout the world.
  I had the honor of serving with Senator Moynihan on the Special 
Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem. Senator Bennett and I 
chaired that Committee--and I think I can speak for both he and I in 
saying that no one did more to focus the Senate and the nation's 
attention on the urgent need to address the Y2K problem than the senior 
Senator from New York. In fact, I distinctly recall a ``Dear 
Colleague'' letter he sent to every Senator several years ago, in which 
he warned about a looming technological crisis then known to only a 
handful of people, most of them computer scientists. It was typical Pat 
Moynihan: erudite, prescient, compelling.
  Pat Moynihan knows the good that government can accomplish when its 
leaders act with vision, courage, and cooperation.
  But he also knows what government cannot, and should not, do or try 
to do. He told us years ago, for instance, that there is no substitute 
for a strong family.
  He understands only too well the sentiments expressed by the poet 
William Butler Yeats:

     Parnell came down the road, he said to a cheering man:
     Ireland will get her freedom and you will break stone.

  Like Yeats, Pat Moynihan knows that freedom achieved is a victory in 
and of itself. And while we may be cheering, we have to go back to the 
drudgery of day-to-day life. But freedom and democracy are to be 
cheered.
  The Senate will not see another like Pat Moynihan for some time 
because there has been no one like him. There has been no one like him 
with whom I have had the privilege and pleasure of serving. He has done 
a remarkable job for this Nation. He has made this Senate a better 
institution because of his presence here.
  We will miss him and his good wife, Liz, who has done so much in her 
own right. We wish them the very best as they begin this new chapter of 
their extraordinary lives. The Good Lord is not done with Pat Moynihan 
yet. All of us expect great things coming from this very distinguished 
man.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.

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