[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 4793-4794]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          FRED McFEELY ROGERS

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, it is with great sadness that I rise 
tonight on the Senate floor to talk about the life of Fred Rogers from 
my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. Mr. Rogers died today of stomach cancer. 
It is a very sad time for all of us--at least to my generation--who 
remembers Mr. Rogers from public television, and certainly from my 
experience with him and the wonderful work that he did for children not 
just all over the country, frankly, but all over the world, certainly, 
and very importantly to the people of southwestern Pennsylvania.
  In fact, I had the pleasure and the honor of having lunch with him in 
the Senate dining room just a couple of months ago around Christmas 
before he found out that he was stricken with stomach cancer. He was 
here to talk about, predictably, what we can and should be doing to 
help create a culture that is more nurturing to children in the United 
States of America.
  In times when just about every figure in public life has some 
controversy surrounding them, he is someone who throughout his life 
escaped that controversy and stood as a beacon of caring, compassion, 
and thoughtfulness to parents and children alike.
  Mr. Rogers was born in Latrobe, PA, south side of Pittsburgh in 1928. 
He married his wife 51 years ago, back in 1952. His wife Joanne 
survives him today.
  Very early in his career he had a gift for the media and a heart for 
trying to reach children and touch children and educate and nurture 
children through the media. He worked in a variety of different things. 
But in 1966, he created and hosted ``Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.'' Before 
that, he worked on a series in Canada for the CBC. And he worked at 
WQED, which is one of the first public broadcasting stations in the 
country.
  We are very honored that WQED is in Pittsburgh. We are also very 
proud of the fact that the first radio station in the country was KDKA 
in Pittsburgh.
  We in Pittsburgh are very proud of WQED and the great work that Fred 
Rogers did in putting together the first children's program there. Even 
before it was on the air he started producing programming for that 
station. I think it was called ``The Children's Corner.'' It became 
known almost 10 years later, in 1966, as ``Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.'' 
It was actually created back in 1955. There were characters such as 
``Daniel S. Striped Tiger,'' ``X the Owl,'' ``King Friday XIII,'' 
``Henrietta Pussycat,'' and ``Lady Elaine Fairchild.''
  For many of these characters, we have puppets in my conference room 
to celebrate the contribution Fred Rogers has made not just to the 
people of Pennsylvania but to the people of this country.
  And that program, ``Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,'' had the very 
famous song: ``Won't you be my neighbor?'' and Mr. Rogers coming in, 
and putting on that cardigan sweater and tennis shoes, inviting you 
into his home, the ``Land of Make Believe,'' and the trolley. All of 
those things are such wonderful memories for me and for generations, 
and which is continuing today. Even though the program has now been out 
of production for a couple of years, there are over 900 episodes of 
``Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'' that PBS has and distributes on a 
regular basis all over the country.
  Mr. Rogers will continue to touch future generations of children, 
particularly young children, in that nurturing and reassuring way he 
had with the very young. In many cases, a lot of kids sit in front of 
television; mom is busy; dad is at work; or mom and dad are both at 
work. And there was always a reassuring and comforting voice, someone 
who reassured them of their values as a person, their own self-worth, 
their ability to accomplish things, to dream great dreams.
  Mr. Rogers--in a culture that is not always so positive, and 
certainly not very reassuring--was just that. He was a positive example 
of what a good father, a good parent, can and should be, and what good 
adults and what adults generally can be to our children in his 
neighborhood--I would argue, in our neighborhood--and that we, too, can 
learn from Fred Rogers, can learn from the kindness and the gentility 
and the wholesomeness he showed to America's children and to America's 
parents.
  We will miss Fred Rogers. I can tell you, Pittsburgh is going to 
greatly miss this legend in our town. All of those shows were filmed in 
Pittsburgh, PA, at WQED. And his neighborhood, which is the Oakland, 
Shadyside, and Squirrel Hill, which is where WQED is located, where 
much, I am sure, of his ideas came from, is a place that is lesser 
today than it was yesterday because of this great man passing.
  But the joy in getting up and talking about Fred Rogers is what he 
has left. Oh, that all of us could say we have touched so many and 
influenced, in such a positive way, literally millions of children in 
this country and around the world and have made a positive contribution 
in serving this country.

[[Page 4794]]

  Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister who found that God's calling 
to him was to serve children through the media. And I think God, this 
morning, when he arrived in Heaven, said: Well done, my good and 
faithful servant.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. The Senator is absolutely right, Mr. Rogers is somebody we 
all knew, you in a little bit of a different reference than I because 
you really did know him. But the fact that the Senator from 
Pennsylvania actually knew him does not mean that the rest of us did 
not really know him. He was a unique individual, as you said. He walked 
in, put on that sweater, with that very bad voice that we all remember.
  The reason I wanted to interrupt the Senator before he went to the 
closing script is this has been a contentious week in the Senate, and I 
could not think of a more peaceful man to end the week than Fred 
Rogers. So I appreciate very much the Senator coming to the floor as 
quickly as he did, upon the death of this wonderful man, and ending the 
Senate today with memories of a peacemaker.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator from Nevada.
  I want to share another moment where I had a chance to be with Fred 
Rogers. And it was--oh, I wish I could remember exactly how many years 
ago it was. It was probably about a dozen or so years ago, give or take 
a couple years.
  Every year, in Pennsylvania, the business world and the political 
world, right before Christmas, goes up to New York for the Pennsylvania 
Society. It has been going on now for over 100 years.
  There is a dinner on a Saturday night. The industrialists used to go 
up there to that with their families and friends. And it has turned 
into a big event, a bipartisan political event as well as a business 
event. We have a big dinner. I think we are the longest running annual 
dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. It has been for over a 100 years now.
  I remember they give a gold medal to a famous Pennsylvanian. One of 
the years I happened to be there, in the late 1980s, it was Fred Rogers 
who received that award. He got up to speak. And there were 3,000 
people in the Waldorf Astoria Ballroom. I had been, and have been 
since, to many of these dinners. It is quite unusual that you can even 
hear the speaker usually by halfway through the speech. We have all 
been at dinners like that.
  I remember sitting there, and Fred Rogers was talking about how 
important it is to be a positive influence in one child's life. Now, we 
all talk about mentoring and the importance of mentoring. It is sort of 
a new and current thing to talk about. Well, Fred was ahead of his 
time. He talked about that.
  He talked and gave the example of someone in his life who meant 
something to him. It was a rivetting and compelling speech. I remember 
he stopped and said: I am going to stop for a minute. And I want you to 
all think about someone who made a difference in your life. I am going 
to stop for 1 minute, and I just want you to think about that person, 
what they have meant to you, and whether you can be that person for 
somebody else.
  And he stopped talking. And for a minute, in that ballroom, with 
3,000 people in it, you could have heard a pin drop. That was the power 
of someone who not only reached out to children, and spoke and preached 
a good talk, but someone who lived it, and who was sincere, and acted 
it out in his life. Obviously, it had an impact on me because I 
remember it to this day. It inspired me to try to make that 
contribution to someone.
  Mr. DAYTON. Will the Senator yield for another question?
  Mr. SANTORUM. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. DAYTON. I thank the Senator for bringing this great man to our 
attention. I was not aware, until the Senator spoke, about his passing.
  I, like so many others, felt I knew this man indirectly, as the 
father of two sons, who are now 19 and 22 years old. So I reckon it was 
about for 20 years that I watched that show. And I think I looked 
forward to it as often as my sons did.
  The Senator captured very eloquently and sensitively the spirit of a 
very gentle soul, yet a very visionary man.
  I recall going to the National Education Foundation dinner here just 
after I arrived 2 years ago, and there were not as many people there as 
the Senator described in the event he mentioned, but there were a good 
700, 800 people.
  Mr. Rogers was receiving the honor, Award of the Year. The first 
thing I noticed was, when he came out, everybody knew the song, and 
they all sang that song. As the Senator said, you could have heard a 
pin drop when he spoke. And he spoke in the same general way to adults 
as he did to kids.
  I say to the Senator, are there any other neighborhoods like that in 
Pittsburgh you could send to the rest of the country? If so, we can use 
a few.
  Mr. SANTORUM. We have lots of wonderful neighborhoods. And like 
Minnesota, we have a lot of old, wonderful, ethnic neighborhoods. I 
think Mr. Rogers reflected that spirit in a lot of those communities--
the close-knit, caring spirit, looking after your neighbor in those 
communities.
  Some may suggest that ``Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'' was from a 
bygone era that does not exist anymore, that that neighborhood isn't 
around anymore. Well, I make the argument that the neighborhood is what 
the neighbors make it, and that he sets a pretty good model for what 
neighbors should be, and neighborhoods can be, and, hopefully, again 
someday will be.

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