[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Pages 27963-27964]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             TRIBUTE TO LATE SENATOR EUGENE JOSEPH McCARTHY

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a great 
Minnesotan and great American, former Senator Eugene McCarthy, who 
passed away last Saturday at the age of 89. Senator McCarthy served two 
terms in this body, from 1958 to 1970, after serving five terms in the 
House of Representatives. In addition to his very distinguished 
legislative career, he is perhaps best remembered for his historic 
Presidential campaign in 1968, in which he deposed an incumbent 
President.
  Eugene Joseph McCarthy was born on March 29, 1916, in Watkins, MN. He 
graduated from St. John's University in Collegeville, MN, in 1935, and 
then earned a master's degree in economics and sociology at the 
University of Minnesota.
  After college, he spent 9 months as a novice in a Benedictine 
seminary. The world pulled him away, however, and he played 
semiprofessional baseball, taught high school social science, was a 
professor at his alma mater, St. John's, and then chaired the sociology 
department at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, MN.
  During World War II he worked in a military intelligence division of 
the War Department. He married a fellow teacher, Abigail Quigley, with 
whom he had three daughters and a son. Abigail McCarthy passed away in 
2001.
  In 1948 Gene McCarthy was elected to the House of Representatives 
from Minnesota's Fourth Congressional District. While in the House, 
Congressman McCarthy founded McCarthy's Mavericks, which was the 
forerunner of the Democratic study group that would, in succeeding 
decades, be influential in developing many important legislative 
initiatives.
  In 1952, he was the first Member of Congress to challenge Senator 
Joseph McCarthy in a nationally televised debate on foreign policy. 
That political courage presaged his decision 15 years later to 
challenge an incumbent President. In 1958, Congressman McCarthy 
defeated an incumbent Senator to become Senator McCarthy. He was 
reelected to the Senate in 1964 with over 60 percent of the vote. Then, 
in November of 1967, he announced his candidacy for President, 
challenging the incumbent President of his own party, Lyndon Johnson. 
In his announcement speech he said:

       I am hopeful that this challenge may alleviate this sense 
     of political helplessness and restore to many people a belief 
     in the process of American politics and of American 
     government.

  His candidacy ignited a new generation of political activists, many 
of them young college students who shaved, showered, and went ``Clean 
for Gene.'' They swarmed into New Hampshire for the first political 
contest of 1968. There they helped Senator McCarthy transform the 
political landscape by holding President Johnson to 49 percent of the 
vote in the Democratic primary, with 42 percent voting for Senator 
McCarthy. Seldom has a second-place finish been considered such a 
victory. Two weeks later, President Johnson withdrew his candidacy for 
reelection. Shortly thereafter, fellow Senator Robert Kennedy and 
fellow Minnesotan Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the 
Presidential contest, two actions that Gene McCarthy would never forget 
or forgive.
  The Democratic contest became divisive in subsequent primaries, then 
catastrophic with the assassination of Robert Kennedy, then destructive 
at the tumultuous national convention in Chicago that nominated Hubert 
Humphrey, not Gene McCarthy. The nominee and the party did not recover 
from that disastrous convention and Richard Nixon was elected President 
in November. The Vietnam war continued for 7 more years.
  Gene McCarthy retired from the Senate in 1970 and never again held 
public office. Some of his later remarks, reflecting his disenchantment 
and his defiance, along with his acerbic wit, dismayed some Democrats 
and disillusioned former supporters. Gene McCarthy, however, was always 
his own man. He once said his definition of patriotism was ``to serve 
one's country not in submission, but to serve it in truth.''
  He used his pen and his tongue to speak his own truth, regardless of 
the personal or political consequences. In that respect, he was a true 
patriot.
  After he was decried by Johnson's supporters as a mere ``footnote in 
history,'' he retorted, ``I think we can say with Churchill, `but what 
a footnote.'''
  You are much more than a footnote, Senator McCarthy. You were a U.S. 
Senator. You made history and you changed history. You were true to

[[Page 27964]]

yourself, to your ideals and to your convictions. You were a poet, a 
philosopher, and a patriot, a great Minnesotan and a great American. 
May you rest in peace.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a second before he does yield 
the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair. I commend my colleague from Minnesota 
for taking the time to speak about an old friend, a remarkable 
politician, a remarkable Senator, Gene McCarthy.
  In my younger days in Iowa, when they still had a bounty on Democrats 
in my State and Republicans ran everything, we always had the Democrats 
from Minnesota come down--McCarthy and Mondale and Humphrey, people 
such as that. But Gene McCarthy was a very rare, a unique individual. I 
was listening in the cloakroom to what the Senator from Minnesota was 
saying about Gene McCarthy. He had a way about him that was like Mark 
Twain. He had a great sense of humor. He could, like Mark Twain, say 
very succinctly what it might take others a paragraph to say. That was 
one of the qualities I always envied about McCarthy. I always thought, 
Gosh, why can't I say it like that? He had a great way with words.
  Like Mark Twain, Gene McCarthy had the ability, with very few words, 
to puncture the inflated egos of puffed-up politicians. If you were on 
the other end of it, you didn't feel good about it. He had a way of 
doing it without being mean, but when you heard him--and he never 
attacked anyone but he did it in terms of what they stood for, what 
they were saying--you heard it and you realized McCarthy was right. He 
had a refreshing and disarming way about him in his approach to 
politics. He made his point and he made it well.
  I do not know if my friend from Minnesota repeated the quote that was 
attributed to him in the newspaper that I read the other day, which I 
thought was McCarthy at his best. He said one time that being a 
politician is sometimes like being a football coach. You have to be 
smart enough to know how to play the game but dumb enough to think it's 
important.
  Those of us who think all the things we do here are so grandiose 
should realize we pass on and others take our place. A lot of the 
things we do here, we may think are important and they are not that 
important.
  So that was Gene McCarthy. He would say things that made you smile, 
made you think about things.
  I say to my friend from Minnesota, I got out of the Navy in November 
of 1967 and I returned home to Iowa in 1968. At that point I was not 
active in politics. But like so many of my colleagues and friends in 
the Navy, I lost a lot of my friends in Vietnam. Slowly but surely over 
the 5 years that I was on active duty, I became convinced that the war 
in Vietnam should not go on, that it was wrong, that we ought to get 
out of there.
  But, of course, I was in the Navy at the time. I couldn't say 
anything about it. I was a Navy person. So I thought, well, now that I 
am out maybe I can do something. I was looking for someone to give me 
advice. I was looking for someone out there who would stand up and take 
the lead on this--Gene McCarthy. Gene McCarthy was the first politician 
I ever met who wasn't afraid to say the ``emperor has no clothes.'' And 
once he did that, people realized, you are right; that this war in 
Vietnam was nonsensical, that we ought to bring an end to it. He 
encouraged a lot of young people. And I can still remember, and I will 
bet the Senator from Minnesota has the same memory. I had one of those 
daisies on the trunk of my car, a blue and white daisy with 
``McCarthy'' on it. That was in 1968.
  I think he brought a lot of young people in and gave a lot of young 
people encouragement that they could change the system and that they 
could make a difference.
  Through his later years I became a friend of Gene McCarthy. In fact, 
when I ran for President in 1991, he was running again. So we found 
ourselves running against each other.
  As we were both fading and Bill Clinton was winning everything, he 
drew me aside one time and said: Do you ever wonder why we are still 
here and what we are doing?
  I said: Yes; I do wonder that sometimes.
  He said: Well, we are here because the liberal position needs to be 
enunciated and fought for regardless of who the nominee is.
  I am paraphrasing, but that is the way I remember him saying that.
  I just wanted to take the time to commiserate with my good friend, 
Senator Dayton, about a wonderful human being, a truly remarkable U.S. 
Senator, one of the most intelligent individuals to ever grace the 
floor of the U.S. Senate, and to remember his legacy, the legacy of 
having the courage of your convictions, of standing up for what you 
think is right, and once in a while don't take ourselves too seriously.
  That was the Gene McCarthy I knew and loved. We will remember him 
always.
  I thank my colleague from Minnesota for taking the time today to 
remember our good friend and departed colleague.
  Mr. DAYTON. I think Senator McCarthy would be very impressed with the 
extemporaneous eloquence of the Senator from Iowa and very appreciative 
of his kind words. Of course, Iowa has the first Presidential contest. 
Back in those days, I would have seen a lot more of Senator McCarthy.
  Mr. HARKIN. He would have taken me to task for talking so long. He 
would have said: You could have said that in 2 minutes.
  Mr. DAYTON. I thank my friend.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, so ordered. The Senator 
from Iowa is recognized.

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