[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Page 14177]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO SENATOR JESSE HELMS

  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank my friend, the majority leader. Let me just 
add, Jesse and Dot Helms were good friends of Elaine's and mine and 
good friends of a lot of other people in the Senate on both sides. 
There are a significant number of our conference planning to attend the 
funeral tomorrow. I thank the majority leader for his accommodation of 
those requests by having the votes on Wednesday morning. At Dot Helms' 
request, I will be doing one of the eulogies tomorrow at the funeral, 
and I will have more to say about the life of my good friend Jesse 
Helms when I get back. But I wish to echo the remarks of the majority 
leader about what a fine gentleman he was.
  If you took a poll around here of the pages and the people who work 
in the Capitol about who was the most popular Member, I expect Jesse 
Helms would have won it--which would surprise an awful lot of people in 
the press and out in America who thought of Senator Helms as sort of a 
fierce individual. In fact, in person, he was as gentle, as 
accommodating, and as friendly as anybody I have ever met. We all will 
miss Jesse Helms a great deal.
  I thank the majority leader for giving me an opportunity to make some 
comments at this point about our good friend Jesse Helms.

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