[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15634]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          DR. EDWARD B. McLEAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fincher). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ROKITA. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I rise today to recognize and salute an exceptional Hoosier, Dr. 
Edward B. McLean. Sadly, we lost Dr. McLean on September 12. I wish to 
express my condolences, thoughts and prayers to his family.
  He was an inspiration on my path to serving the people of Indiana, 
and his teachings have become my primary motivation for seeking to 
reduce the size and scope of government here in Washington. He was my 
college professor, my counselor, and my friend. More importantly, Mr. 
Speaker, he was exactly the same person to countless men who associate 
with Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
  As a man of faith, I believe we were put on this Earth to love one 
another and to make the best of the gifts our Lord has provided. We are 
all blessed to live in a country that allows us to experience liberty, 
the opportunity to learn, and the chance to succeed. Not every nation, 
Mr. Speaker, can say that.
  As a professor of political science since 1968, Dr. McLean challenged 
Wabash College students, faculty, and alumni to think critically and 
encouraged all to be lifelong learners. He gave us that chance to 
succeed.
  Moreover, he taught me the critical role of the individual in a free 
republic if, indeed, the republic is to remain free, and how such a 
system is philosophically and practically superior to the elitist and 
collectivist systems that have been tried throughout history but which, 
of course, as we all should know, have failed. They collapsed, 
ultimately, under the weight of their own tyranny, a point Dr. McLean 
repeatedly made.
  And at every turn, he taught young Wabash men that our rights are 
derived from our Creator--not Democrats, not Republicans, not any 
President or any Congressman, but they came from God himself. And as a 
result, our rights are inalienable, as our Declaration reminds us and 
as men like Cicero and St. Augustine discovered for us. In a secular 
sense, our rights are part of natural law, as McLean always taught.
  Perhaps most importantly, he taught Wabash men, professors, and 
others all over the world about the worthy ideal of a society of free 
and responsible individuals and how it might practically be achieved.
  Mr. Speaker, for the Congressional Record, I would submit the 
following facts:
  A masterful scholar, teacher, and lawyer, McLean demonstrate his 
rigor for teaching and pursuing his own level of education by earning 
his juris doctorate from Indiana University in 1975. He managed to be 
an effective teacher, attorney, and deputy prosecuting attorney in 
Montgomery County. In 1972, he received the McLain---no relation--
McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award. Since 1980, Dr. McLean 
was most closely associated in administering the Goodrich lecture 
series. He was active in local and State politics. He demanded that 
students think critically in his constitutional law and political 
philosophy classes.
  Dr. McLean was both loved and feared as a man who challenged students 
to hone their critical thinking skills. He used the Socratic method to 
assist students in recognizing and correcting flaws in their arguments, 
and somewhere along the line, he earned the nickname ``Fast Eddie.''
  Dr. McLean was elected to the board of directors of Liberty Fund, an 
Indiana institution that has a global outreach. He served there until 
his death. Founded by Pierre Goodrich, the son of one of Indiana's 
great Governors, the Liberty Fund is a private educational foundation 
with the mission of encouraging a deeper understanding of the 
requisites of restoring and preserving a society of free and 
responsible individuals.
  Just this morning, Mr. Speaker, I pulled up a series of emails that 
Ed and I exchanged once. They spanned the time in which I was running 
for the seat I now hold until shortly after the election to this seat. 
You see, I was asking in the emails if there has ``ever been a nation 
or civilization that reversed its slide into collectivism or socialism, 
thereby rescuing itself from the ultimate loss of economic and 
political liberty?''
  Sadly, and months later, he replied, as he was in and out of 
hospitals at the time, that he could not identify historically the type 
of reversal that I had described and went on to remind me, perhaps 
obviously, that the ``desire for more power motivates agents of the 
state.''

                              {time}  1430

  Many men today are responsible for individuals thriving in a free 
society because of Dr. Edward McLean. Unfortunately, it is now society 
that is stepping away from liberty due to the irresponsibility of the 
individual, aided by a nanny state willing to do things for the 
individual which are rightly his alone to do, and the endless quest, as 
he said, for expanded power by government and its agents.
  So I use today not only to give this tribute to a great Hoosier, but 
also to, as part of that tribute, profess my continued and renewed 
commitment to reverse the current and hopefully temporary course of 
this great Nation, as it really is the last, best hope on Earth for 
man. For once, I want to prove Ed McLean wrong. We can reverse this 
course, and by so doing, show the world yet again how exceptional 
America is. We can and must halt the march of statism for our children 
and grandchildren and for the idea of liberty in the world. In this 
case, Ed himself would hope to be proved otherwise.
  Everything Ed McLean did, he did for the men of Wabash College, his 
community, and his country. I would like to thank his wife, Marie, and 
son, Ian, for sharing Dr. McLean with us. For all he provided this 
world, he will be truly missed.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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