[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11283-11287]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING HOWARD BAKER

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator McConnell from Kentucky 
for his eloquent remarks. One other thing I said at the funeral was 
that Senator Baker had an eye for talent. In 1969, when I was a young 
aide in the Nixon White House, Senator Baker came to me and said: ``You 
might want to get to know that smart young legislative assistant for 
Senator Marlow Cook.'' That young legislative assistant was Mitch 
McConnell. So I did get to know him.
  I thank Senator McConnell for coming to the funeral. I thank Senator 
Reid, our majority leader, for being there as well. They were there at 
the front of that small church in Huntsville, TN. The Vice President 
came. He sat there, met everybody, showed his respect for both former 
Senator Baker and his wife, former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker. We 
Tennesseans appreciated that courtesy by the Vice President, the 
majority leader, and the minority leader very much.
  There were a number of others there. Our Governor was there; Senator 
Corker and I, of course, were there; Senator Fred Thompson; majority 
leader Bill Frist, whom Senator Baker had mentored; Senator Pete 
Domenici, Senator Bill Brock, Senator Elizabeth Dole, and Senator 
Bennett Johnston were also there; as well as Senator Jack Danforth, who 
married Howard and Nancy; and our former Governors, Winfield Dunn and 
Don Sundquist. It was a small church, but along with former Vice 
President Al Gore and the current Vice President and the majority 
leader, as well as the minority leader, there was real respect for the 
former majority leader of the Senate.
  I will not try to repeat what I said at the funeral, and it was a 
privilege for me to be asked by the family to speak, but I did want to 
make two comments briefly, one personal and one about the Senate.
  The personal one that I said at the funeral was that I had tried to 
follow the rule in Lamar Alexander's ``Little Plaid Book'' that when 
invited to speak at a funeral, remember to mention the deceased more 
often than yourself and to talk more about Howard Baker than my 
relationship with him, but that was hard to do. I waited until the end 
of my remarks to try to do that.
  No one had more influence on my life over the last half century than 
Howard Baker. I came here with him in 1967 as his only legislative 
assistant. That is how many legislative assistants Senators had then. 
They dealt mainly with one another, not through staff members. I came 
back in 1977 when suddenly he was elected Republican leader on his 
third try by one vote, and I worked in the office that is now the 
Republican leader's office for 3 months helping him find a permanent 
chief of staff until I went back to Tennessee.
  Throughout my entire public life and private life, no one has had 
more effect on me by virtue of his effort to encourage me--as well as 
many other younger people who were working their way up in a variety of 
ways--and as an example for how to do things.
  My advice to younger people who want to know how to become involved 
in politics is to find someone whom you respect and admire, volunteer 
to go to work for them and do anything legal they ask you to do and 
learn from them, both the good and the bad. I had the great privilege 
of working with the best.
  To give one small example of how closely intertwined our lives have 
become, I had the same office he had in the Dirksen Office Building. I 
had the same phone number he had in the Dirksen Office Building. If you 
open the drawer of this desk, you will find scratched in the drawer the 
names Baker, Thompson, and my name. I have the same desk on this floor.
  As far as the Senate, just one story. A remarkably effective 
presentation at the funeral was made by the Reverend Martha Anne 
Fairchild, who for 20 years has been the minister of the small 
Presbyterian church in Huntsville. She told a story about lightbulbs 
and Senator Baker.
  He was on the Session, which is the governing body of the church. He 
was an elder, and he insisted on coming to the meetings. She said that 
at one of the meetings of the Session the elders, who represent the 
maybe 70 members of the church, fell into a discussion about new 
lightbulbs. It was pretty contentious, and eventually they resolved it 
because Senator Baker insisted that they discuss it all the way through 
to the end.
  She talked with him later, and he said: ``Well, I could have pulled 
out my checkbook and written a check for the new lightbulbs, but I 
thought it was more important that the elders have a full and long 
discussion so they all could be comfortable with the decision they 
made.''
  That story about lightbulbs is how Howard Baker saw the U.S. Senate--
as a forum for extended discussion where you have the patience to allow 
everyone to pretty well have their say in the hopes that you come to a 
conclusion that most of us are comfortable with and therefore the 
country is comfortable with it. He understood that you only govern a 
complex country such as ours by consensus. And whether it was 
lightbulbs or an 9-week debate on the Panama Canal during which there 
were nearly 200 contentious amendments and reservations and arguments, 
you have those discussions all the way through to the end.
  It is said that these days are much more contentious than the days of 
Howard Baker. There are some things that are different today that make 
that sort of discussion more difficult, but we shouldn't kid 
ourselves--those weren't easy days either. Those were the days when 
Vietnam veterans came home with Americans spitting on them. Those were 
the days of Watergate. Those were the days of Social Security going 
bankrupt and a 9-week contentious debate on the Panama Canal. Those 
were the days of the Equal Rights Amendment. Those were difficult days 
too. Senator Baker and Senator Byrd on the Democratic side were able, 
generally speaking, to allow the Senate to take up those big issues and 
have an extended discussion all the way through to the end and come to 
a result.
  Most of us in this body have the same principles. Those principles 
all belong to what we call the American character. They include such 
principles as equal opportunity, liberty, and E pluribus unum. And most 
of our conflicts, the late Samuel Huntington used to say, are about 
resolving conflicts among those principles. For example, if we are 
talking about immigration, we have a conflict between rule of law and 
equal opportunity, so how do we put those together and how do we come 
to a conclusion? Howard Baker saw the way to do that as bringing to the 
floor a subject, hopefully with bipartisan support, and talking it all 
the way through to the end until most Senators are comfortable with the 
decision. His aid in that was, as Senator McConnell said, being an 
eloquent listener. That is why he was admired by Members of both 
parties. In one poll in the 1980s, he was considered to be the most 
admired Senator by Democrats and by Republicans. That is why Dan Quayle 
said: There is Howard Baker ``and then there's the rest of us 
Senators.''
  So I think the memory of Howard Baker, his lesson for us, is that--
without assigning any blame to the Republican side or the Democratic 
side--we don't need a change of rules to make the Senate function, we 
need a change of behavior. Howard Baker's behavior is a very good 
example, whether it was the Panama Canal, whether it was fixing Social 
Security, whether it was President Reagan's tax cuts, or whether it was 
resolving whether how to buy new lightbulbs for the First Presbyterian 
Church of Huntsville, TN.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the remarks of 
Martha Anne Fairchild, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of 
Huntsville, TN, as well as two other documents, one by Arthur B. 
Culvahouse, Jr., who was Senator Baker's legislative assistant and 
President Reagan's counsel. According to Culvahouse, Howard Baker told 
him that if the President did not truly know about the diversion of 
Iranian arms sales proceeds to the Contras, he was to help him--if he 
did not truly know. The other is an article by Keel

[[Page 11284]]

Hunt from the Tennessean about Senator Baker, and finally the funeral 
order of worship from the Baker ceremony.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   In Memory of Howard H. Baker, Jr.


    Funeral sermon by The Rev. Martha Anne Fairchild, Pastor, First 
               Presbyterian Church, Huntsville, Tennessee

       Dear friends, thank you for your presence here this 
     afternoon. Thank you for joining us as we gather to remember 
     and give thanks for the remarkable life of Howard H. Baker, 
     Jr., We are grateful and honored that you are here with us.
       I would like to read one more Scripture lesson, one with 
     opening words that may surprise you. But as I continue 
     reading, you will understand why I chose it. It was written 
     by the Apostle Paul, from a prison cell, perhaps within a 
     very short time before his own death. He was writing to a 
     community of faithful Christians he held in such high esteem 
     that he considered them to be equal co-workers with him in 
     the work of Christ, and he wrote these words at the end of a 
     letter full of tender concern and advice for dear friends he 
     knew he might never see again. Here are Paul's words from the 
     fourth chapter of his letter to the church at Philippi: 
     (Philippians 4:4-9)
       ``Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice! 
     Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 
     Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and 
     supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made 
     known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all 
     understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in 
     Christ Jesus.
       ``Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is 
     honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is 
     pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence 
     and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these 
     things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and 
     received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will 
     be with you.''
       ``Rejoice in the Lord always,'' Paul says. I'll admit it, 
     those are odd words for a funeral sermon. We may be 
     celebrating the life of a great man, but we do not feel much 
     like rejoicing. Our feelings are too bittersweet for that. We 
     have lost someone we loved deeply, someone who was an immense 
     influence for good not only in our own country but around the 
     world. How is rejoicing part of this picture? How can we say, 
     ``Rejoice!''
       Rejoicing is part of the picture for us for the same reason 
     it was part of the picture for Paul. Paul was nearing his own 
     death. He had already lost his freedom--he was writing this 
     letter from a prison cell. He was writing to people he would 
     never see again. In the stark conditions of imprisonment in 
     the first century, he was suffering physically, in chains and 
     without sufficient food or clothing, often alone and in pain, 
     with no certainty about what would happen to him. Yet he 
     invites us to rejoice, because the sources of his joy were 
     not tied to his particular difficult circumstances. They were 
     tied to the kind of man he was.
       Can we quiet our hearts enough to hear his words? ``Let 
     your gentleness be known to everyone.'' In gentleness Paul 
     found the key that led him into the surrender of worry, into 
     a life of prayer, and above all else into a peace beyond 
     human understanding. This gentleness, this prayer, this 
     peace, made it possible for him to live in joy whatever his 
     circumstances and to invite his friends to do exactly the 
     same.
       I chose to read these words today because we are saying 
     goodbye to a supremely gentle man. Howard Baker embodied in 
     his life all the qualities Paul commends to our reflection 
     and attention. He was a true, honorable, and just man. He 
     lived a pure, pleasing, and commendable life, and surely he 
     was a man of excellence and worthy of praise. In a public 
     life spanning decades of serious, selfless service to his 
     country, Howard Baker embodied every public virtue.
       Of his public virtues, in fact, so much has been said over 
     the past few days that I can add very little. So I share with 
     you something of the gentleness Howard Baker shared with his 
     church. He was a member of this congregation from his 
     childhood, and one of the most faithful attenders of public 
     worship I have ever known. When he was in town, he was in 
     church on Sunday morning--it was one of his priorities. There 
     is an old catch phrase about sharing time, talents, and 
     treasure with one's church, and Howard Baker shared all those 
     things: He shared his time with his faithful attendance at 
     worship and church events. He shared his talents with his 
     photography of church happenings from Homecoming to Easter 
     egg hunts, and of course his cooking prowess when got up 
     early on Easter Sunday to join the other church men cooking 
     breakfast--his particular talent was putting the biscuits in 
     the oven and getting them out on time. He shared his treasure 
     in a lifetime of generous financial support of the church. 
     But most of all Howard Baker supported this church with his 
     presence.
       Here is an example. Some years ago the congregation of this 
     church elected him as a ruling elder, a lifelong position in 
     our denomination. His election placed him in active service 
     on our church board, called the Session, for a three year 
     term. Now, I must share a little secret with you. Session 
     meetings only rarely concern matters of any great import. So 
     I mentioned to him that I understood the many demands he had 
     on his time, and offered him a blanket excused absence for 
     any meeting he needed to miss. That was a mistake. He was 
     quite offended by this suggestion of mine and told me 
     firmly--but very gently--that he intended to make every 
     meeting. And that is what he did, on one occasion even flying 
     in for our evening meeting and flying out again that very 
     same night to meet a commitment elsewhere the following day. 
     When Howard Baker made a promise, he kept it.
       At every meeting, he was an attentive, helpful, encouraging 
     elder among fellow elders. He tried to get all of us to call 
     him Howard, and some of us managed to do that and some of us 
     never could. Even when the discussion revolved around the 
     purchase of new light bulbs--yes, I know all those jokes, 
     too--he was patient and helpful in not only contributing to 
     the discussion but in helping me as his moderator to guide it 
     to a conclusion. He told me later he considered just pulling 
     out his checkbook and writing a check for the bulbs we were 
     dithering over, but he wanted his fellow elders to go through 
     the process of making a decision we were all comfortable 
     with. And for that he was willing to devote a little more 
     time, a little more patience, and, yes, a little more love to 
     the task.
       When he accepted President Bush's appointment to become the 
     United States Ambassador to Japan, his term of active service 
     on the Session was not quite over. It was necessary for him 
     to resign, and he called me to apologize that he could not 
     complete his term. It may seem that no apologies would be 
     necessary, but he reminded me that he had made a commitment 
     to serve his church, and he truly regretted being unable to 
     complete that commitment.
       I am humbly grateful that he was so willing to accept me as 
     his pastor when I came here almost 20 years ago, a woman only 
     a few years out of seminary who still had much to learn about 
     the serious business of Christian ministry. From the very 
     beginning he treated me with affection and respect, and I 
     hope I have learned from him.
       One of the things we all admire him for was his gift of 
     attention. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great 20th century 
     Christian theologian and martyr, once remarked, ``The first 
     duty one owes to others in the fellowship is to listen to 
     them.'' Howard Baker had a deep commitment to listening. When 
     you talked to him he paid attention to you--even if he could 
     only speak to you for 60 seconds, you had his focused 
     attention for that entire 60 seconds. You knew he heard you. 
     And every time you came away a little encouraged, a little 
     cheered, a little more content, because he had paid 
     attention--that great gift of being listened to that we all 
     hunger to receive.
       Among the questions a Presbyterian elder must answer in the 
     affirmative at his or her ordination is this one: ``Will you 
     seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, 
     imagination, and love?'' That is a vow every leader should 
     take. It is a vow Howard Baker lived up to in his entire life 
     of service, for that is what he was: a servant leader, one 
     who embodied not only the qualities of courage, confidence, 
     and consensus-building that were the hallmarks of his public 
     life, but also the qualities of humility, good humor, and 
     selfless love that made those other qualities possible. He 
     was a servant leader in the truest sense of the term.
       As we remember him for his gentleness, his good humor, his 
     deep wisdom, as we recall shared moments of tears and 
     laughter, tense times of debate and controversy, satisfying 
     times of concord and shared accomplishment, as we pay tribute 
     to him for his deep love for his family, for his unwavering 
     devotion to the well-being of his country, and even for his 
     unfailing appetite for all things chocolate and sweet, 
     perhaps you can see why I think we must say with Paul, 
     ``Rejoice in the Lord always!'' By God's great gifts to him, 
     Howard Baker became a great gift to us. And surely that great 
     gift is worth rejoicing over always.
       Shortly we will follow his casket out to the cemetery 
     adjacent to this church. When we go I invite you to remember 
     that across the street from that cemetery once stood the 
     house where Howard Baker was born. We will be laying him to 
     rest just a few hundred feet from where his life began. In 
     the completion of that great life well lived, I hope that, 
     even in the midst of our sorrow, we will find cause to 
     rejoice always.
       Thanks be to God for the life of Howard Baker. Thanks be to 
     God.
                                  ____


            [From the National Review Online, July 2, 2014]

             Howard Baker Jr., Courageous Constitutionalist

                     (By Arthur B. Culvahouse, Jr.)

       Many of the recent obituaries of Howard Baker, the former 
     Senate majority leader, White House chief of staff, and U.S. 
     ambassador to Japan, quote Jim Baker's accurate observation 
     that Howard was a ``mediator,

[[Page 11285]]

     negotiator, and moderator.'' As a son of a congressmen, a 
     son-in-law of Senator Everett Dirksen's, and a three-term 
     senator, Howard understood that transacting the people's 
     business required at least 51 votes in the Senate and 218 
     votes in the House. On the tough votes that require 
     leadership and political courage, he knew that the necessary 
     majority was to be found on both sides of the aisle.
       Contrary to recent suggestions by approving left-leaning 
     news commentators and critics on the inexperienced right, 
     Howard Baker's interpretation of acceptable ``compromise'' 
     did not entail splitting the difference or seeking a watered-
     down consensus. As Bob Dole observed, Howard Baker believed, 
     along with Ronald Reagan, that achieving 70 percent or more 
     of one's priorities is a victory in our democracy. Above all, 
     Howard Baker was the most civil and respectful person I have 
     known. As a consequence, he had many friends across the 
     political and policy spectrums who would give his views a 
     fair and careful hearing.
       Howard Baker exercised political courage wisely and with 
     the intention to win. His views, even when they were in the 
     minority in the Republican caucus and among Tennessee voters, 
     were the result of careful study and measured against long-
     term national interests. His support for the Panama Canal 
     Treaty, for instance, clearly damaged his prospects in the 
     1980 Republican presidential primaries, and his leadership in 
     securing passage of the Clean Air Act and strip-mine 
     reclamation disappointed his friends and neighbors in the 
     coal country of East Tennessee. Those and other unpopular 
     votes did not occur in isolation; they were co-joined and 
     hedged by his unrelenting support for a strong military, for 
     nuclear power and coal gasification, and for dispensing with 
     the prolonged environmental review of the Alyeska Pipeline.
       Jim Neal, the renowned Tennessee trial lawyer and Kennedy-
     administration prosecutor, presciently predicted that Howard, 
     owing to his ``strong moral compass,'' would be the star of 
     the Senate Watergate Committee. From announcing at the 
     beginning of the Watergate Committee hearings that ``he would 
     follow every lead, unrestrained by any fear of where that 
     lead might ultimately take us,'' to assembling a minority 
     staff that discovered the existence of the Nixon Oval Office 
     tapes, to making the motion that the Committee subpoena the 
     tapes, Howard set aside partisan considerations and led the 
     effort to find the answers to the key question: ``What did 
     the President know and when did he know it?'' In 1987, when 
     he was the new Reagan White House chief of staff, Howard 
     instructed me that my job as the recently appointed White 
     House counsel was to guide and advise President Reagan 
     through the Iran-Contra investigations without his being 
     impeached--if the president truly did not know about the 
     diversion of Iranian arms-sales proceeds to the Contras. 
     Query how many current and recent senior officials would 
     append that all-important modifier: if.
       In his farewell speech to the Senate, Howard stated that 
     ``our wisest course is to follow the Constitution rather than 
     improvise around it.'' He expressed deep concern that the 
     Clinton impeachment proceeding votes were along party lines 
     and that we were reaping the whirlwind of the Watergate 
     convulsion--that we had not learned our lesson but were 
     instead enacting ill-advised and constitutionally suspect 
     laws that were no substitute for judging the character of our 
     leaders on a non-partisan basis.
       I have no doubt that if Howard Baker and his long-time 
     Democratic counterpart in the Senate leadership, Robert Byrd, 
     were in the Senate today, both would be working together to 
     put an end to the current (and any other) administration's 
     blatant disregard of congressionally enacted statutes. In 
     that vein, Howard instructed me and other senior Reagan-
     administration lawyers to drop our objections to the Senate's 
     proposed ``ratification record'' underlying the Intermediate 
     Nuclear Forces Treaty; that was the Senate's prerogative, 
     Howard reminded me, and the president wanted the INF Treaty 
     ratified as part of his strategy to end, and win, the Cold 
     War.
       Shortly before the 2010 midterm congressional elections, I 
     visited with Howard Baker at his home in the mountains of 
     East Tennessee. When I expressed concern about the dramatic 
     swings in the recent election results, he replied: ``I taught 
     you better than that. Those swings are the self-corrections 
     built into our republican form of government.'' All of us are 
     well-advised to reflect upon the teachings of Howard H. Baker 
     Jr.
                                  ____


                  [From the Tennessean, June 29, 2014]

        Howard Baker's Legacy: ``The Other Guy Might Be Right''

                             (By Keel Hunt)

       For Tennesseans who knew Howard Baker in his day, the news 
     of his death on Thursday brought an afternoon of emptiness, 
     feelings of great loss, and a deep sense that one very 
     special had left the building.
       There are certainly people who knew him better than I did, 
     but in my own memory this man of moderate height looms larger 
     than life. Let me count the ways.
       Baker was a master politician, the great conciliator and a 
     builder of human bridges.
       Especially from the vantage point of this current angry 
     age, Baker's gifts shine brightly now: that calming voice, 
     the steady temperament, his gift for reaching out and drawing 
     people together, a knack for reasoned compromise, his abiding 
     sense of how government can and should work.
       Today, you hear some of those terms attacked, by the people 
     who thrive on dividing, as being somehow unpatriotic. Baker's 
     life was a demonstration of how politics and the skills of 
     collaboration are noble, of how government can work to move 
     society forward.
       Hearing both sides of an issue, finding the common ground--
     these are the gifts we associate with Baker now and all the 
     moderate politicians he inspired (see below). This is how 
     good government happens.
       He often quoted his own father, U.S. Rep. Howard Baker Sr., 
     who told him: ``You should always go through life working on 
     the assumption that the other guy might be right.'' His 
     stepmother once said of Baker Jr., ``He's like the Tennessee 
     River--he flows right down the middle.''
       Before politics, Baker was reared in tiny Huntsville, in 
     Scott County, and educated in Chattanooga, Sewanee and 
     Knoxville. In the early 1960s, by this time a lawyer working 
     in Huntsville and Knoxville, he became an architect of the 
     modern Republican Party in Tennessee.
       In 1964, wanting to mount his own campaign for U.S. Senate, 
     Baker allied with Republican organizers at the far end of the 
     state in Memphis and Shelby County, notably the lawyers Lewis 
     Donelson and Harry Wellford. Together, they laid the 
     foundation for a two-party state.
       Baker's aim was to fill the unexpired term of Sen. Estes 
     Kefauver, who had died, and he came very close to winning. 
     But it was a Democratic year driven by national factors well 
     beyond his control: Barry Goldwater, the GOP's presidential 
     nominee, came to Tennessee saying TVA ought to be sold; and 
     Lyndon Johnson, who had succeeded President John F. Kennedy 
     after the assassination, would win in a landslide.
       Two years later, the statewide coalition that Baker and the 
     Shelby Countians formed scored its first victory, with Baker 
     winning the Senate seat for a full term. He was the first 
     Republican since Reconstruction to be elected statewide in 
     Tennessee. Four years after that, there were two more GOP 
     victories statewide: Winfield Dunn was elected governor, and 
     the Chattanooga U.S. Rep. Bill Brock joined Baker in the 
     Senate.
       Today, three decades on, two generations of political 
     leaders can be seen in the Baker lineage: Lamar Alexander, 
     Bob Corker, Bill Haslam, Fred Thompson, Bill Frist, Don 
     Sundquist.
       Alexander, very early in his career, was Baker's top 
     legislative aide, and left that office in 1970 to be Dunn's 
     campaign manager. In 1973, Baker made Thompson minority 
     counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, putting him on TV 
     screens across America. Haslam, in 1978, worked in Baker's 
     re-election office. Corker and Haslam became mayors of 
     Chattanooga and Knoxville, respectively, and later on senator 
     and governor.
       Baker had a way with Democrats, too. He was the first 
     Republican ever endorsed by The Tennessean, in its partisan 
     Democratic heyday. The editorial on this page that supported 
     him was a breakthrough in Democratic territory for Baker's 
     East-West alliance.
       When President Jimmy Carter proposed the Panama Canal 
     Treaty, handing the canal over to Panama, Baker was a key 
     advocate on the Senate floor when it passed.
       Plenty will be written this week about his roles on the 
     national and global stages--as Senate majority leader, 
     President Reagan's chief of staff, ambassador to Japan. But 
     through it all, and more so than many senators who have 
     become national politicians, Baker also stayed close to his 
     Tennessee roots.
       One morning long ago, two years into his second term, I was 
     in a room full of reporters in Washington, D.C., and heard 
     the senator say: ``I am from Huntsville, Tennessee, which is 
     the center of the known universe.''
       That is where, on Tuesday afternoon, he will come to his 
     final rest.
                                  ____


                        Funeral Order of Worship

     Prelude
     *Entrance of the Family
     *Sentences of Scripture
     *Hymn  America the Beautiful

     O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,
     For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain!
     America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
     And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

     O beautiful for pilgrim feet whose stern impassioned stress
     A thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness!
     America! America! God mend thy every flaw,
     Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!

     O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,
     Who more than self their county loved, and mercy more than 
           life!

[[Page 11286]]

     America! America! May God thy gold refine,
     Till all success be nobleness and every gain divine.

     O beautiful for patriot dream that sees, beyond the years,
     Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears!
     America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
     And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

     Opening Prayer
     Scripture Readings  Ecclesiastes 3:1-15; John 14:1-6, 25-27
     Psalm 23 (read by all)

     The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
     He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
     He leadeth me beside the still waters.
     He restoreth my soul:
     He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's 
           sake.
     Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
           I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and 
           Thy staff they comfort me.
     Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine 
           enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup 
           runneth over.
     Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
           life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord 
           forever.

     Sermon  The Reverend Martha Anne Fairchild
     Remarks  Senator Lamar Alexander
     Anthem  May the Road Rise to Meet You  First Presbyterian 
         Church Choir
     Prayers
     *Hymn  Shall We Gather at the River

     Shall we gather at the river,
     Where bright angel feet have trod,
     With its crystal tide forever
     Flowing by the throne of God:

     Refrain:
     Yes, we'll gather at the river,
     The beautiful, the beautiful river;
     Gather with the saints at the river
     That flows by the throne of God.

     Ere we reach the shining river,
     Lay we every burden down;
     Grace our spirits will deliver,
     And provide a robe and crown.

     Soon we'll reach the silver river,
     Soon our pilgrimage will cease;
     Soon our happy hearts will quiver
     With the melody of peace.

     *Commendation
     *Blessing
     *Recessional
     *Dismissal of the Family
     *General Dismissal
     Postlude
     Pastor:  The Reverend Martha Anne Fairchild
     Music Director:  David Mayfield

       If you release a baby sea turtle on ChiChi-Jima, (a small 
     island off the coast of Japan), and your turtle heads to the 
     sea, you are guaranteed good luck for 100 years.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senate for this time, and I yield the 
floor for my colleague from Tennessee.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. I would like to join our distinguished leader Mitch 
McConnell in seconding the comments about the presentation the senior 
Senator from Tennessee made at the Howard Baker funeral.
  It is a great privilege for us to serve in this body. While times are 
tough relative to our ability or willingness to solve some of the major 
problems, many of the major problems of our Nation today--and sometimes 
there are comments made about serving in the Senate--what I say to 
people back home is that if any of us ever forget what a privilege it 
is to serve, we should go home. That privilege allows us to meet people 
and to be in conversation with people like Howard Baker who affect us 
and cause us to be better people. It also allows us to witness what 
took place last week. I have to say I have seen Senator Alexander on 
many occasions say and do things that I thought were impressive. I 
don't think I have ever seen anything that measures up to what was said 
in that small Presbyterian church last week. I think all of us were 
touched. The Senator had a lot of good material to work with and was 
describing a man who probably has had more effect in a positive way on 
Tennessee politics--in many ways, national politics--like Howard Baker.
  He was an inspiration to all of us. When we were around him, his 
graciousness and humility caused all of us to be much better people. 
His encouragement, especially when dealing with tough issues, I think 
caused all of us to want to strive even harder to be better Senators 
and better people.
  I certainly cannot give the comments with the eloquence the Senator 
gave last week and certainly the ones just given. I know you and he 
were very close, and he impacted you more than any other person outside 
your immediate family, but he had an impact on all of us. He had an 
impact on this Nation. It is a great honor and privilege to stand with 
the Senator today to acknowledge Senator Baker's greatness as a person, 
his greatness as a Senator.
  Many times we see presentations as people talk about someone's life, 
and a lot of times that is embellished. I will say in this case none of 
it was. It was all about the man serving here in the Senate but also 
serving in that small church in Huntsville, TN, to which he was so 
loyal.
  I thank the Senator for the opportunity to serve with him. I know 
each of us strives to carry out those characteristics Howard Baker so 
wisely showed us, and I do agree that the Senate would be a much better 
place if all of us could embody those characteristics most of the time.
  I thank the senior Senator for his leadership and for his comments.
  I thank our distinguished minority leader, during a time of great 
busy-ness in his own personal life, for taking the time to be a part of 
something that I think is meaningful to him also.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. I have been moved by the comments from the Senators 
regarding Senator Baker. The story the senior Senator from Tennessee 
told about the lightbulbs is--those of us who knew Senator Baker could 
well understand that. He was a man who brought Senators together--both 
parties.
  I will tell two very quick stories. One is referencing a leadership 
race won by one vote. He had called a good friend of his, who was at 
home on official business, and said: I know the press says I am going 
to lose this race, but I know you are voting for me. Can you come back 
and vote?
  That Senator did. The Senator was the then-senior Senator from 
Vermont, Robert Stafford, and he flew back to get to the caucus to vote 
for his friend Howard Baker--the first one by one vote; all the rest by 
acclamation. I know this because both Senator Stafford and Howard Baker 
told me that story. They were also two of the finest Senators with whom 
I have ever served. Both tried to work things out.
  My other story is we were going to be in session until midnight one 
night on a technically contested matter.
  Senator Ted Stevens and I and a few others went to see Howard Baker, 
who was the majority leader. We talked about the issue that was 
divisive. We said: We think we have a solution. We have all been 
talking. We can work it out but it is going to take some time for the 
drafting. Could you recess and not stay until midnight when all it is 
going to do is exacerbate tempers? Come back in the morning and we will 
have it all worked out, and we will get this done.
  Senator Baker knew that we were all Senators in both parties who kept 
our word. He said: ``Of course.'' So we recessed. Now, as the Senator 
from Tennessee knows, we have cloakrooms here in the back of this 
Chamber. We all--if we have late-night votes, most of us hang around 
the cloakroom between votes. At that time they had beautiful stained 
glass windows in the alcoves.
  We recessed and went home. An hour or so after we went home a bomb 
went off out here in the corridor. When we came in the next morning, 
this place looked like a war zone. Shards of glass from those windows 
in both cloakrooms were embedded in the walls. The door to where the 
distinguished Republican deputy leader has his office now was blown in, 
the stained window above of it was ruined. Paintings out here were 
shredded, and some of the marble busts of former vice presidents were 
damaged. You could smell the gunpowder of the explosive when we came to 
work.
  I mention this because his form of leadership was that if we could 
get together and work things out, he preferred we do that. He would 
encourage it--both Republicans and Democrats. Then because he could 
rely on those of us--again both Republicans and Democrats--who would 
keep our word, he

[[Page 11287]]

agreed to that. We knew he would keep his word.
  I wonder how many lives of Senators were saved that night because of 
that. How many would have been terribly injured. Of course our staffs 
who work often long after we have gone--how many people could have been 
harmed if it had not been for the fact that the Senate was a different 
place, and I believe a better place.
  But I say this not so much to tell historical stories, but I say this 
out of my great respect for Howard Baker. Somebody calculated the other 
day that I have served with 18 percent of all of the Senators since the 
beginning of this country. If I put my tiny handful of the best, Howard 
Baker is in there, hands down--a wonderful, wonderful man. He was a 
Senator's Senator. He believed in the Senate. He believed what a 
privilege it was to serve here.
  He believed that the Senate could be the conscience of the Nation. I 
appreciate the tribute that was paid by my dear friend, the senior 
Senator from Tennessee, who I knew as Governor and as Cabinet member. 
We have always had a good personal relationship. I listened to his 
tales of Howard Baker. His colleague from Tennessee painted quite a 
picture of him. I thank them for doing that. I thank them for adding to 
the history of the Senate by doing it.


                           Order of Procedure

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
distinguished senior Senator from Illinois be recognized once I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________