[Senate Document 104-19]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Doc. 104-19
Robert J. Dole
U.S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS
TRIBUTES
IN THE CONGRESS OF
THE UNITED STATES
S. Doc. 104-19
Tributes
Delivered in Congress
Robert J. Dole
United States Congressman
1961-1969
United States Senator
1969-1996
-
Compiled under the direction
of the
Secretary of the Senate
by the
Office of Printing Services
CONTENTS
Biography.............................................
ix
Proceedings in the Senate:
Prayer by the Senate Chaplain Dr. Lloyd John
Ogilvie..........................................
2
Tributes by Senators:
Abraham, Spencer, of Michigan..................
104
Ashcroft, John, of Missouri....................
28
Bond, Christopher S., of Missouri..............
35
Bradley, Bill, of New Jersey...................
43
Byrd, Robert C., of West Virginia..............
45
Campbell, Ben Nighthorse, of Colorado..........
14
Chafee, John H., of Rhode Island...............
19
Coats, Dan, of Indiana.........................
84
Cochran, Thad, of Mississippi..................
3
Cohen, William S., of Maine....................
79
Coverdell, Paul, of Georgia....................
2, 103
Craig, Larry E., of Idaho......................
86, 114
D'Amato, Alfonse M., of New York...............
89
Daschle, Thomas A., of South Dakota............
48
DeWine, Mike, of Ohio..........................
97
Domenici, Pete V., of New Mexico...............
30
Dorgan, Byron L., of North Dakota..............
44
Exon, J. James, of Nebraska....................
64
Faircloth, Lauch, of North Carolina............
37
Feingold, Russell D., of Wisconsin.............
77
Feinstein, Dianne, of California...............
38
Frist, Bill, of Tennessee......................
83
Gorton, Slade, of Washington...................
27
Gramm, Phil, of Texas..........................
21
Grams, Rod, of Minnesota.......................
9
Grassley, Charles E., of Iowa..................
25
Hatch, Orrin G., of Utah.......................
66
Hatfield, Mark O., of Oregon...................
102
Heflin, Howell, of Alabama.....................
1
Hutchison, Kay Bailey, of Texas................
12
Inhofe, James M., of Oklahoma..................
26
Jeffords, James M., of Vermont.................
117
Kassebaum, Nancy Landon, of Kansas.............
7
Kempthorne, Dirk, of Idaho.....................
100
Kennedy, Edward M., of Massachusetts...........
82
Kerry, John F., of Massachusetts...............
95
Kyl, Jon, of Arizona...........................
5, 115
Lautenberg, Frank R., of New Jersey............
113
Leahy, Patrick J., of Vermont..................
118
Levin, Carl, of Michigan.......................
78
Lott, Trent, of Mississippi....................
62
Lugar, Richard D., of Indiana..................
81
Mack, Connie, of Florida.......................
11
McCain, John, of Arizona.......................
40
McConnell, Mitch, of Kentucky..................
107
Mikulski, Barbara A., of Maryland..............
38
Moynihan, Daniel P., of New York...............
91
From the New York Times, Reagan's Faithful
Allies....................................
92
Murkowski, Frank H., of Alaska.................
73
Nickles, Don, of Oklahoma......................
50
Consideration of S. Res. 258................
51
Poem, The Measure of a Man..................
96
Pressler, Larry, of South Dakota...............
105
Roth, William V., Jr., of Delaware.............
5
Santorum, Rick of Pennsylvania.................
87
Shelby, Richard C., of Alabama.................
96
Simpson, Alan K., of Wyoming...................
24
Smith, Robert C, of New Hampshire..............
108
Snowe, Olympia J., of Michigan.................
22
Specter, Arlen, of Pennsylvania................
32
Stevens, Ted, of Alaska........................
74
Thomas, Craig, of Wyoming......................
17
Thurmond, Strom, of South Carolina.............
70
Warner, John W., of Virginia...................
45
S. Res. 258....................................
52
Farewell address of Senator Robert J. Dole.....
52
Order for printing a Senate document...........
115
Proceedings in the House:
Tributes by Representatives:
Durbin, Richard J., of Illinois................
121
Fowler, Tillie, of Florida.....................
123
Tiahrt, Todd, of Kansas........................
123
Newspaper Articles and Editorials:
Bob Dole's Leadership in the Senate Was One of
Contrasts; and Consensus, Buffalo News...........
127
That Was the Real Bob Dole, Plain Dealer...........
128
As Member of Congress, Bob Dole Has Had Few Equals,
State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL).........
130
The Hard Way, Time Magazine........................
131
Reinventing Bob Dole, U.S. News & World Report.....
134
The Life and Times of Bob J. Dole; His Story Is
Well Worth Telling, Says One Who Knows It Well,
Star Tribune.....................................
135
Dole's Large Legacy Buried in Fine Print; Congress:
His Skills As A Legislator Are Likely To Be Lost
on Future Generations, Los Angeles Times.........
137
Bob Dole, GOP-Builder, Washington Times............
141
Bob Dole's Last Day in the Senate, The Hill........
143
Bob Bids Farewell to Sente; Bipartisan Tributes
Fill Emotional Final Day, Washington Post........
145
Bob Dole--He Keeps His Word, Hartford Courant......
147
Bob Dole's Farewell, Chicago Tribune...............
148
Dole's Parting Reflections Leave Image of the Core
Values of His Career, Washington Post............
148
Bob Dole's Farewell, Washington Times..............
150
Dole Bids Farewell to Capitol Hill; After 35 Years,
Candidate Enters A `New Season', Washington Times
154
Public Servant Dole, Tulsa World...................
155
Dole Departs, Commercial Appeal (Memphis)..........
156
Bob Dole Charts Wise Course, Daily News (New York).
157
Good Citizen Dole, Washington Post.................
158
Dole Deserving of Laudatory Comments, Omaha World-
Herald...........................................
159
Dole Did It His Way--The Hard Way, Sunday Gazette
Mail.............................................
160
For Dole, Road To Politics Began At Kansas
Courthouse; GOP: His Days as County Attorney in
'50s Paved Way to Congress, The Ex-Senator Still
Resonates Themes of that Era.....................
161
Dole Braves A Storm, Christian Science Monitor.....
164
Dole Really Witty, Warm Under Mask, Montgomery
Advertiser.......................................
165
Midwest Values and Civility Guide Dole, Dallas
Morning News.....................................
165
Senator Dole vs. Citizen Dole, Indianapolis News...
167
BIOGRAPHY
Robert Dole, Republican, of Russell, Kansas; born in
Russell Kansas, July 22, 1923, son of Mr. and Mrs. Doran
R. Dole; married Mary Elizabeth Hanford, December 6, 1975;
one daughter, Robin, from a previous marriage; graduate of
Russell public schools; attended University of Kansas,
Lawrence; A.B., Washburn Municipal University, Topeka,
1952; LL.B., Washburn, 1952; enlisted, U.S. Army, 1943;
served 5\1/2\ years in World War II as 10th Mountain
Division platoon leader in Italy; twice wounded and twice
decorated for ``heroic achievement''; discharged with rank
of captain, 1948; at age 26, elected to Kansas
Legislature, 1951-53; elected four terms as Russell County
attorney, 1953-61; elected to U.S. House of
Representatives, 1960; reelected 1962, 1964, and 1966;
elected to U.S. Senate, 1968; reelected 1974, 1980, 1986,
and 1992; elected Senate majority leader, November 1984;
elected Senate minority leader, January 3, 1987; reelected
November 29, 1988, November 13, 1990, and November 3,
1992; Republican candidate for Vice President of the
United States, 1976; Republican National Committee
chairman, 1971-73; adviser, U.S. delegation to United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Conference,
Rome, Italy, 1975; member, Congressional delegation to
survey food crisis in India at request of President
Johnson, 1966; Congressional delegation to study Arab
refugee problem, Middle East, 1967; past president,
Washburn Alumni Association and Kansas County Attorneys
Association; past lieutenant governor, Kiwanis; member:
State and American Bar Associations, 4-H Fair Association,
B.P.O.E., Masons, Isis Shrine, Chamber of Commerce,
American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Disabled
American Veterans; National Board of Sponsors of the
American Medical Center, Denver, CO; member of the board
for National Society of Autistic Children; member,
advisory committee of the National Association for
Retarded Children; Advisory Council on Scouting for the
Handicapped; Board of Directors, Rehabilitation
International, U.S.A.; advisory committee, Kansas Kiwanis
Foundation; Kansas Easter Seal Society; member, American
Heart Association; Advisory Board, Center for Strategic
and International Studies; chairman of the board, Dole
Foundation; Finance Committee and Agriculture Committee;
reelected in 1992.
TRIBUTES
to
ROBERT J. DOLE
Proceedings in the Senate
Friday, June 7, 1996.
Mr. HEFLIN. Mr. President, the political world was
stunned a few weeks ago when our colleague, Majority
Leader Bob Dole, announced his resignation from the U.S.
Senate after 36 years of representing his native State of
Kansas. In his emotional and moving farewell speech, he
said he wanted to campaign for the Presidency ``with
nothing to fall back on but the judgment of the people and
nowhere to go but the White House or home.''
Senator Bob Dole was elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives in 1960. He came to the Senate in 1968,
where he served as the Republican leader for a record 11
years. He ran for Vice President with President Gerald
Ford in 1976 and ran for the Republican Presidential
nomination in 1980 and 1988. He has been a fixture of our
National Government for 36 years. Regardless of what we
might think of his decision to give up his life's work for
an attempt at the White House, we all agree that Bob Dole
has been an outstanding Senator and leader. He is a master
legislator.
Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute has
called Senator Dole one of the five most significant
Senators of the last half of the 20th century. That
sentiment has been echoed by the Brookings Institute's
Stephen Hess, who labeled him ``somebody who could get
things done.'' And in Washington, especially in the
unwieldy Senate, this is no small compliment.
I have had the pleasure of serving with Bob Dole for
nearly 18 years and know him to be an excellent legislator
with an amazing ability to reach solutions to difficult
and controversial issues. He is an honest and forthright
man of integrity. Had he and the President been able to
negotiate in good faith last fall and winter during the
heated budget debate, I have no doubt they could have
reached a solution which would have been good for our
country and our future. Unfortunately, the House
leadership would not agree to such an effort.
Despite his legislative prowess, his major strengths lie
in the force of his personality and his style. His power
comes from his knowledge, from hard work, from his humor
and from his strong friendships on both sides of the
aisle, and from his rare moral authority. He does his own
work and does not delegate much.
He comes from a humble background, the son of a cream
and egg station operator in Russell, KS. After serving in
the Army during World War II, where he suffered grave and
lasting wounds, he spent 8 years as a county attorney
dealing with people from all stations in life. He dealt
with bankers and country club members, but also with
garage mechanics and feed store clerks. He has exhibited a
comprehensive understanding of America as a leader for the
interests of the average and disadvantaged Americans.
As Senator Bob Dole--a true giant in the history of the
Senate--leaves this body, he holds so dear, to pursue the
Nation's highest office, I join my colleagues in saluting
him.
Monday, June 10, 1996.
Mr. COVERDELL. In closing, Mr. President, one of the
speakers a little earlier, I think Senator Bennett of
Utah, talked about Senator Dole and this desk. Tomorrow
Senator Dole will leave his beloved Senate. And I said
after his announcement that I would never look at this
desk and not see the distinguished Senator from Kansas.
So, in closing, I just want to, as a precursor for
tomorrow, wish him well, wish him Godspeed, wish him a
safe journey, and to be among the millions of Americans to
thank him for all that he did for his State, for this
Senate, and for the United States of America.
Tuesday, June 11, 1996.
The Chaplain, Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, offered the
following prayer:
Gracious Father, there is no greater joy than to be Your
friend. Along with Abraham and Moses, and men and women
throughout the ages, we accept the awesome privilege of a
friendship with You. To be called a friend of God is a
source of strength and courage. When this assurance
pervades our minds, hearts, and wills, we can pray for
Your guidance and know that You will not only show us the
way, but walk with us.
Thank You for helping us be the kind of friends to
others that You have been to us. May we express Your
loyalty, faithfulness, and consistency. We are thankful
for the lasting friendships established and deepened over
the years here in the Senate. These friendships weather
the storms of conflict, party differences, and political
tensions.
Today, on behalf of both parties, I express our
gratitude to You, Father, for our friend, Bob Dole. Thank
You for his commitment to You expressed so faithfully in
his leadership and service here in the Senate. He leaves
the Senate this afternoon, but You know he can never leave
the place he holds in our hearts. Bless him with the
knowledge of Your love and our esteem. In the name of
Jesus. Amen.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I rise to join all of those
in the Senate today to wish Godspeed to our distinguished
majority leader and colleague, Bob Dole, as he departs the
Senate and embarks upon his campaign for the Presidency of
the United States. I do not know of any other event that
is more important to all of us or to the country this year
than his election as President. I am really glad in one
sense to see him concentrate his full energies and
attention on that objective.
When I think about Bob Dole's leaving the Senate, I
think about when I came to the Senate he was already
established as one of the true legislative leaders of the
Senate, although he occupied no elected position of
leadership in the Senate. It was my good fortune to serve
on two committees with him as a freshman Member of this
body--the Agriculture Committee and the Judiciary
Committee. He was not intending to serve on the Judiciary
Committee that year either, but he was drafted to serve.
We did not have enough Members to fill out the ranks on
the Republican side. Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts
just assumed the chairmanship of that committee. It was a
very highly visible committee.
I recall Senator Dole coming on the committee. Of
course, he had been a lawyer, a county attorney in Kansas.
He brought to that committee good judgment and experience
on a number of issues. I can recall what I would think
would be referred to as an obscure bill that year that the
committee worked on, which was bankruptcy reform. After a
lot of hearings, a lot of effort to resolve issues and to
get a bill reported out, it was Senator Dole who, when it
appeared there was not going to be any action on that
issue, came up with a proposal that turned out to be the
centerpiece of bankruptcy reform.
It was that way on the Agriculture Committee. We would
be locked in tough debate, arguments, differences of views
based on regional considerations, sometimes party
differences. The chairman from Georgia, Senator Talmadge,
was trying to get everybody together. Time after time
after time it was Bob Dole who ended up being the force
and the catalyst that brought the committee to a point
where it agreed and reported out legislation. That
legislation would ultimately become law.
Senator Dole, as a member of the Finance Committee--I
did not have the good fortune to be a member there--but as
chairman of that committee, I can recall his handling
legislation on the floor of the Senate into the late hours
of the evening with the patience and the calm
determination to see the bill through, dealing with the
competing interests, the offering of amendments, Democrats
and Republicans alike, getting a fair hearing on their
proposals of what should be in the bill and what should
not be in the bill. And finally, after sometimes days,
bringing that bill to a point where it would pass the
Senate and then ultimately be enacted into law.
A legislative leader, in the truest sense of the word,
on a wide range of issues, some issues that other Senators
did not want to work on, like in the Agriculture
Committee, the nutrition issues, working out the
difficulties in determining eligibility for food stamps,
for School Lunch Program participation, how much would the
Federal Government contribute, how much would State and
local governments contribute, how much would individuals
have to pay for these benefits, and on and on, the
minutia, the tough, hard decisions. He was there to help
make those decisions and to help shape a consensus of
support for legislation on those issues when others could
not do it, did not bring the skill and the determination
and the capacity to do it that Bob Dole brought to the
challenge.
It was no wonder, when Howard Baker left the Senate in
1984, following the elections that year, the Senate turned
to Bob Dole and elected him leader.
He has proven himself over and over again to be a
confident, fair, courageous, decisive leader, driven by
character, integrity, and the notion of what is good for
the public interest, not just what is good for the party
interest or partisan consideration, but the general
interests that serve the people of our great country. It
is with that kind of leadership that we have come to
appreciate the genius of Bob Dole and the outstanding way
in which he has discharged the responsibilities of leader.
We are going to have a tough job. I know that some
people are talking about the succession, and who is going
to replace Bob Dole. The fact is that nobody is going to
replace Bob Dole. Nobody has the capacity to do all the
things that he has done in the U.S. Senate. It has really
been an honor--a great honor--and a wonderful opportunity
to have had the privilege of serving on some of the
committees he has served on, some he has chaired, and to
be a part of this Senate that has been led by Bob Dole,
the Senator from Kansas.
So we wish him all the best and know that he will enjoy
many more successes and many more triumphs in the years
ahead. We are confident of that, and we bid him a fond
farewell.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would like to join the Senator
from Mississippi in paying tribute to the Senator from
Kansas, the distinguished majority leader. All of us who
have served in this body can tell stories--even those of
us who have served a very short period of time, such as
myself--that reflect the qualities of Bob Dole's
leadership. Those of us who are partisan Republicans can
only hope that a majority of American citizens can get to
know Bob Dole as well as we know him. If they do, then
those of us who would like to see Bob Dole be President
know that the American people would choose wisely in that
case. We recognize our partisanship in this matter, but I
think even those who are on the other side of the aisle
would acknowledge that the majority leader is a man of
great character, judgment, and leadership skills that,
frankly, are greater than most public servants who have
the opportunity to represent people in this country.
So I join with my colleague from Mississippi in paying
tribute to the majority leader, and I wish him well in his
future endeavors.
Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to adequately address the congressional career
of our departing majority leader in a 5-minute floor
statement. His accomplishments in his 35 years as a
Congressman and Senator--his successes achieved while
serving 11 years as Republican leader--could fill volumes.
Indeed, hours could be spent rehearsing Bob Dole's
impressive record: His heroism in World War II; his early
political career in the Kansas House of Representatives,
followed by his successes here in Washington; his efforts
in 1964 to secure passage of the Civil Rights Act; his
historic work with Senator Moynihan in 1983 to save the
Social Security trust fund; his engineering the vote in
1991 to authorize U.S. forces to turn back Saddam
Hussein's tyranny in the Middle East; his support for
Kemp-Roth and the 22-percent reduction in income taxes
that ushered America into the longest peacetime economic
expansion in history; his staunch stand against President
Clinton's 1993 record-setting $241 billion tax increase.
These are only a few of the milestones in Bob Dole's
journey from modest beginnings in America's heartland to
his noble objective today. Time will not permit us to go
beyond a few random milestones. But then again, Mr.
President, the truth is that the greatest leaders need the
least amount of praise. They have written their stories in
the hearts and minds of the people they serve.
Senator Bob Dole has done just that.
His story is one of courage, persistence, character,
discipline, and determination--the determination to
overcome odds that would have vanquished a lesser
individual. He is a man of deep convictions and proven
abilities. And everyone who has had the opportunity to
serve with him understands that just as solid as his past
record, is his vision for the future. He has outlined that
vision in absolute terms. And with Bob Dole there are no
surprises. As long as I have known him, his words have
been exceeded by his deeds.
I believe that at the center of Bob Dole's vision is his
economic message, that we ``deal with the deficit, and . .
. couple that with tax cuts.'' Toward this end, Senator
Dole is both tenacious and pragmatic. He knows the
correlation between low taxes and economic growth, and he
has proposed serious tax cuts.
Bob Dole has been an effective leader during a time when
this body addressed some of the most critical issues in
history: The need for a balanced budget amendment; the
need to strengthen and preserve Medicare; the need to
provide effective, portable, and affordable health care
coverage for Americans; the need to guarantee the future
of Social Security; the need to keep a strong defense--a
defense marked by high morale and the best, most effective
materiel available. He understands these issues
intimately--as well as anyone--and he knows what must be
done to see that these need are met.
Mr. President, I will miss Bob Dole. And though I wish
him all the best in his new endeavors, I will miss his
daily leadership here on the Senate floor. I will miss his
quick wit; his sense of humor. I will miss his deliberate
style, and his uncanny ability to turn assertive and
aggressively intellectual into a cohesive team.
On a personal note, I am grateful for the chance I have
had to serve with Bob Dole. I am grateful for our
friendship, for our years working together on this floor.
Like other great majority leaders who have gone before,
Senator Dole leaves his mark on this institution. As the
Congressional Quarterly recently pointed out, ``. . . as
majority leader, [Bob Dole] proved a point that badly
needed proving. . . . The Senate could be led.''
Mrs. KASSEBAUM. Mr. President, I think it is appropriate
that Senator Dole, in one of his last acts of the Senate,
introduced legislation to provide for security of the
Medicare trust fund. It was his strong endorsement and
leadership at the beginning of the 1980's that addressed
the solvency of the Social Security system. Just
yesterday, he was instrumental in bringing a number of us
together to address the concerns of health insurance
reform. It is my hope we can reach across the aisle and
forge with the administration a lasting piece of
legislation addressing many of the concerns regarding
health insurance reform.
For nearly 18 years, Mr. President, Senator Dole and I
have served as partners in representing Kansas in the U.S.
Senate and in working on many other issues. We have not
always agreed, but far more often we have agreed. More
importantly, Mr. President, we have respected each other's
dedication. Today, that partnership ends, at least in its
current form.
This day creates many mixed emotions. Like others in
this Chamber, I will miss Bob Dole's steady presentation
and his can-do attitude that has helped the Senate through
so many rough times. I know Kansans also view his
departure with some trepidation.
At the same time, I believe that Senator Dole has made
the right choice by deciding to focus all of his time,
energy, and skill on the Presidential campaign. It is a
mark of his dedication and commitment that he would give
up so much in order to bring his very best to the
challenge at hand. It also, I think, marks his confidence.
In our years together here, Bob Dole and I have created
a spirit of cooperation and teamwork in representing our
State. There is no one who understands middle America and
grassroots sentiment better than Bob Dole. That is where
his roots are. We have joined forces many times to see the
needs of Kansans were addressed and that the concerns of
Kansans were voiced clearly and forcefully. I could not
have asked for a better partner in helping me. I hope my
support for him in those efforts has been worthwhile as
well.
Our work together has ranged across the spectrum of
issues and problems. Countless hours were spent helping
farmers get through the credit crunch of the 1980's. No
one understood that better than Bob Dole. Today, there are
family farms across our State and our Nation who still
work their own lands due to Bob Dole's leadership.
We have gone to bat repeatedly to assist our aviation
manufacturers to get fair treatment in world markets.
Today, there are thousands of aircraft workers producing
airplanes that might never have been sold without Bob
Dole's firm hand and persistent efforts. Senator Dole took
the lead in the effort to rebuild McConnell Air Force Base
in Wichita, KS, after a devastating tornado swept through
the outskirts of Wichita. He saw to it that every small
town in Kansas had a tornado warning siren to protect its
citizens.
Mr. President, through all of these years, no challenge
has been too large and no concern has been too small for
Senator Dole. Our State motto is ad astra per aspera, ``to
the stars through difficulties.'' I have never known
Senator Dole to not look at a challenge and find a way to
address it. He has been a tireless champion for our State
in every farm bill, every tax bill, every bill of any kind
that touched Kansas and, more importantly then, by
extension, the Nation. As a direct result of his efforts,
our State is a better place to live, to work, and to go
for school. His legacy is written not merely in laws but
in a better life for every Kansan.
It is with a mixture of regret and pride that I say
goodbye to Senator Dole today. We will miss him deeply. I
will miss him most of all. I know that there is other work
for him to do now, other challenges to be met, and I have
no doubt at all that he will do that job and meet that
challenge. Bob Dole is a remarkable man with an
extraordinary life story, yet on this day all I can offer
him is a heartfelt thank you for all that he has done for
me and for Kansas and the Nation.
Mr. GRAMS. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I want to
pay tribute to a man who, for 20 some years, while in the
broadcast news industry, I used for sound bites and
sources of information. I have now had the pleasure, over
the last 2 years, to work with him in the Senate and am
now able to call him a friend.
Bob Dole's name alone stirs up many images among the
American people. Bob Dole--war hero, Congressman, Senator,
party chairman, majority leader, Presidential candidate.
Yet, when I think of Bob Dole, other words come to mind:
midwesterner, mentor, colleague, and most of all, friend.
I'm sure that all of us in this Chamber feel the same way,
and today, we honor Bob Dole, our leader, our
distinguished colleague from Kansas, our friend.
As Bob leaves Washington to return home back to the
heartland of our great Nation, I wanted to share some of
my thoughts about this man whose life story and
distinguished career reflects the very values we cherish
most as Americans.
Bob was born and raised in Russell, KS--living the small
town American life about which legends are made. His
family was not wealthy; in fact, during the Depression,
the Doles, like many families, had to put together just to
make ends meet, moving into the basement of their home in
order to rent out the rest of their house.
As a young man, Bob worked as a popular soda jerk at a
local drug store, learning early on the lessons of hard
work, fiscal responsibility and the value of a hard-earned
dollar.
Growing up in Kansas taught Bob the importance of
patriotism and sacrifice. It's not surprising that at the
age of 19, Bob answered the call to serve his country by
joining the Army to fight in World War II.
And by now, everyone should be familiar with the story
of Bob crawling out of his foxhole during heavy shelling
in the hills of Italy to save a wounded colleague, only to
be hit by Nazi machinegun fire.
There are some for whom love of country and self-
sacrifice are just phrases--words to be used for a holiday
speech. For Bob Dole, it is the standard under which he
has led his life--a badge of honor he wears even today.
The 3 years and nine operations it took for Bob to
rehabilitate required strength and perseverance, a burden
too great for some to carry. But Bob Dole was never one to
give up--not even under the most difficult of
circumstances.
His determination to recover and get back on his feet
was backed up by the now-legendary support of his friends,
family and community, when the people of Russell passed
around a cigar box to raise the $1,800 needed to pay Bob's
medical bills.
Bob has never forgotten their generosity. He still keeps
that cigar box, the receipts and the love and support they
represent in his office, and recalling those days still
overwhelms him with heartfelt emotion.
Upon recovering from his war injuries, Bob wanted to
give something back to his community--he chose public
service. Since receiving his law degree in 1952, public
service has been exactly what Bob Dole's life has been
about. Public service has led him all the way to the U.S.
Senate, and now, the White House.
The character traits that Bob Dole learned since his
humble beginnings in small town America have been
reflected in his everyday work as a Senator.
Bob has consistently worked for a Government that serves
the people but is a accountable to the taxpayers who pay
for it, and a society that is based on people helping
people without creating a permanent dependency on
Government.
These principles have been apparent in his efforts to
balance the Federal budget, return hard-earned tax dollars
to the middle class, overhaul the welfare system, and
preserve programs like Medicare for generations to come.
I am proud to say that I had the opportunity to stand at
Bob Dole's side during these debates, to have worked with
him in making our Nation a better place for our children
and grandchildren.
But Bob has been more than just a colleague--he's been
my friend. When I campaigned for my seat in the Senate,
Bob came into Minnesota five times. As a fellow
Midwesterner, Bob knows my State, its people, and our
heritage. Minnesotans like Bob Dole; he is one of us.
Bob's friendship extends beyond the 1994 campaign.
Shortly after arriving in the Senate, I got caught up in
one of last year's biggest fights over national policy:
whether or not to include tax cuts in the budget. I
promised the people of Minnesota that I would not support
a budget that did not include tax relief for the middle
class.
Bob understood my pledge, and though he could not, as
Senate majority leader, take public sides on the debate,
he privately encouraged me to stick to my guns, telling me
not to give way on my principles. Sure enough, when the
final budget came out, tax cuts were included, thanks in
no small part to Bob Dole's support.
On May 15, I had the opportunity to join many of my
colleagues in standing with Bob again as he announced his
resignation from the Senate. Like many of those who heard
the speech, I was moved by his words, particularly when he
said to the American people: ``I will stand before you
without office or authority, a private citizen, a Kansan,
an American, just a man.''
I thought to myself about this man--a man who has served
his Nation in times of war and peace with honor and
integrity, who carries through when he gives his word, who
has sacrificed so much of himself for the country he loves
so dearly.
Bob is not a man who learned his political philosophy
from a book, but instead, developed it as the result of
his life experiences, from the people whose lives he has
touched and whose lives touch him, and the commonsense
wisdom one can only expect from a son of the Midwest.
It is with this wisdom and the good feelings of all of
us who have known and grown to respect Bob that he closes
this chapter of his incredible life story, only to open a
new one--full of the promises and hope that have marked
his life. And while I am saddened to see him go, I am
comforted by the fact that the Senate's loss is the
American people's gain.
I look forward to traveling with Bob across this great
country, a country he has served with distinction
throughout his life, and introducing to the American
people, a man I am honored to call my friend, Bob Dole.
Mr. MACK. Mr. President, I come to the floor of the U.S.
Senate today to bid farewell to a friend, a leader, a
colleague, and an authentic American hero. Bob Dole
embodies what is right about America. Seasoned by the
values and humble atmosphere of small-town America, the
experience of war, and perseverance through physical
trials, Bob Dole has earned the respect and admiration of
us all.
He is a legendary legislator who is known for his
honesty, integrity, and fair-mindedness. Bob Dole is an
authentic war hero who stood on the front lines in the
fight against tyranny and sacrificed so that others may
live in freedom. He understands the commitment and
sacrifice necessary to protect and preserve freedom.
I would like to share a couple of stories with my
colleagues, one having to do with a trip to France back in
the mid-1980's. I had an opportunity to respond to
questions from a French audience for almost 2 hours and at
the end of that, had the opportunity to ask them a
question. I told them I was going to be returning to
America in a few days, and I wanted to know what they
would tell me to tell the people of Florida about what
they thought of our Nation. The first several people who
came and stood up said that we think of America as a
great, dynamic, growing country, and one that is providing
opportunities for millions of Americans.
The third person that stood up was a fellow who was
probably his late seventies or early eighties, a little
bit wobbly, steadying himself with a cane, and looked me
square in the eye, and he said, ``When you go back to
America, you tell the people of your country that we will
never forget that it was the American GI that liberated
our little town.''
The second story is the opportunity that I had, along
with some of my other colleagues here on the floor of the
U.S. Senate, to be in Italy with Bob Dole at the time he
returned to the battlefield where he was wounded and stood
on the road as he looked over to the area in which he laid
for 9 hours before being rescued. Later, we walked down
the street of this little town where Bob Dole laid a
wreath at a monument in memory of those individuals who
gave their lives in defense of freedom and liberation of
Italy. As I stood by his side that day, I truly understood
that this was a man who understood the importance of
freedom; that freedom is the core of all human progress,
and while the price of freedom may be great, there is no
price so great as the loss of freedom.
We can see the mettle of the man in his decision to
leave behind leadership of the U.S. Senate to pursue the
Presidency. He is doing it because it is simply the right
thing to do.
Bob Dole has so much to give America through his
experience and his wisdom. While this is a day of
reflection, it is also a day of anticipation. I am
confident that Bob Dole is not done serving his country,
and America will be better for it.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, today we are saying
farewell to our leader in the Senate so that he can become
the leader of our Nation and of the free world. This is a
remarkable man who can shoulder this great burden. This is
a man who has shown that he is worthy of our trust. He has
kept his promises to the American people, starting with
balancing the budget. For the first time we are on a track
to balancing the budget in 7 years due to the leadership
of Bob Dole. It is the first time in 40 years that
Congress has made the decision that we must not burden our
children and grandchildren with the kind of debt that has
been built up by Congresses of the past.
This is a man who can be Commander in Chief of our
country. He has respect for our military. He respects the
people who have chosen to protect the freedom of America.
He understands the need for peace--not through unilateral
disarmament, but through strength. And he will not send
our troops into harm's way unless there is a U.S. security
interest. He has shown that through his leadership on the
Senate floor to make sure that we do not commit American
lives unless there was a U.S. security interest.
He has fought for the working American family. He grew
up in Russell, KS. He knew poverty. He knew what it was
like to struggle to make ends meet. That is why his
priority was tax relief for the hard-working families of
this country such as the $500-per-child tax credit and
homemaker IRA's. It was Senator Dole who led the way for
the homemaker to have retirement security, just like those
who work outside the home do. And it was Senator Dole who
passed that bill in Congress only to have it vetoed by
President Clinton. He fought to lower the marriage penalty
because he wants the American family to stay strong.
He has been a leader in the fight for women's health
issues. During his time as majority leader, we have
increased the spending for research on women's health care
concerns. He is trying to make sure that we have a strong
health care system--a strong Medicare system that will be
there for those who will need it in the future.
He is fighting for the spirit of entrepreneurship to be
kept in this country because he knows it is the small
business people that make the economy grow and prosper in
America and takes the new people into our system for jobs.
He knows that, and that is why he is trying to provide
regulatory relief.
We have passed the free trade agreements, so our small
businesses are going to be able to compete for those jobs.
Senator Dole knows, and he has led the way for regulatory
relief for our small business people so that they will be
able to grow.
He has been a defender of private property rights
because he believes in the fifth amendment to the
Constitution.
Finally, Mr. President, he has been good for our border
concerns. He is trying to help us deal with the severe
problem of illegal immigration. He is doing that by trying
to make sure that we have the help we need in the border
States to meet these terrible issues that are of such
concern to our country right now.
So we are saying goodbye today to our Senate leader, a
man who has proven his mettle time and time and time
again; a man who understands what America is all about and
who has voluntarily said that he would rather be going out
across this great country talking to the people who are
working, who know what the problems and concerns are for
the heartland of America. He would rather be out there
talking to them one on one, listening to their concerns
and telling them what he would like to do to make their
lives better. He has chosen that over the traffic of
Washington, DC.
He has his priorities straight. He wants to keep the
American dream--his dream that every child in this country
will have the same opportunities that he did to reach his
or her full potential, and he means to make America a
place that will allow that to happen.
So we are saying farewell to a Senate leader today, but
we are saying farewell to a leader of this group so that
he can take on the greater challenge with his spirit and
his integrity of leading our great Nation in the free
world.
We wish him farewell, and we will be with him out in the
heartland of America talking to the concerns of the people
of this country.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, it is a great honor for me
today to join my colleagues in recognizing the outstanding
accomplishments of one of the greatest Senators in this
great institution: Bob Dole.
This is a special day in history for those of us
gathered here in this Senate Chamber. For on this day in
1775, the Continental Congress did something this body has
been doing ever since--it appointed a committee. We have
come a long way since then. But this committee's job was
to write the Declaration of Independence which has
protected our freedom and liberty ever since. The
committee was composed of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger
Sherman. While no congressional committee has ever done a
more important job, Bob Dole's service of 36 years in
Congress as legislator, Finance Committee chairman, and
majority leader has had a profound impact on the course of
our Nation.
Although he has worked on behalf of countless
individuals, families and communities, Bob Dole has stood
out as a champion of veterans in Congress. Therefore, as a
member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I rise today
and join with veterans from across the country and
throughout this Congress in honoring a lifetime of
achievement by my friend--a warrior, a leader, a hero.
In modern times, the word ``hero'' is often bandied
around a great deal. But after much reflection, perhaps
Ralph Waldo Emerson's perception of heroism best describes
how so many of us feel about Bob Dole. Emerson said: ``The
characteristic of heroism is its persistency. The heroic
cannot be the common, nor the common heroic.''
Bob Dole is a man who has risen to uncommon and heroic
heights. And, as it is with most heroes, he seldom speaks
of his accomplishments.
He represents, I guess, the best of our country's
warriors and heroes. The story of what he went through in
1943 while attending Kansas University and joining the
U.S. Army is legendary. As a second lieutenant platoon
leader, he went into training with the 10th Mountain
Division, which was based in my State of Colorado. Perhaps
his only mistake at that time was not buying the land
around the training site, because that has become what we
know as Aspen today. But certainly it was that highly
trained infantry of the 10th Mountain Division that began
the final attack April 14, 1945, which led to his wounds
of World War II. He went off to war to defend the Nation
and our freedoms. And, as a result of that wound, of
course, he went through nine operations, which several
other Senators have told about, and 2 years of recovery.
I guess, just to talk about wounds and recovery is one
thing, but the Germans have a saying. They say, ``He who
laughs at scars has suffered no wounds.''
When we think of the time it cost and the terrible pain
Senator Dole must have gone through, through that recovery
time, we know there is a difference between talking about
it and actually going through it.
Bob Dole's legacy as a warrior, hero, and statesman
reminds us of another outstanding American leader,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Senator Dole, then a
member of the Kansas House of Representatives, first met
General Eisenhower on a rain-soaked day in the spring of
1952 when the General returned home to Abilene, KS, to
officially launch his Presidential campaign. It was most
fitting, therefore, when Senator Dole was awarded the
Eisenhower Leadership Prize in 1995 by the Eisenhower
World Affairs Institute for lifetime accomplishments which
reflect Eisenhower's legacy of integrity and leadership.
As President Eisenhower said 41 years ago:
Of the nations of today the future will say that there
were two kinds: Those that were intelligent, courageous,
decisive and tireless in their support of high
principles--and those that disappeared from the earth. The
true patriots give their best to assure that our country
will also be found in the first of these categories.
Bob Dole clearly stands among the true patriots.
As a decorated World War II veteran, his service on
behalf of our Nation's veterans can be seen in four major
areas: benefits, POW/MIA issues, education, and health
care.
Veterans who have served their country deserve and have
earned quality benefits. Toward this end, the Dole GI
bill, introduced in 1995, revamps the veterans benefit
program and brings it up to date and in line with the
needs of veterans today.
He also authored legislation in 1996 to create the
Veterans Transition Benefit Commission. Its purpose is to
ensure that veterans leaving the military due to
downsizing have access to the necessary assistance to
return to civilian life in the most productive manner.
On the difficult POW/MIA issue, Bob Dole has been in the
forefront, seeking answers and helping families who do not
know the fate of their loved ones. Bob Dole is considered
the 1970 founder of the POW/MIA League of Families. Since
then, he has continued to assist families to get a full
accounting and disclosure of the fate of their loved ones.
This past Memorial Day over 100,000 veterans converged
in D.C. on The Mall, as they do every Memorial Day, angry
in their belief that many people in government have
abandoned them. Bob Dole has not abandoned them, nor will
he ever abandon the veterans of the United States.
In the area of veterans health, Bob Dole has a special
and deeply personal understanding of the importance of
quality health care and the power of rehabilitation. He
has worked to provide a service-connected presumption for
certain diseases, expand the number of disorders for which
former POW's could receive disability compensation.
Although we served in different wars, Senator Dole in
World War II and myself in Korea, we share with all
veterans a unique perspective on life and country. If war
teaches you anything, it is that the world is a mixture of
vulnerability and enduring strength, and that it is the
job of the human spirit to strike the balance we call
peace. Bob Dole has never wavered from the pursuit of
peace.
This courageous leader understands so much about the
price of freedom, and as he goes forth from this Chamber,
let him know that our hearts, our prayers, and the hopes
of all America's veterans go with him.
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to join in the
tribute to Senator Bob Dole. Certainly, his
accomplishments extend over many areas, but I want to
limit my remarks specifically to health care.
His record is one that truly demonstrates compassion,
dedication and selflessness. This is not a man who simply
talks about quality health care. He knows the importance
of it firsthand.
Of course, we all know the story, Bob Dole's valiant
service in World War II. He spent 4 agonizing years in a
hospital bed. It was this experience that led to his
commitment to give each and every American the security of
knowing health care is there today and will be there
tomorrow.
Proof of such dedication is reflected, not just in the
way he votes on major issues, but also in smaller efforts
like helping to keep a 12-bed hospital in rural Kansas
open, or creating employment opportunities for persons
with disabilities. These are little things that do not
always receive a lot of fanfare, but over the course of 35
years, they build a solid legislative record.
As the Wyoming State chair for the Senator's 1988
Presidential bid, I came to know and understand the person
who has so willingly fought the good fight to make
insurance more affordable and accessible to all. For
instance, during the 1970's, when many policymakers were
advocating a nationalized health care system, it was Bob
Dole who recognized the flaws of such an approach. Rather
than let the Federal Government be in control of
individual medical decisions, he coauthored a more simple,
practical piece of legislation, the 1979 Dole-Danforth-
Domenici health insurance bill. The initiative aimed to
improve access to health care, but in a manner that did
not turn the reins over to Washington, DC. He had the
foresight back then to keep reform affordable and free of
Federal mandates. This same philosophy continues.
A few years ago when the Congress considered the Clinton
health care plan, it was Bob Dole who warned against the
ill effects of federalizing our health care system. As an
experienced legislator, he reminded Congress that
increased taxes and price controls are not the way to
improve coverage for the uninsured.
But, before I reflect on the Senator's more recent
accomplishments, I want to highlight an issue near and
dear to the hearts of Wyoming people--rural health care.
In the 1980's, hospital closures were plaguing rural
America and providers were vacating these communities for
urban practices. To be exact, 237 rural hospitals closed
during the decade. There would have been more if not for
Bob Dole's commitment to a notable package of rural health
care reforms. Reforms that improved Medicare reimbursement
rates to small hospitals, created primary care centers,
and recruited vital family practitioners. These solutions
helped to revitalize our communities and gave rural
families the same access to quality medical care as their
urban counterparts.
As someone who hails from a town of 500-people, I know
the importance of such measures. If a rural hospitals
closes, it often devastates a community. Jobs are lost and
individuals are left without care during times of a
medical emergency.
Establishing a successful rural health care delivery
system can be very difficult. Yet Senator Dole and his
staff have helped make that goal more plausible.
I am sure I speak for many members of the Rural Health
Care Caucus when I say, ``Thank you.''
Mr. President, Bob Dole's commitment to quality health
care extends to senior citizens as well. Last year, when
Medicare was projected to be bankrupt in 2002, it was our
leader who fought to preserve the program well into the
next century. His plan provided thoughtful solutions to
complex problems while still maintaining spending
increases for every senior citizen. Unfortunately, the
President rejected the proposal, not because it did not do
enough, but because it was politically expedient thing to
do.
Despite the administration's refusal to save Medicare
from insolvency, Bob Dole continues to work on behalf of
the elderly. Just 1 month ago, before he announced his
intention to leave the Senate, he steered passage of an
amendment to the Health Insurance Reform Act. The measure
helps alleviate the burden of long-term care costs, which
is becoming all the more important as nursing home
expenses rise.
Mr. President, these are a few of the many
accomplishments of Bob Dole. Unfortunately, time does not
permit me to list them all. But the purpose of reciting
his achievements is not to boast about our longest serving
Republican leader. Rather, it is to provide insight into
the man who represents the State of Kansas.
He has served his State and his country well. He is one
of the most effective and wise legislators of our time.
Great legislators should be measured by their actions,
not by their words. Bob Dole's actions on health care
clearly state where his priorities are. So my friend, Bob
Dole, good luck. It has been a pleasure serving with you
and I know you will continue to serve our country in the
future.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I wish to comment briefly
today upon Bob Dole's record in an area where I have
devoted a considerable amount of time, namely the
environment. Under Bob Dole's leadership, we have been
able to continue the proud tradition, the Republican
tradition, of protecting our environment. That is a
tradition that dates back to Teddy Roosevelt. It is
interesting to note that Bob Dole came to the Senate in
1969. Shortly thereafter the modern era of environmental
law began to take shape.
In 1970, he supported President Nixon's creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency, and he has supported
every major environmental law since he arrived in the
Senate; all of which have come about in the past 25 years.
What are some of these laws? The National Environmental
Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the
Safe Drinking Water Act, the Endangered Species Act,
Superfund, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to
control hazardous waste, and on the list goes.
Mr. President, those bipartisan efforts have brought
about an extraordinary, tangible change in our Nation. The
successful protection of the environment has been called
the greatest social achievement of the United States of
the past quarter century. Let us consider briefly the
successes we have had under the laws that were enacted
with the help and support of Bob Dole.
In the 15 years 1975 to 1990, automobile miles traveled
in the United States increased by 70 percent. They went to
2.2 trillion vehicle miles per year in those 5 years--
increased by 70 percent. But in the same period,
hydrocarbon emissions were cut in half. Lead in the air,
for example, has a terrible effect on the mental
development of children, especially in congested inner
cities. Because in the mid-1970's we mandated the use of
unleaded gasoline, lead in the air has declined by 98
percent. That is an extraordinary achievement.
EPA has just completed a study showing that the positive
effects of air pollution controls have been enormous. The
study found that, in 1990, Americans received roughly $20
of value in reduced risks of death and illness and other
adverse effects, $20 of value for every $1 of expenditure
spent on air pollution control.
What about clean water? In 1970, only one-third of the
lakes, rivers and streams in the United States of America
were considered fishable and swimmable. Now, not one-third
but two-thirds of the lakes, rivers and streams in America
are considered fishable and swimmable, and the percentage
continues to rise every year.
Since its enactment in 1973 by a vote of 99 to nothing,
the Endangered Species Act has achieved remarkable
results. Populations of whooping cranes, brown pelicans,
peregrine falcons and many other formerly endangered
species have come back from near extinction. So there is a
lot of good news out there, and much of that success is
due to Bob Dole's leadership in this Senate.
Senator Dole recognized early on the importance of
dealing with the threats to our global environment. Under
his leadership, the Senate approved, in 1987, the Montreal
protocol, dealing with substances that deplete the ozone
layer. Then that was followed by the 1990 London
amendments to eliminate the production and use of
chlorofluorocarbons, CFC's, and other chemicals that
destroy our protective ozone layer.
Last year, Bob Dole cosponsored a bill that was
developed by the Committee on Environment to amend the
Safe Drinking Water Act. The result was approval by the
Senate in a recorded vote of 99 to nothing, and that is a
tribute to Bob Dole's leadership.
He was a key architect of this year's farm bill which
demonstrated his interest and commitment to protecting the
environment. The 1996 farm bill produced one of the most
significant conservation packages ever enacted into law,
and Bob Dole was a key player in every step of that farm
bill.
Bob was a champion of the free-market approach to
controlling acid rain in the 1990 Clean Air Act
amendments, and that free-market approach is working.
With his support, we are exploring similar approaches to
protecting wetlands through mitigation banking and to
create incentives for private landowners to protect
endangered species--use the free-market approach.
Eighty-six years ago, the first of the great
environmental Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, said the
following:
Of all the questions which can come before this Nation,
short of the actual preservation of its existence in a
great war, there is none which compares in importance with
the central task of leaving this land even a better land
for our descendants than it is for us.
We have seen from his work in the Senate that those are
sentiments that Bob Dole heartily agrees with.
On a personal note, may I say it has been a joyful
experience for me to have been associated with Bob Dole
for the past 20 years here in the Senate.
May success and happiness be in his future, and we wish
him Godspeed.
Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, by his skill and courage, Bob
Dole has earned a place in history, alongside the modern
giants like Lyndon Johnson and Bob Taft, as one of the
greatest leaders in the history of the Senate.
I think it is fair to say that of all the people who I
have worked with in my service in the House and the
Senate, Bob Dole is the greatest legislator, and I am very
proud to have served with Bob Dole in a period which
inevitably will be called in the history books the ``Dole
era.''
Bob Dole has my strong support and my deep affection as
he leaves the Senate he loves to fight for the leadership
of a nation that he loves even more. I think for many of
us here today, this is a sad moment. Bob Dole has been the
leader of the Republicans in the Senate every day that I
have served in the Senate. My first vote that I cast 12
years ago when I came to the Senate was a vote to make Bob
Dole the majority leader.
I have known him as an ally and an adversary. I think I
can say I know Bob Dole pretty well. I know that he is a
good and great man. I know that as Americans get to know
him in the coming months that they are going to conclude
that he has the leadership and the convictions that we
need to change America.
So as he leaves us in the Senate, I am delighted that he
is leaving us to seek higher service, and I am confident
that he is going to get an opportunity to provide that
service. I am very proud to join his colleagues today in
paying tribute to him, the greatest legislator of his era,
as he serves his last day in the Senate.
Ms. SNOWE. I rise today to join my colleagues in
honoring the preeminent Republican leader in the history
of the U.S. Senate, Senator Bob Dole. Throughout his
distinguished career, Senator Dole has served the people
of Kansas, as well as this Nation, with honor,
distinction, and integrity.
We gather on this bittersweet occasion to pay tribute to
a remarkable man for his lifelong commitment to America,
as well as his unparalleled leadership in this august
institution. As President Reagan said so eloquently in
describing Senator Dole as a leader, ``It's not just a job
description, it's a description of the man.''
His leadership has touched virtually every aspect of
public policy, but I would like to speak specifically on a
topic that has been of paramount importance to me
throughout my career--an area where Senator Dole has been
a champion, an area where he has made a difference, and
that is on behalf of America's women.
Mr. President, Senator Dole's commitment to ensuring
fairness and opportunity for America's women is not a
newfound phenomenon. In fact, it has always been an
integral part of who Bob Dole is. Throughout his career,
Senator Dole has fought to make America what Susan B.
Anthony called the ``true Republic: men, their rights and
nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.''
In his personal and professional life, Bob Dole has been
guided by a singular belief that every individual--
regardless of gender--has the right to fulfill his or her
God-given potential.
Bob Dole has always known that we cannot have a truly
representative democracy unless women are represented at
every level of government and society. Not content just to
rely on words, he has taken action.
As chairman of the Republican Party, over two decades
ago, he appointed the first woman in the history of the
party as deputy chair. As Senate majority leader, he
appointed the first woman as Secretary of the Senate. And
he was the first Senate leader in history, Republican or
Democrat, to select a woman, whom we all have known, the
extraordinarily capable and talented Sheila Burke, as his
chief of staff.
It is not just women on the Hill who have benefited from
Senator Dole's efforts. The lives of women in small towns,
big cities, and everywhere in between in America have been
improved as a result of Senator Dole's leadership.
From his Retirement Equity Act of 1983, which protected
women from an arbitrary pension system that left them
without a pension after their husbands died before
retirement age, to his Sexual Assault Prevention Act,
which finally expanded the rights of women after years of
taking a back seat to criminals in our justice system, Bob
Dole was at the forefront of the fight to guarantee
economic opportunity and personal safety.
Bob Dole recognized that 2.5 million women are battered
annually, the single greatest cause of injury to American
women, and he saw that as being unconscionable. It was
under his leadership that the Violence Against Women Act
was fully funded for the first time ever.
But his leadership did not end there. Senator Dole also
recognized that the highest echelons of corporate America
did not reflect the true landscape of this Nation. Where
others did not or would not, Bob Dole saw barriers which
are rarely penetrated by women, and he believed those
lines were made for crossing. As Senator Dole himself has
said, ``The issues boil down to equal access and equal
opportunity.'' Bob Dole knows there is something wrong
when women are not represented in the upper levels of
management in corporate America, and that is why he
authored the Glass Ceiling Commission, the first ever
Federal commission that created the most comprehensive
report on how business could make full use of our Nation's
human capital.
Senator Dole's commitment to women goes beyond the
workplace. Under his leadership, the Senate passed
legislation to provide Medicare coverage of a drug that
was proven effective in the fight against breast cancer.
He created a tax credit for expenses associated with the
long-term care of elderly spouses who are sick or family
members, especially important for women because they
represent 78 percent of our Nation's primary caregivers.
For those who found themselves in need of a helping
hand, Bob Dole has been the driving force behind
meaningful, compassionate welfare reform, to transfer
welfare into workfare and move people from the welfare
rolls to the payrolls. He made sure it was not done on the
backs of children by ensuring that we inserted $3 billion
in additional child care funding, and this bill passed the
Senate with 87 votes.
In another commitment to women and families, he joined
with me in providing for tough child support enforcement
provisions to send a message to deadbeat parents that the
days of parental irresponsibility are over.
The bottom line is, Mr. President, the record goes on
and on. The record shows that when it comes to America's
women, you can count on Bob Dole.
Finally, on a personal level, I would like to express my
deepest appreciation for Senator Dole's friendship and
wise counsel over the years, not only here in the U.S.
Senate but throughout my years in the House of
Representatives. As he takes leave of this institution he
loves so much, he and Elizabeth take with them our
profound respect, our great admiration, our heartfelt
friendship, our deep gratitude and our prayers for
Godspeed as he and Elizabeth embark on an exciting and
historic new chapter in their lives.
I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said when the
tide had turned in favor of the allies. He said this:
This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the
end. But it is, rather, the end of the beginning.
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it is my great pleasure to
comment about my friend Bob Dole. We have heard all of the
facts and the extraordinary history of the man's life and
his life in the Senate, and it indeed is extraordinary. We
all have known that. He is the very best--the very, very
best.
I will be saying much about this man in the next months,
for this is a leader, a real leader, not just in the title
he held but way down inside, and that is a gift. That is
the ability to lead, to engender trust and loyalty and the
admiration--even grudging sometimes--of your toughest
adversaries, and he has had that and it will serve him
well.
One of the great and singular honors in my life was to
serve as his assistant for 10 years. I was his first
lieutenant. He was the captain. We had a pretty good
platoon, a good company, too, and a good battalion. It was
one wonderful run. I must say that some joy of it was
lost, was sometimes when we took our work too seriously--
but we never took ourselves too seriously. When you have a
couple of gentlemen with a rather spirited sense of humor,
it does spark up and brighten the day. I love those types.
I learned much from this man. I learned not to judge, to
try to make things work, to have ultimate patience. That
is what I really have not learned yet. It is out there
though. He gave me some good tips. In those times, I found
this man to be true, honest, and so natural, a very
remarkable gentleman. By taking leave from here in this
honorable way, the American people will come to see him as
we do, as I do--fair, strong, firm, a man of great
resolve.
With this extraordinary woman Elizabeth at his side,
Elizabeth Hanford Dole, they will surely captivate and
unite this country in their quest, for she is a person of
great personal faith and an inspiration to many of us. And
his daughter Robin too, what a fine woman, making a fine
impression all over America, as she is deeply involved in
the campaign activities. Those are the things we will see
the Bob Dole family doing in these months to come.
A legislator, a listener, a loyalist. No one served
President George Bush with more loyalty than Bob Dole. He
was always supporting the man who defeated him, supporting
him to the hilt. That is class.
I have no sadness. No, I am excited to know that this
man will be out there in America, and that the people of
America will see what we here have always seen in this
man, a man of deep, personal conviction, a man of deep
moral fortitude, guts, always telling the truth, and the
strong leadership--a man who can make a decision and stick
with it. Bold and courageous are other examples of his
leadership--purposeful, direct, and decisive.
So here we go. He will seek this job in the same way he
has sought everything in his life, with that great energy,
from that spirit. He has great capability, so very
competent, and we will all see this man as a deeply
sensitive man, a decent--very decent--and caring man. I
think America is longing for that.
I wish him well, with this magnificent woman of charm
and grace at his side. God bless them both for, indeed--he
is all the man there is.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today the Senate loses its
leader, but our Nation and its people gain a leader. What
this country needs at this time is to see a good example
coming from its political leaders. What this country needs
is moral leadership. It is truly lacking, of course, in
the current White House. I have been speaking out on this
subject of lack of moral leadership, with several specific
examples of that failed leadership by the President and
First Lady, since March 19.
It is not enough to call Bob Dole a friend, a steady
presence in the Senate, an ally. It is more important to
know his qualities. These qualities are what make Bob Dole
a leader. Above all else, Bob Dole has earned respect. You
gain respect, Mr. President, by first showing respect for
others. He has done so. He has shown respect for his
fellow Kansans, for working men and women of America, for
America's farmers, for the small business entrepreneur, to
his colleagues, for his party, but, most of all, respect
for America.
When you get Bob Dole, you get someone who will do what
he says he will do. That means you get a man of integrity.
You get a person of accountability. He does not point the
finger. The buck stops with Bob Dole. He takes
responsibility for his actions. That is important, Mr.
President, because this is what America needs and needs
right now. At a time when public cynicism is riding a
crest, fueled by the actions from current leaders in the
White House, we need Bob Dole's tie of leadership, because
historically, the best leaders are those who have
integrity, who demonstrate fairness, and who have
compassion.
If I have learned nothing else about Bob Dole in my 16
years serving with him in the U.S. Senate, it is that he
is a person of integrity, a person who treats people
fairly, and a person who has and demonstrates compassion.
One of the best experiences I have had with Bob Dole was
campaigning with him in my State of Iowa. The first time
was in 1988. The next time was this year. Whenever I
introduced Bob Dole to the people of Iowa, I introduced
him as one of us. Iowans knew right away exactly what I
meant. It meant that Bob Dole has the same roots as we
have--Midwestern, small town, rural, traditional values.
He never forgot where he came from and how he got there.
That is the mark of a humble public servant. That is what
our country so desperately needs today.
Yes, I will miss Bob Dole as a friend and a political
ally. I will miss him more as a leader. I take comfort in
the fact that in losing a leader, the country is gaining
one. For that, I can only be truly grateful.
I say to citizen Dole, your new journey of a thousand
miles begins with this first step that you are taking
today of leaving the Senate, saying goodbye to the
people's branch of Government, and going out among the
people themselves. I wish you, Bob Dole, great success as
our future leader.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, while I was presiding, I
listened to the accolades and the very warm remarks that
have been aimed toward our leader, Bob Dole, and so richly
deserved by Senator Dole. I could think of only two
characteristics that have not been brought up yet. They
came from two experiences that I had.
One was back when I was a very fresh, new, freshman
Senator. I happened to have been supporting Phil Gramm for
President of the United States, who was a primary opponent
of Bob Dole's, only to find that he and I had a trip to
take together from Washington out to Independence, KS,
since we had been active in getting a very significant
product liability bill passed that put America back into
making airplanes again. I got to thinking of traveling all
the way with a guy when I was actually opposing him. I was
very uncomfortable about it. I can tell you during the
entire trip, you would have thought I was his, Bob Dole's,
chairman. I have never seen a person so absolute in his
forgiveness and understanding.
Second, a couple of years ago I can remember when Bob
Dole was coming in to do a fundraiser for me at 7:30 in
the morning in Tulsa, OK. By coincidence, it happened to
be the morning after the night they considered President
Clinton's soft-on-crime bill. Bob Dole was really wrapped
up in that. That was one of the disappointments he had. He
lost it by one vote.
He got on a plane, it had to be sometime after midnight,
came all the way to Oklahoma in a driving rainstorm, and
was there at 7:30 in the morning. His staff was exhausted.
He looked like he was just showing up for his first prom.
I have never seen a guy with energy like he has. The two
characteristics, boundless energy and compassionate
forgiveness, are two characteristics that will serve
America in a grander way. What a guy.
Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, nothing I can say here today
can add to the richness or the depth of the picture that
has already been presented over the course of the last 2
weeks or so by other Members of this body and by those
outside of this body with respect to our candidate for
President and our retiring majority leader, Senator Bob
Dole. All I can do is to take that photograph from a very
slightly different angle and, I hope, make it at least a
slightly deeper photograph of a great man.
This is important, however, because the Bob Dole we, who
have worked with him for a year or for a decade, know is
not the Bob Dole as he has been pictured to our fellow
citizens all across the United States. It is exactly for
that reason, of course, that he is leaving us and his
magnificent and, I believe, rewarding career in this body
to share his real character, his real personality with all
of the people of the United States in his quest for the
Presidency.
Bob Dole is, I think, first of all, a man of
extraordinary patience--perhaps the single most
significant requirement for a leader of a body of 99 other
Members, all of whom most of the time feel that they are
in possession of absolute truth or the precise way in
which the Senate should conduct its business.
Bob Dole seems never to have lost a sunny equanimity,
even under the most difficult circumstances. His wit seems
never to have deserted him. His willingness to listen to
advice and counsel--almost always unsolicited--seems to
have been infinite, and at the same time that he has been
willing to listen and been willing to consider the views
from disparate sectors, he has been possessed by a deep
dedication to principle, to direction, and to love of
country.
On the one hand, people in politics are criticized for
being too rigid and not understanding and, on the other
hand, for being too compromising. Bob Dole is neither. He
has that rare combination of a dedication to principle and
a willingness to listen and to accommodate the principles
and ideas of others, which has made him a great success,
has caused him to be the longest-serving leader of this
party in the history of the U.S. Senate.
And so because of those winning traits of personality
and those deeper traits of character and principle, each
of us who remain here in the Senate will be slightly the
lesser by reason of his leaving. He, on the other hand,
will be the better for it--for this surprising and
principled decision, for his willingness to present
himself to the American people without the protection of
any office on which to fall back.
I believe, Mr. President--and I believe firmly--that
this open risk-taking, courageous Bob Dole, whom we have
known for as long as each of us has been in the Senate,
and whom his friends, neighbors, and family have known
from his youth, will become increasingly known by,
respected by, and loved by the people of the United States
as he presents these traits of character and personality
to them during the balance of this campaign.
So we wish him bon voyage, the best of good luck, and we
wish to the American people a new President with all of
these wonderful characteristics for leadership and for
making our country a better and stronger place in which to
live.
Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, when Abraham Lincoln walked
onto the battlefield at Gettysburg to commemorate what had
been done there, he succinctly encapsulated the
understanding that deeds far surpass words in terms of
value. He said, ``The world will little note nor long
remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
they did here.''
We are not talking this morning just to be talking, to
be saying things, but it is a way of helping people
understand what Bob Dole has done, who he has been, the
depth of his care, and the breadth of his knowledge of how
we need to proceed in America. It has been properly said
that the world does not care how much you know until they
know how much you care. And because Bob Dole has not been
a person to sound his own trumpet, to tell people about
himself, I think people have mistaken him. They have not
understood how much he cared, because Bob Dole has been a
person who has answered the call every time the call has
come. He has not only answered the call, he has answered
the call with everything--everything--at his disposal, the
entirety of his existence.
In 1945, Bob Dole nearly gave up his life--and there
would have been those who said it was gone--to the call of
duty. And, today, he relinquishes the power and
prerogatives of policy development in the Senate because
he, similarly, will pursue a call from his country, a call
that we are pleased that he hears, a call to shape the
tomorrows in which we live, a call to reestablish the
fundamental values of American greatness, to align himself
with the virtues of the American people, rather than the
vices of a system that has really guided us down the wrong
path.
In 1945, Lt. Bob Dole volunteered to lead his company to
take out a German machinegun nest. He scrambled out of a
shell hole in order to rescue a fallen comrade. The
Germans sighted Dole and blew apart the right side of his
back. Few people would have had the courage to live as he
has lived. He willed himself to recovery, with God's help,
and with the help of his neighbors. He willed himself to
law school, and he willed himself to run for office.
Many of the medical experts at the time had given up on
Bob Dole. A doctor from Chicago decided to try some things
that were virtually experimental and gave his services.
The people of Russell, KS, donated their nickels, dimes,
quarters, and dollars in the cigar box at the pharmacy
down on the corner to cover the expenses.
Bob Dole made a commitment that he would be an
individual of service. We need that kind of determination.
We need that kind of grit. We need individuals who have
looked the very most serious of all circumstances in the
face and have said, ``With God's help, we can overcome, we
can prevail.'' And that is Bob Dole.
Well, America needed Bob Dole when, in 1945, he was
willing to give himself totally. They needed him when he
went to the U.S. House of Representatives, they needed him
when he became a Senator, and it needs him today.
All of us know the statistics. A child born today will
end up paying $187,000 in interest on the national debt if
we do not do something about it. Bob Dole has devoted
himself not just to a balanced budget--sure, he sent two
balanced budgets to the President this year--but to the
structure of a balanced budget; that is a balanced budget
amendment to the Constitution.
Bob Dole knows that American families spent about 3
percent of their income on taxes in the 1950's, and now we
spend almost 40 percent. He understands that Americans
have an ability to spend on themselves and to do for
themselves, if Government will stand aside. He understands
that, for a long time, Washington has acted as if
Government were the answer--faith in Government,
governmentalism. He knows that is not the solution, that
Washington's one-size-fits-all solution is not the way to
solve this Nation's problems. He knows that when we placed
that faith in Government, instead of ourselves, we injured
ourselves.
Bob Dole really is going to go to the American people
and say: You have the quality, the character, and the
capacity to do those things that are necessary to shape
the next century constructively. I am delighted that he
has so much commitment to this responsibility that he
would say, ``I walk away from the U.S. Senate in order to
offer myself to the American people.''
When the American people learn about Bob Dole and get to
know him the way we in the Senate know him, they will ask
and demand that he be President of the United States. It
will be a pleasure, as a Member of the U.S. Senate, to
remember his outstanding service to the people, not just
in the military, in the House and the Senate, but as the
leader of this Republic. I am grateful for the opportunity
to make these remarks regarding our majority leader.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, fellow Senators, I think
what I will do is start with wit. I think everybody
remembers Bob Dole for a lot of things. I am going to
mention five or six that make him my great friend. But I
want to hearken back to a budget debate in 1990 that was a
brief moment when we were going to have a shutdown even
back then for a very short period of time. And the
tourists in the community were all kind of in turmoil
because of various things that were going to be closed.
And Senator Dole said the following: ``If you are hanging
around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over
to the Senate. You will get the same kind of feeling, and
you will not have to pay for it.''
Mr. President, nobody should think that a statement like
that in any way denigrates this great man.
I am really at a loss to say goodbye to him. But I am
quite convinced that he is leaving as a legend. He leaves
a legacy of leadership second to none in the entire
history of the U.S. Senate. He leaves a legacy of laws and
concerns that are so broad and so deep that I am doubtful
whether his story ends in looking over the entire panorama
of Senators from the beginning. I am very doubtful that
they will find a Senator with such a legacy.
Let me start with senior citizens. In 1983, Social
Security was going bankrupt. Who took the lead in the
Senate to make it solvent for 30 to 40 years? Senator Bob
Dole. When it comes to the young people of America, some
people choose to talk about programs. I choose to say Bob
Dole's deep and abiding concern for our young people is
epitomized by his constant fight to live within our means
so that we do not have to have our children and
grandchildren pay our bills. Everything, from seniors to
children and everything in between, has received the
attention of this great man.
In fact, I will find it difficult. I think my feet will
find me walking down that hall and my feet will find me
going into that office because I have done that so many
times when we needed leadership.
The legacy of leadership that he leaves will be sorely
missed, and only history will indicate its true depth.
Besides having wit, without which it is tough to run the
Senate, he had courage. Can anyone forget the night when
we wheeled Pete Wilson in? He had an appendectomy. We
brought him in here from the hospital bed so we could get
the vote, and so that Vice President Bush voting from the
Chair could assure us of what would have been a balanced
budget long before today that failed not because of Bob
Dole's leadership but because of something else.
So anybody following him better know that they better be
honest; they better tell the Senate the truth for he knew
no other way.
As he leaves, there is a bit of sorrow and even sadness,
at least in my heart. But in a very real sense I am very,
very happy because I think the American people now have a
chance to meet, to know, and to understand the Bob Dole
that we know. If they get that chance, he will be the next
President. He will be the next President of this great
land where the same leadership that he gave to us will be
there for everyone.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I join my many colleagues in
expressing my congratulations to Senator Dole for a
historic career in the Congress of the United States,
which ended with his resignation today, and I also express
my regrets that we will no longer have Robert J. Dole as
our majority leader and as our Republican leader.
I speak for both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which
I represent, and in a sense, also for Russell, KS, because
Senator Dole and I both grew up in Russell, KS. I moved to
Russell from Wichita when I was 12 years old, so I have
known Senator Dole for a good many years. My father, Harry
Specter, was a friend of his father, Doran Dole. My dad
was in the junk business, and the only scale big enough at
the time to weigh the junk yard truck was the Dole scale
and elevator run by Bob Dole's father. Our brothers, Kenny
Dole and Morton Specter, both passed away at the same
time, approximately 3 years ago.
Senator Dole's story is a story like Horatio Alger,
except that Bob Dole's story, compared to Horatio Alger,
looks like Horatio Alger was born with a silver spoon in
his mouth. Both the Doles and the Specters, figuratively,
lived on the wrong side of the tracks. It is a true story
that the Dole family, during the depression, moved out of
the first floor of their home to live in the basement to
help defray expenses at a very tough time when Kansas was
a dust bowl. Bob Dole grew up and worked at Dawson Drugs
at the soda fountain. There is sort of a legendary and
famous story about how he would flip the ice cream and
catch it behind his back. I recounted that story not long
ago on a campaign appearance for the Presidency in
Delaware County. Bob added that sometimes when the ice
cream fell to the floor, it became a chocolate shake. He
went to college--a tough thing to do in the early 1940's.
Russell High School had the State debating championship,
but Bob Dole chose not to be a debater. He was a renowned
high school athlete.
And then we all know of his heroics during World War II,
and of his injuries and how he laid his life on the line.
He did not suffer loss of life but did suffer loss of
limb, and came back with a phenomenal rehabilitation. So
he has a real understanding of what it is like to pull
yourself up by your bootstraps when you have neither
bootstraps nor arms to pull yourself up by; and has a real
feeling for the disabled; and a real understanding of the
need for medical care; and a real understanding of what it
is like to be an underdog. That historic, monumental
rehabilitation has been recounted on many occasions.
Then he became a State legislator while going to law
school. He came back and was county attorney, in Russell,
KS. He told the story today about how his parents had been
Democrats and how he became a Republican, checking the
local registrations. I originally heard the story in
Russell, about how he was courted by both parties to
become their nominee for county attorney and then checked
the registration in Russell County and found it was 2 to 1
Republican. And as Senator Dole has said previously, as a
matter of conscience he instantly became a Republican. And
then so much of the rest is history: Elected to the House
of Representatives in 1960 serving four terms, and then to
the U.S. Senate in 1969.
I have had the privilege of serving with him in this
body for the last 15\1/2\ years. I watched him, as the
chairman of the Finance Committee, and he did a really
extraordinary job in that capacity. It was in that
capacity that I think Senator Dole earned the confidence
of his colleagues for the leadership position that he
sought in 1984.
I recall the 1982 tax bill, when Senator Baker, then the
majority leader, stood at the leadership position, and at
11:45 p.m. on that complex bill said that there were 63
amendments pending, amendments like mushrooms grew
overnight, and that we were going to plow ahead. Standing
beside him was Senator Dole, the chairman of the Finance
Committee. Senator Baker said Senator Dole thought we
ought to persevere. We worked through the night, as it was
Senator Baker's custom to do on occasion. There were,
perhaps, half a dozen rollcall votes, many more voice
votes, many amendments dropped. At 6:30 a.m. we walked out
of the Chamber having finished an extraordinary bill,
which showed Bob Dole's leadership.
Then we had the extraordinary election for majority
leader in 1984, contested by Senator Ted Stevens and
Senator Pete Domenici and Senator Dick Lugar and Senator
Jim McClure. We had to have a series of ballots. First one
dropped and then the next and then the next. And finally--
and I happened to be sitting next to Senator Dole on the
left-hand side of the Chamber in the rear of the whole
Senate when Senator Dole won by a narrow margin of 28 to
25; two votes changed and Senator Dole went on to be the
leader. I was in the photo in the scene when Senator Dole
shook hands.
He was an extraordinary leader in many, many ways.
Always a conciliator, always with a velvet touch. Some of
us were not too easy to lead, in terms of the votes. But
never a demand, never a ruffled feeling, never a sense of
pressure or, certainly, not undue pressure.
I recall legislation changing the Grove City decision by
the Supreme Court of the United States, as illustrative of
what Senator Dole would do. Senator Packwood and Senator
Hatch were on opposite ends of the issue. Suddenly Senator
Dole came up with compromise language. In unison, Bob
Packwood and Orrin Hatch said, ``But that is
unsatisfactory because it will leave the issue open to
controversy as to what it means.'' Senator Dole smiled and
said, ``That's the perfect solution.'' It wasn't quite
that language, but Senator Dole got it worked out.
Today's speech by Senator Dole, I think, was historic. I
hope he can continue to speak with the same easygoing
manner, the same light touch, the same sense of substance,
and at the same time, the same sense of humor. Because I
think if Senator Dole does that, he will really establish
a rapport with the American people for his next challenge.
In a sense, Senator Dole's farewell address to the
Senate has significant similarity to George Washington's
farewell address. It was a different time, a different
tempo, different tenor, but I think it was a historic
farewell address. This Chamber was filled with respect and
admiration, and, really, love.
I do not know, if on prior Senate occasions, there has
been a recording of the time sequence for the length of
applause, but that event speaks for itself as Senator Dole
moved from one part of the Chamber to the other,
surrounded by his colleagues, both Democrats and
Republicans; many of the colleagues expressing themselves
on more than one occasion.
Then a few of us who were privileged to be his fellow
Republicans in the Republican caucus had an opportunity to
hear Senator Dole's last speech in the Mansfield Room. The
balcony, now named for Senator Dole, as we have paid
tribute to a few of our colleagues by memorializing their
presence, became that accolade.
Then, at 3 or a little after 3, a number of us were
waiting outside in the boiling Sun to watch him walk down
the Senate steps for the last time, at least the last time
on the day of his resignation. The steps were filled with
well-wishers, staff, and citizens from all walks of life.
He came down and it was a symbolic transition from the
U.S. Senate, where he had achieved such heights, walking
out as citizen Dole, to see the people of America.
When he finished saying goodbye to his colleagues on the
steps, he moved across the yard to greet Americans who
were waiting to see him, smell him, touch him. From there
he moved over to the large crowd that was assembled
between the two chambers. I think it was a very, very
significant and a symbolic move, as he has left the U.S.
Senate in his quest for the Presidency of the United
States.
It was obviously not an easy decision for Robert J. Dole
to make, to leave the embellishments and accouterments of
office, as majority leader, one of the loftiest positions
in the Government of the United States or in the world.
But he did so in his quest for what he saw as a higher
calling.
In the contemporaneous time period with his departure,
he addressed one of the toughest issues in America, the
issue of abortion, which has been the most divisive issue
facing America since the Civil War, with his
characteristic and traditional Solomon-like judgment. It
is a political issue, but worthy of a moment or two,
leaving the Republican platform intact to accommodate one
segment of the party and offering the olive branch, the
spirit of tolerance and the big tent to another segment of
the party. Almost, in a sense, squaring the circle and
accommodating almost seemingly irreconcilable differences.
But that has been the life of Senator Dole. That has been
his tradition as a young man growing up on the plains of
Kansas where he learned, really, fundamental American
values--accountability, integrity, honor, and trust,
serving his Nation so well in war and serving his Nation
so well in peace.
Seeing him go is a tough thing for all of us who have
known him, in many ways over the years. We wish him the
very best as he continues in his quest to serve America.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today we pay tribute to a man
who has served his country ably and well for well over 50
years, and who will be remembered for his leadership of an
institution that is not easily led.
From his humble beginnings in the town of Russell, KS,
Bob Dole has taken seriously, and has exercised
responsibly, his call to serve. While those of us who have
served with him in this institution are disappointed to
see him go, and will miss him, he has greater challenges
and rewards ahead. I believe Bob Dole will go on to engage
this Nation in a critical debate over the next few months
about where America is headed as we approach the turn of
the century. The United States, and the office of the
Presidency, need Bob Dole's leadership desperately. The
words ``noble'' and ``man of integrity'' are not often
used to describe the current occupant of the White House.
Yet they are words that come to mind immediately to
describe Bob Dole.
Bob Dole did not shirk his responsibility to fight for
his country during World War II. He accepted it, fought
bravely in Italy, and nearly paid the ultimate price--his
life, for his country. Bob Dole is now willing to
sacrifice his political career in order to meet the
challenge of defeating Bill Clinton, restoring fiscal
sanity to American Government, and restoring honor to the
office of the Presidency.
Bob Dole has been well prepared through 27 years of
Senate service to assume the Presidency. He has led
Republicans through long years in the minority, and has
more recently led us to some significant accomplishments
in our effort to roll back Government and ever-increasing
Government spending.
Bob Dole's skills are not well known to most Americans,
because many Americans are unfamiliar with what it takes
to make this side of Congress work. The Founding Fathers
set up the U.S. Senate as an institution to protect the
rights of the minority. This is a place where, in fact, a
Senator adhering to minority viewpoint has much greater
power in many ways than a Senator whose view reflects the
will of the majority party. One Senator can hold up
landmark legislation simply by taking to the floor and
refusing to relinquish it. A significant minority, 41
Senators of 100, can thwart the will of the majority party
simply by refusing to cut off debate.
Bob Dole understands these challenges. As minority
leader for many of the 9 years I have been in the Senate,
he used the rules effectively to protect the rights of a
significant minority. This was referred to in the media as
gridlock, but it is really the way the institution was
designed, to protect the Nation from the passions of the
moment and to provide for reasoned, reflective debate.
Since assuming the role of majority leader, he has
managed to overcome challenges raised by the Democratic
minority, and hold his troops together to pass significant
legislation. Under his watch, the Senate has passed and
sent to the President the first balanced budget in a
generation, meaningful welfare reform, the Congressional
Accountability Act, legislation preventing unfunded
mandates on State and local entities, and regulatory
relief. The President has vetoed the two most significant
of these initiatives: namely a balanced budget and welfare
reform.
The speeches we give today in honor of Bob Dole sound a
lot like eulogies, but they are in reality reminiscences
of a stage in Bob Dole's life. He will go on to do even
greater things. He will continue his long and
distinguished career of service to country by holding its
highest office, and will restore to that office the
respect and honor of the American people.
Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Mr. President, as we all know, Bob Dole
will resign from the Senate to run for the Presidency
today.
It was a courageous decision--but also a sad one for the
Senate.
I am personally proud of Senator Dole. I think it is the
right decision.
I strongly believe that when the American people are
given the chance to know Senator Dole and his wife
Elizabeth better--the polls will change dramatically--and
he will be elected President.
Senator Dole was raised in an era in America when hard
work and strong values were rewarded. This is an era that
we can have once again in America, if Bob Dole is elected
President.
When Senator Dole's country called on him to serve--he
went, and almost gave his life. He didn't flee the country
and protest against it from overseas.
When his family struggled in the depression--they didn't
seek a Government handout--instead they rented their own
home and lived in the basement to get by.
He didn't allow his war injuries to sideline him in a
hospital for the remainder of his life--instead he picked
himself up and rose to one of the highest positions in the
Government and became a candidate for Vice President and
now a candidate for President.
Bob Dole will bring to the Office of President the
values of his upbringing. He will not spend the taxpayers'
money irresponsibly. He will not put this country further
into debt. He will not coddle criminals that threaten our
communities. He will not tolerate drug use in the White
House or tolerate a disrespect for our Armed Forces.
This is the Bob Dole that has been our majority leader.
And, I am confident this is the man that American people
will want to be their President.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I want to echo my
colleagues' gratitude to a remarkable Senator and majority
leader, Bob Dole. Few Members of Congress can boast
similar years of commitment to our country. In fact,
Senator Dole's entire life has been dedicated to public
service; from his brave service in World War II, to his
service in the Kansas State Legislature, the U.S. House,
and for the past 27 years our U.S. Senate. He has devoted
his life to serving the people of Kansas and our country.
I truly admire his agility in handling the people's
business in this body, the U.S. Senate.
It will be difficult to imagine the Senate floor without
Bob Dole. We have always had a cordial and collegial
working relationship. I have admired his wily way of
moving legislation. He often commented on my way with a
quip.
I think it's fair to say that members of both parties
have learned from Bob Dole. His mastery of Senate
procedure, and his skill at moving legislation, are
matched by few in this Chamber.
I thank Senator Dole for his service in the Senate. In
an age when over half of married couples can't stay
dedicated to each other for 10 years, it's remarkable for
someone to stay dedicated to an institution as tempestuous
as the U.S. Senate for 27 years.
With deep admiration and respect for a trusted
colleague, I wish Senator Dole all the best.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, Bob Dole first came to
Congress at a time when the world--and he himself--was
still recovering from the wounds of war, and America,
catapulted into world leadership, was about to enter one
of the most difficult periods in our young history as our
Nation became bitterly divided over the Vietnam conflict.
These events shaped the man who came to Washington to
represent his home State of Kansas back in 1960. And, from
my experience in working with him over the last few years
in the U.S. Senate, it is clear that Bob Dole never forgot
the values those experiences taught him. He has left an
imprint on this body that deserves our recognition and our
thanks.
Having nearly given his life for his country in the
battle for freedom, Bob Dole brought strong convictions
about honor and public service with him to the U.S.
Congress.
And, having seen this Nation spill blood in battling its
own conscience, he understood that--even in the rough and
tumble world of politics--we can not afford to forget the
warnings of our predecessors: United we stand; divided we
fall. Bob Dole's tenure as majority leader reflected these
convictions.
He leaves the Senate having made an indelible mark on
this body with his ability as a leader, his skill as a
statesman, and his commitment to the service of his
country.
I have not always agreed with Bob Dole, but I have never
found his door closed. That, to me, says more about the
man than anything else. In my view, the mark of a true
statesman is his willingness to listen to all sides of an
issue in a search for common ground. But the mark of a
leader is the ability to move people forward in spite of
our differences in search of progress.
Although I have not known Bob Dole for very long--I came
to this body in 1993 and worked with him, first as
minority leader, then as majority leader--I have come to
hold high respect for him, and think of him fondly. These
are very tumultuous times, and his was no easy task.
I have been particularly struck, time and again, by his
willingness to seek solutions by forging agreements--even
in circumstances where he had the votes to win on an issue
and did not need to negotiate.
I remember when the issue of moving the United States
Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem arose last year in
Congress. Senator Dole had all the votes he needed to pass
a resolution supporting the move. And yet, he listened to
those of us who had concerns about the impact the wording
of this resolution would have on what, at the time, was a
very delicate phase of the peace negotiations in the
Middle East.
He did not have to listen. He chose to listen, and he
chose to address our concerns. And we passed better
legislation as a result. That is leadership.
I have been struck by his forthrightness as majority
leader--his word was his commitment, and his commitment
was a matter of honor. These have been difficult times.
But, although he and I did not always end up on the same
side of an issue, I knew Bob Dole cared more about the
integrity of the democratic process than he cared about
short term political gain, and that he respected each and
every Senator's place in that process--because we
represent the America people.
No, we did not always agree. But even on issues where we
disagreed, I always knew where I stood, and I knew I could
trust his word.
Robert Dole will be remembered for his lifetime of
service to the American people, and for helping to shape
the course of our Nation during some of the most pivotal
times.
He deserves our praise and our thanks, and we wish him
and Elizabeth well.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, when Americans came home from
World War Two the time reserved for celebrating their hard
won victory was of necessity brief. Joyous though those
celebrations were, they had to give way quickly to the
hard work of repairing the damage done to families and
communities by the long separations and tragic losses
which war visits on the victors as well as the vanquished.
But Americans, having defeated the Axis Powers, were
upon the moment of that success obliged to assume the new
responsibility of leading the free world's resistance to
the imperial ambitions of our former ally, the Soviet
Union. By so doing, they undertook a mission of immense
proportions and difficulty, but great historic
significance and nobility.
For it was the Americans who fought so valiantly from
Guadalcanal to Normandy who would then devote their lives
to ensuring that the second half of this century not
collapse into the bloody calamities or succumb to the
aggression of freedom's adversaries that made this century
one of the most violent and tragic times in recorded human
history. At both the mid point and the end of the 20th
century, these Americans ranked among the greatest
generations of our countrymen. They are accorded that
distinction for their dedication to their country's cause
and humanity's hope, and for the dimensions of the
victories won by their devotion, selflessness, ingenuity
and courage.
Even in this distinguished company, Bob Dole stands out.
When he returned from war he could not, as many of his
comrades could, immediately pursue the veteran's dream of
building a peaceful and prosperous life. He had to first
rebuild himself. The exemplary courage and determination
he brought to his own recovery is the stuff legends are
made of. And they are also America's good fortune for they
are the same virtues he offered in his subsequent years of
service to the advancement of our country.
In these days when more and more young Americans are
attracted to the mores of the detached and indifferent
cynic, to the affectations of Hollywood anti-heroes, Bob
Dole's life is a rebuke to those corrupting influences on
our popular culture. When I am asked by anxious parents:
where are today's American heroes by whose example I can
instruct my children?; the list of such Americans I can
offer in response is still a long one. But I can identify
no better example than the man to whom we wish good luck
today. Bob Dole is what an American hero is supposed to
be.
His sacrifice in war and his hard road to recovery
earned Bob Dole the peace and quiet to live a life of
personal pursuits, of individual attainment and success.
But he chose instead to chase his country's dreams. And in
America's historical mission to contain and defeat Soviet
imperialism and to wrench from this violent century some
greater hope for humanity's progress in the next. Bob Dole
brought the patriotic optimism of the young soldier off to
war, but he brought also the veteran's appreciation for
the dimension and seriousness of the task before us. He
enlisted again in the war against totalitarians, and again
he is in the front ranks of those who earned the victory.
Bob Dole's Senate leadership was essential to the
efforts of Presidents Reagan and Bush to win the cold war.
He built majority coalitions for the defense build up of
the 1980's, helping to restore the readiness and
modernization of our Armed Forces which had been so badly
neglected in the previous decade.
He has been a consistent and skillful advocate for
ballistic missile defense beginning in 1973 with his
support for the Sam-D, the predecessor to the Patriot
missile, continuing with his support for SDI and ending
most recently with his sponsorship of the Defend America
Act. In his determination to provide Americans with an
affordable and adequate defense from the greatest danger
facing our country, Bob Dole has shown the vision and the
will required to meet the security threats that will
confront policymakers in the 21st century.
Senator Dole organized congressional support for Reagan
Doctrine policies which gave critical assistance to
freedom fighters confronting Soviet aggression from
Nicaragua to Afghanistan. Together with his support for
our defense build up and a strategic defense system,
Senator Dole's commitment to sustaining the front line
resistance to Soviet imperialism hastened the collapse of
the Soviet Union, and made possible the liberation of
millions whose rights had long been denied them as
citizens of captive nations.
As cracks in the Soviet empire became the breech that
brought down the Berlin Wall, Bob Dole hastened the final
dissolution of the Soviet Union by sponsoring the Direct
Aid to the Republics Act which provided direct assistance
and trade relations to the Soviet Republics, bypassing
Moscow, and further weakening the Kremlin's control over
its subject peoples.
In the first crisis of the post-cold-war world, Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait, Bob Dole cautioned President Bush to
seek congressional authority for Operation Desert Storm,
and then employed his peerless legislative skills to win
majority support for authorization over a very determined
opposition, sending a message of American unity to Saddam
Hussein.
More recently, Bob Dole's consistent, principled support
for the legitimate Government of Bosnia and the strong
Senate majority he built for his position forced our own
Government and our allies to replace their previous
indecision and indifference with the resolve to enable the
Bosnian people to resist aggression, and determine for
themselves their nation's fate.
Mr. President, my time is nearly up, and the brevity of
this tribute his required me to offer only an abbreviated,
very incomplete list of Bob Dole's many important
contributions to the security of the United States.
Suffice it to say, that Bob Dole is a statesman who has
worked tirelessly and effectively to protect other
Americans from having to pay as a high a price for love of
country as he was once asked to pay.
Before I close, Mr. President, I would like to offer a
personal expression of gratitude to my leader.
I have had the honor in my life of being commanded by a
great many brave, resourceful, and decent leaders, but
none more so than our friend, Bob Dole. A long time ago,
in another walk of life, I lived for a period of time
without liberty. I and a great many men whose courage and
honor enabled me to endure that experience wanted nothing
more than to keep faith with our country and for our
country to keep faith with us. When well-intentioned
Members of this institution unwittingly attempted to break
faith with us by denying support for the war necessary to
ensure our eventual liberation, Bob Dole led the
opposition to that effort. For 7 weeks he forcefully
debated a cutoff of funding while so many of America's
sons remained the prisoners of our enemies. All the while
he waged that debate, Bob Dole wore a bracelet that bore
my name. I have never properly thanked him for the great
honor he did me. I wish to do so now. For myself, for my
comrades who came home with me, and for the many thousands
who did not, thank you, Bob, for the honor of your concern
and support for us. We fought in different wars, but we
kept the same faith.
Bob Dole leaves the Senate now, and all of us, Democrat
and Republican alike, know in our hearts we will not soon
see his like again in our ranks. But he leaves only to
continue his service to America from another office. I
take considerable comfort from that. For I know that the
tasks that confront us as we consolidate our cold war
victories and make for our children and our children's
children another, better world than the one in which we
lived most of our lives require the service of an American
who appreciates from his experience and from his heart the
indispensability of American leadership. This is a
daunting responsibility, which is shared by all of us. But
I am reassured that we will not be found wanting in our
assignment by my confidence that Bob Dole will soon be our
leader again and that our Nation will still benefit from
the service of this honorable man.
Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, today Bob Dole will leave
the Senate. I have served with him for nearly 18 years,
during which time, at different times, he has been the
ranking member and chairman of the Finance Committee,
minority leader, and majority leader.
Over the years I have disagreed with him often, but I
have also worked with him on many things, from one of my
first amendments in the Senate on the strategic petroleum
reserve to closing tax loopholes in 1982 to tax reform in
1986 to maternal and child health care issues to GATT
agreements to aid to the Bosnian Moslems and countless
other issues.
Bob Dole is a good man and an extraordinary legislator.
Although he is personally shy, he knows how to build a
political consensus, use power, make things happen. He
keeps his word, which is an essential ingredient in
building trust. He listens well, a trait of the very best
legislators.
Any time you are trying to build a bipartisan majority,
which is more the way it used to be in the Senate than the
way it is now, you have to be able to listen. You have to
understand intuitively where someone's bottom line is. And
when an agreement will not be reached, you cannot view the
other person as flawed, corrupt, and stupid, and expect
that tomorrow they will forget your attitude. I do not
remember Bob Dole ever acting out of a grudge or perhaps
even harboring one. He never burned his bridges.
One afternoon in my office more than a few years ago,
Senator Dole and I visited with a Russian politician named
Boris Yeltsin whose visit I was sponsoring. Yeltsin had
been over an hour late and we were 25 minutes into our
discussion when one of his aides informed him he was an
hour late for a meeting with
Secretary of State Baker, to which Yeltsin responded by
saying, ``Humph, who cares about an appointed minister
when I am meeting with those who are elected by the
people.''
To which Dole responded, ``He's got his priorities
right.''
That was the voice of Bob Dole, the democrat, the man
who has a deep and abiding respect for the will of the
people. Time and time again the people of Kansas gave him
their votes. Although Senator Dole has given his life to
public service, I sense he would be one of the first in
this body to admit that a legislator's accomplishments are
like sand castles built at the edge of the ocean surf--
short-lived and often forgotten.
Therefore, the only thing that any of us as Senators
have is whether those who worked with us gave us their
respect, and those who elected us felt well-served. In
Senator Dole's case, I think the answer to each is yes.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last year I indicated to my
colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, that one of
the real privileges of my being able to serve in the U.S.
Senate was to serve here while he served in the U.S.
Senate. I told Senator Byrd that. I was thinking last
evening that I feel the same way about Senator Dole. It
has been an enormous privilege to serve in the Senate at
the same time that Senator Dole has served in this Senate.
He has demonstrated an enduring commitment to public
service that represents the kind of public service that we
owe a substantial debt for in our country. He is truly the
Cal Ripken of public service in the Senate year after year
after year, doing his job and doing it the way the
American people hope public servants will do their jobs.
I am here today only to say I wish Senator Robert Dole
well. The Senate will miss him. Those of us who have had
the privilege of working with him honor his commitment to
public service.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, from his earliest days on the
sports fields through his military career to his days in
the Senate, Bob Dole's destiny was and is leadership. How
greatly has he enriched the lives of all of us here in the
U.S. Senate. Like my good friend, Senator Bradley, I was
there on the Yeltsin trip. I remember that. I also
remember accompanying Senator Dole to a hilltop in Italy,
near the small village where he was struck down by enemy
fire. But the hand of destiny reached down, the hand of
Providence, and brought him back to serve this great
Nation, to serve the world, and to become a great leader.
He will take his place--modestly, he might not
acknowledge this--but he will take his place with Everett
Dirksen, with whom our distinguished senior colleague, Mr.
Byrd, served; with Howard Baker and with Hugh Scott. In
that row of great Republican leaders, he has earned his
spot.
Commander in Chief, a position to which he aspires, and
a position in the Constitution of the United States he has
fought to preserve on the floor of this Senate from the
first day that he stepped entered this Chamber,
irrespective of who has been in that office. He has been a
staunch defender of the prerogatives of the Commander in
Chief. I was proud to join with him on January 12, 1991,
when we stood together for the Persian Gulf resolution, to
give the Commander in Chief the authority to use force in
the gulf. That was a hard-fought battle, a debate ending
in a vote of 52 to 47.
Most recently, in my own endeavors, he stood beside me.
He did not have to do it. He stood beside one of his
colleagues in the name of friendship and he said, ``It's
not all politics. It's friendship.''
Mr. President, I close by reading a brief quotation that
I carry with me at all times. It relates to Bob Dole.
Thomas Jefferson once said:
I had laid it down as law to myself, to take no notice
of the thousands of insults issued against me but to trust
my character to my own conduct and to the good sense and
candor of my fellow citizens.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I rise to say farewell to my
friend and longstanding colleague, the able Senator from
Kansas, the Senate majority leader, Bob Dole. Bob Dole has
responded to the call of duty throughout all of his adult
life, and we are all the richer for his dedication and his
work. His life and his service have made a difference.
American politics is a rough and tumble occupation, and
we in this Chamber are all too familiar with the savagery,
the criticism, the negativity that have so infected
political life in our day. But there are times when
politics must be put aside, and the honest, heartfelt
contributions that we each and all make as servants of the
people must be acknowledged.
I congratulate the majority leader on his long and
distinguished service in the Senate, and before that in
the House of Representatives, and before that, in the
Kansas Legislature, to which he was elected at the young
age of 26. As one of his fellow Americans, I thank him for
his service and his bravery during World War II.
It has been a privilege and it has been a pleasure to
work with Senator Dole in the leadership positions given
to both of us by our colleagues, first when he was
majority leader and I was minority leader, and then when
our roles were reversed.
Senator Dole and I are the only floor leaders in Senate
history to move from majority leader to minority leader
and then back again to majority leader. I guess it is a
classic case of what comes around goes around; or what
goes around, comes around. Often, I have pondered this
turning of the Senate wheel, a continuing rotation of
individuals of different temperaments and talents, of
opposing beliefs and varied backgrounds.
I have been honored to serve in the Congress of the
United States for almost 44 years. I have witnessed the
comings and I have witnessed the goings of many fine men
and women. Some were extraordinary leaders, like Joe
Martin, of Massachusetts; Sam Rayburn, of Texas; Lyndon
Johnson, of Texas; Everett Dirksen, of Illinois; Hugh
Scott, of Pennsylvania; and Howard Baker, of Tennessee;
and Mike Mansfield, of Montana; who served as Senate
majority leader for 16 years. Many made outstanding
contributions to their country and were considered
irreplaceable in their time. And yet our brief appearance
upon the Senate stage is only temporary. It is applauded,
remarked upon and then forgotten, washed away like
footprints in the sand by the next turn of the wheel and
the next wave of events.
But through it all, the Senate endures and goes on like
Tennyson's brook--forever. It is far, far greater than the
sum of its 100 parts.
Senator Dole, in his four terms in the House and five in
the Senate, has been a serious and successful legislator.
He was the 1,645th person to have taken the oath of U.S.
Senator. He has served as leader of his party in the
Senate longer than any other Republican--10 years, 11
months and 20 days, today. Bob Dole has served longer as a
Republican in Congress--35 years, 5 months and 8 days--
than any other current Republican Member of the Senate and
House. Additionally, he is the only Kansas Senator to have
chaired the Senate Finance Committee.
He has earned the respect of his colleagues. He has been
a hands-on leader, often working personally with other
Senators and staff to craft legislative compromises and
solutions to difficult national questions.
As Republican leader, both when he served as majority
leader and as minority leader, he was always available to
work on solutions to problems of both a national and
international nature. He gave his time, including the
hours spent away from the Chamber and the Hill, wrestling
with those solutions.
I have fond memories of the time that we worked together
in the 100th Congress, when I served as majority leader
and he was the minority leader, and we succeeded in
crafting important legislation, including the landmark
Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988. Together,
we developed a new trade tool for the United States called
``the super 301 law,'' which required annual reviews of
foreign trade practices, the identification of priority
foreign country practices against American products, and
the triggering of automatic investigations against such
countries' practices.
Senator Dole has been particularly attentive and active
in the foreign policy and national security areas. While
we have not always agreed on specific policies, he has
been a major contributor to our Nation's policies
regarding the Soviet Union before its collapse, arms
control, Bosnia, and the Gulf war with Iraq, to name a few
important examples.
When he was majority leader in 1985 and I was minority
leader, together we created the arms control observer
group to monitor arms control negotiations and treaties
with the Soviet Union. Together, we led a Senate
delegation to the opening of United States-Soviet arms
control negotiations in Geneva that year. We also traveled
together at the request of President Reagan to Moscow to
celebrate the historic exchange of instruments by
Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev ratifying the INF treaty.
In the order of domestic policy, Senator Dole has been a
long-time central figure on farm legislation. He has
amassed an impressive record of service on behalf of the
disabled and the handicapped. He has particularly advanced
the cause of handicapped children.
While I have enjoyed working together with Bob Dole, and
sometimes have equally enjoyed working at odds with him on
various issues, I am saddened that he is leaving the
Senate. He will cast a long shadow as he goes.
It isn't enough to say in our hearts
That we like a man for his ways;
It isn't enough that we fill our minds
With psalms of silent praise;
Nor is it enough that we honor a man
As our confidence upward mounts;
It's going right up to the man himself
And telling him so that counts.
So when a man does a deed that you really admire,
Don't leave a kind word unsaid.
In fear to do so will make him vain
And cause him to lose his head.
But reach out your hand and tell him, ``Well done,''
And see how his gratitude swells.
It isn't the flowers we strew on the grave,
It's the word to the living that tells.
And so I say to my friend, Bob Dole, ``Well done.''
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me begin by
complimenting the distinguished Senator from West Virginia
for his eloquence. Following his words is a very difficult
task.
Senator Dole has said that he wants to be judged now as
just a man. But I think history will judge him as
something more--a good leader, a good Senator, a good
American. When you are from a small State in the Midwest,
there seems to be a sense of pride in someone who makes it
to the top the hard way, with hard work, with fairness,
with adherence to principle.
Regardless of politics, religion or education, when
someone starts at the lower rung and makes it all the way
up, there is a pervasive feeling of ownership, of affinity
that he is one of our own, a Midwestern sense of self-
respect that he is like us, and now just look at where he
is, what he has done and how he has done it. That is
especially true when adversity hits. When someone rises
above adversity to make it against the odds, the
admiration grows greater. The greater the adversity, the
greater the adherence to principle and decency, the
greater the admiration.
Maybe that is why someone from South Dakota, someone of
different politics, different religion, different
education can reflect on the admiration that I hold for
Bob Dole with the sincerity that I do now.
I have had the good fortune to work closely with the
majority leader now for 18 months. The conditions for a
good working relationship could not have been much worse.
We had just lost the majority. He was the likely nominee
to run against a Democratic President, and the House
Republican leadership, now also in the majority, had
proposed a Contract With America. Of course, the events
over the past year and a half could easily have led to
bitterness and personal animosity of major consequence. I
have no doubt that in virtually any other set of
circumstances, there would have been no other result.
The fact that it did not occur, and in spite of it all
we remained friendly, is due to Bob Dole and who he is.
His civility, his pragmatism, his quick wit, his self-
effacing humor have not only served him well these past 45
years of public life, but have served his colleagues and
his country well, too. His sense of fairness and decency
is a standard by which all people in public life should be
held. He believes in the institutions of democracy and has
helped guide his party and this body in a way that has
enhanced them, too.
While our philosophical differences are great, his
willingness to do what is difficult has been a source of
admiration and respect for us all. His courage in standing
for principle has been evident from the start.
It was there when he broke ranks with his party to
support the landmark civil rights measures of the 1960's,
most notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
Rights Acts of 1965 and 1982.
It was there when he championed landmark nutrition
programs with a visionary leader and a giant from South
Dakota whose name was George McGovern.
It was there in 1991 when he and our colleague, Tom
Harkin, arguably did more for the disabled than anyone in
our Nation's history.
And it was there in this Congress when, against all
political advice, he fashioned a resolution on Bosnia that
led to broad support for our troops being stationed there.
I am grateful to Senator Dole for that leadership, for
the decency and fairness he has demonstrated to me over
these past 18 months. I have learned from him. It has been
an invaluable education.
It has always impressed me that Bob Dole would come to
my office for a meeting--the seasoned leader coming to the
newcomer, the majority leader, coming to the minority
leader's office. I thought it was yet another
demonstration of Bob Dole's grace and demeanor. I know now
that it was. I also learned that in doing so, this man,
with the experience of thousands of such meetings, could
always be the one to determine when the meeting was over.
I regret that we did not accomplish more together in
these last 2 years. Obviously, bad timing was a factor.
Our accomplishments have been eclipsed by our partisanship
in the eyes of the American people. Still, nothing should
cloud America's view of just a man from Kansas who began
with little, who in fighting for this country lost almost
all that he had, who came back to help lead his party and
his country with courage and civility, who leaves this
place with the gratitude of us all.
While I cannot wish him ultimate success at his next
political venture, Linda and I wish Elizabeth and Bob Dole
well in their new life ahead. May it be filled with good
health and much happiness. I yield the floor.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I rise on behalf of all my
colleagues in the Senate, Democrat and Republican, to say
thank you to Senator Dole for his years of service in
Congress, House and Senate, but especially the Senate,
especially for his leadership, for his willingness to
really embody what leadership is all about.
The man from Russell, KS, has indeed done very well. The
man from Russell, KS, has overcome a lot of difficulties,
and truly been a national hero. I was with Senator Warner,
Senator Mack, and Senator Dole in Italy where Senator Dole
nearly lost his life in Castel Diano, and I realized what
real leadership was all about, that a young man from
Russell, KS, risked his life, almost gave his life, to
reestablish freedom in a faraway land. I saw the love and
respect that the people had in northern Italy for Senator
Dole, and my respect and admiration for him only grew. It
has grown as we have shared many fine years in serving
together, and I thought about this, most of our colleagues
here have only known Senator Dole as the leader or
minority leader. Some have had the pleasure of serving
with Senator Baker and Senator Byrd, as majority leader,
but to our leader, we want to say thank you for your
service not only to Kansas but to our country, for
reaching out in bipartisan fashion and making great
changes for this country.
I remember when you were elected chairman of the Finance
Committee, tax rates were 70 percent. When you were
finished, they were 28 percent. The economy really grew.
You forged bipartisan working relationships with everyone.
You are well liked by every Member in this body.
To our leader, I say that you embody what we think is
great about a leader. That is character. That is
integrity. That is loyalty. You have earned the respect
not only of your colleagues, you have earned the respect
of all Americans.
To our leader, again, a man from Russell, KS, you are
our friend. You will always be our friend. We wish you and
Elizabeth every success this year.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of Senate
Resolution 258 that I now send to the desk.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will report.
The Assistant Secretary of the Senate read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 258) to designate the balcony
adjacent to rooms S-230 and S-231 of the United States
Capitol Building as the ``Robert J. Dole Balcony.''
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection to the
immediate consideration of the resolution?
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to
consider the resolution.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the resolution that I now
send to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Daschle
is a resolution that follows a great tradition in the
Senate where we name rooms, sometimes buildings, after our
colleagues. We have buildings--the Russell Building, Hart,
and Dirksen, all named after outstanding Senators.
On the first floor of this building we have the Hugh
Scott Room named after a former Republican leader, and
down the hall the Mansfield Room, another great leader who
served the longest as Senate majority leader, and we also
have the Howard Baker Room that is now the Office of
Senator Dole. All these honors were a very fine and noble
tribute.
But the tribute we name today, or the one we are making
today is naming the balcony adjacent to the Office of the
Republican Leader as the Robert J. Dole Balcony. It was
Senator Dole who asked this balcony be made accessible to
legislators and to the leaders. I can tell you that there
has been a lot of good legislative work done on that
balcony. I can also tell you that sometimes the balcony is
called ``the Dole Beach.''
To our leader, we wanted to have a lasting remembrance,
because you are part of this Capitol. You are part of this
institution. You are one of the reasons why this
institution is greatly respected, because of the respect
we have for you.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be
laid upon the table.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 258) was agreed to, as follows:
S. Res. 258
Resolved, That the balcony adjacent to rooms S-230 and
S-231 of the United States Capitol Building is hereby
designated as, and shall hereafter be known as, the
``Robert J. Dole Balcony''.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The able majority leader,
Senator Dole of Kansas, is recognized.
Mr. DOLE. I appreciate very much the resolution just
passed. Will it be in big letters or neon? I know it
cannot have any political advertising on it. Just have the
name out there in lights the next few months. I thank all
of my colleagues.
FAREWELL ADDRESS OF SENATOR ROBERT J. DOLE
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I want to go back 136 years ago
this summer. A committee arrived in Springfield, IL--
Senator Simon probably knows the story--and it formally
notified Abraham Lincoln that the Republican Party had
nominated him to run for President. History records that
Lincoln's formal reply to the news was just two sentences
long. And then as he surveyed the crowd of friends
gathered outside his home, as I survey the crowd of
friends here in the galleries and on the floor, he said,
``Now I will no longer defer the pleasure of taking each
of you by the hand.'' So I guess, as Lincoln said then,
136 years ago, if all of us who are leaving this year--and
I am only one, and I know we have the same thoughts and
the same emotions--if we can all go out and shake hands
with all the people who were responsible for us being
here, it would take a long time.
You begin with your family. You, obviously, begin with
your parents, your brothers, your sisters, and you think
about all the support they have provided and all the good
things that happened. And you think about the Senate. You
think about your family, your remarkable, wonderful wife
and daughter, who have seen victories and seen defeats and
have put up with, as all our spouses and children do
around here, with late hours, not being home on weekends,
and all the demands that go with serving in the Senate.
So I am very honored to have my wife Elizabeth and my
daughter Robin in the gallery today.
[Applause.]
I know they join me in expressing our deep appreciation
to everyone here and the people of Kansas. As all of us go
back who are leaving this year, thinking about leaving in
a couple of years, or whatever, you think about the people
who sent you here
and the people who tried not to send you here--once you
are here, you forget about those. [Laughter.]
And they are all your constituents, whether Democrats,
Republicans, or Independents. And four times, my friends
in Kansas, Republicans and Democrats and Independents, I
believe, gave me their votes for the House of
Representatives and five times they have given me their
votes to the U.S. Senate. I think to all of us, such trust
is perhaps the greatest gift that can come to any citizen
in our democracy, and I know I will be forever grateful,
as everyone here will be forever grateful, to our friends
and our supporters who never gave up on us, who never lost
their confidence in us. Maybe they did not like some of
our votes, or maybe they did not like other things, but
when the chips were down, they were there. We all think of
all the phone calls and all the letters and all the visits
of people who come to your office with big problems and
small. Or you think about the town meetings you have
attended. I have attended, as have some others here, town
meetings all over America. They are pretty much the same.
They are good people, they have real questions, and they
like real answers.
I always thought that differences were a healthy thing
and that is why we are all so healthy, because we have a
lot of differences in this Chamber. I have never seen a
healthier group in my life. [Laughter.]
And then there are those on our staff. Sometimes we
forget to say thank you. I have had one member of my staff
for 30 years, and others for 19, and so on. They have been
great, and they have been loyal, and they have been
enthusiastic. Their idealism and intelligence and loyalty
have certainly meant a lot to me, and I think a lot to
other people in this body, and other staff members, and
the people they work with on a daily basis. Many are on
the Senate floor or in the gallery today. I just say,
thank you very much. We have had a little fun along the
way, too. It gets kind of dull around here from time to
time, so you have to have a little fun. When you really
want to have fun to get away, you can go out to the
beach--which is now my ``beach,'' and I will try to pack
it up this afternoon. All of those who served in the
Senate--and I see some of my former colleagues here
today--and all those who serve the Senate, whether the
Parliamentarian or the page, I thank you for all of us for
your tireless service.
I do not want my friends in the press gallery to fall
out of their seats in shock. But let me add in
acknowledgment of those who have worked here in this
building I also salute you. I think it is fair to say that
we do not always agree with everything you said or wrote,
but I know that what you do off this floor is as vital to
American democracy as anything we do on it. And we have to
keep that in mind.
So I say that it has been a great ride. There have been
a few bumps along the way. I have learned a lot from
people in this room. I have even gone to Senator Byrd when
I was the majority leader to ask his advice on how to
defeat him on an issue. If you know Robert Byrd as I do,
he gave me the answer. But it was not easy. I mean, this
man is determined. I know that in his first book, his
great works about the Senate, he writes about when I
became the majority leader. He very candidly writes in his
book that he had his doubts about this Bob Dole because I
might be too partisan, or I might not work with the
minority leader. But I have heard him say a number of
times since that I demonstrated that I was not that
partisan. And if I understood one thing, as my successor
will understand, it is that unless the two leaders are
working together, nothing is going to happen in this
place. We have to trust each other, as Senator Daschle and
I have, as Senator Mitchell and I have, as Senator Byrd
and I have. And I also have great respect for Senator
Mansfield and Senator Baker, though I did not have the
privilege of being in the leadership at that time.
I say to all those who have been in the leadership
positions, it is a difficult life. After 2 o'clock today
when somebody calls me about bringing up their amendment,
I will say that it is all right with me; bring it up any
time you want, and I will not stand in your way. [Laughter
and Applause.]
I am looking at one of the giants in the Senate right
now, Senator Thurmond. And I looked at others on the way
in, like Senator Byrd. I thought about Senators Baker,
Dirksen, Russell, and many, many more, Democrats and
Republicans, who love this place, who have made it work. I
repeat frequently the statement of Senator Dirksen--and I
do not know whether he made it on the floor--who said, ``A
billion here, a billion there, and soon it will add up to
real money.'' If only he could come back today, it would
be ``a trillion here and a trillion there.''
Then there was Hubert Humphrey. Nobody ever understood
how Bob Dole and Hubert Humphrey could be such good
friends. We did not have a problem at all. And he used to
say of his own speeches, ``I never thought they were too
long. I enjoyed every minute.'' [Laughter.]
I remember we were in the hallway one day talking about
the talk shows. And, of course, I was only watching them
in those days, but he was on one every Sunday. It used to
be issues and answers for the normal guest. But for Hubert
it was issue and answer--then the time was up.
And then there was Senator Mansfield in just the
reverse. When he was on a Sunday talk show, it was
``yep,'' ``nope,'' ``maybe.'' Ten minutes into the
program, they were out of questions. [Laughter.]
I remember Russell Long. I remember during the Reagan
landslide, I was going to be chairman of the Finance
Committee. I did not know how to tell Russell--and I did
not. I said, ``Who is going to tell Russell?'' Nobody was
going to tell Russell. Dave Durenberger was there, and I
remember the first vote we had. I got to sit in the chair,
but when they called the roll, they called the minority
side first and then the other side. They said, ``Mr.
Chairman,''--this was my first time--and he voted ``aye.''
It is a true story. Then there is Phil Hart and Dan
Inouye. We all met in Battle Creek, MI, at the Percy Jones
General Hospital--Lieutenant Colonel Hart, Lieutenant
Inouye, and Lieutenant Dole. We were all patriots. The
best bridge player at Percy Jones Hospital was Dan Inouye.
Probably one of the best men I ever knew was Phil Hart. He
had a flesh wound in his right elbow area, and from
morning to night he spent his time running errands or
getting tickets for patients to the Detroit Tigers games.
His wife was Jane Briggs. It was Briggs Stadium--Briggs
owned the Tigers at that time. There was not anything that
Phil Hart would not do--not only there but when he came to
the U.S. Senate. So I left my proxy with the last of the
Percy Jones General Hospital caucus, with Dan Inouye. I
wrote him a letter today, I said you've got my proxy. If
anything comes up regarding Percy Jones General Hospital,
which is closed----
[Laughter.]
vote me present.
[Laughter.]
I could go on and on. I am not like Senator Byrd because
nobody can do it the way Senator Byrd does it.
But I think of all of these people who have come and
gone and of all of the new bright stars that are here
today on both sides of the aisle, and there is one thing
that you do know for certain. This is a great institution.
I have learned another thing that we have all learned in
this Chamber and this town. Your word is your bond. If you
do not keep your word around here, it does not make much
difference what your amendment may be, or whatever it may
be. And it is important to all of us. As far as I know
everybody that I know on either side observed that rule.
It is true in any business or in any profession. It is
more true in politics because the American people are
looking at us, and they want us to tell the truth. It does
not mean that we have to agree. It does not mean we cannot
have different motivations. I learned that leadership is a
combination of background and backbone. I learned a lot
about that from the likes of Senator Byrd and others that
I watched and watched.
I know that Senator Warner is the first person to ever
mention to me--one day we were at the same place having
lunch. He said, ``You ought to think about running for
leader.'' I said, ``Me?'' So I thought about it.
[Laughter.]
I thought Ted Stevens was going to be the leader. Where
is Ted? Something happened on the way to the vote.
[Laughter.]
I walked out of there surprised. When Howard Greene held
up his hand, I knew that I must be the leader.
So I would just say that we all know how the political
process works. Some people are cynical. Some people think
it is awful. Some people do not trust us. But the people
who watch this thing day in and day out have a better
understanding.
Some people ask me. I remember the Speaker--the Speaker
is present--telling me just 10 minutes ago, he really
understands now more about the Senate. We have different
rules. I love the House of Representatives. I never wanted
to be in the House of Representatives. I wanted to be in
the Senate. I wanted to be in the Senate where you can
have unlimited debate, where any Senator on either side on
any issue can stand up and talk until they drop.
The record is held by the Presiding Officer, Senator
Thurmond.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Twenty-four hours and
eighteen minutes. [Laughter and Applause.]
Mr. DOLE. That is why you are seldom asked to be an
after dinner speaker. [Laughter.]
Mr. President, I think sometimes around here we think we
have to have everything. ``We have to have total victory.
I will not settle for less. It has to be my way, or no
way.'' Well, Ronald Reagan said once, ``If I can get 90
percent of what I want, I would call that a pretty good
deal.'' Ninety percent is not bad. You can get the other
10 percent later. It is a small amendment then.
[Laughter.]
Better understand that--take the 90 and then work on the
10.
I want to say, too, that I read that my resignation and
my decision to leave caused astonishment in some quarters,
and I do not begrudge anyone their surprise. But I would
just want to disabuse anybody about the Senate. This is
the great opportunity, and there are hundreds and hundreds
and thousands and thousands of people who would give
anything they had to be a Member of this body. That is the
way it should be. It is very competitive.
So I have said the truth is that I would no more
distance myself from the Senate than I would from the
United States itself. This is a body that is the
reflection of America. It is what America is all about. We
come from different States and different backgrounds with
different opportunities and different challenges in our
lives. And, yes, the institution has its imperfections and
occasional inefficiencies. We are like America; we are
still a work in progress in the U.S. Senate.
So I would say to my colleagues that I remember way back
when I ran for the Kansas Legislature. We had a Democratic
law librarian who thought young people ought to get
involved in politics. She found two Republicans and two
Democrats, and talked us into running for the State
legislature. We did not know anything about politics. We
did not know what party we were in. We were students;
veterans going to school under the GI bill. I thought
about which party to belong to. I have said in jest, from
time to time I went back to my hometown and went up to the
courthouse and found out there were more Republicans than
Democrats. And I became a committed Republican.
[Laughter.]
It is not quite accurate. But my parents were Democrats.
I remember the first time I was ever approached by a
reporter. Here I was a brand new law student, a brand new
legislator. I did not know anything about anything. They
said, ``Well, what are you going to do now for your
district?'' Or something of that case. I said, ``I am
going to sit around and watch for a couple of days, and
then stand up for what is right.''
Well, that is what we all do around here. I hope I have
done it over the years.
I will take a minute or two to indulge in some of the
things that we all have different interests in. I have
been deeply involved in agriculture, as many of you have
here, because Kansas is a farm State. When I came to
Congress, I was on the House Agriculture Committee. I have
been on the Senate Agriculture Committee ever since. So I
am proud of having served the farm families of Kansas and
around America who make a lot of sacrifices.
This year we did not have a wheat crop, hardly at all,
in Kansas because of the drought. I am advised by Senator
Dorgan that they are not going to have much of one because
of the rains and the water.
So farmers make a lot of sacrifices. I remember back
during the Vietnam debate. Some of us were here. Some were
on each side of the issue. The so-called Cooper-Church
amendment that went on and on and on, week after week
after week on whether we ought to withdraw our troops, or
shut off funding, which I thought was wrong. As I look
back on it, I think I was right because we had courageous
men like Bob Kerrey, John McCain, and others in this
Chamber who were risking their lives, and they deserved
our support. That was a big debate at the time.
I have also been proud to be involved in nutrition
programs. Somebody mentioned that earlier today. I
remember working with Senator McGovern on that, and there
was a conservative article saying I cannot be a
conservative because I know George McGovern. I think
George McGovern is a gentleman and has always been a
gentleman. But we worked together on food stamps. I will
confess, when I made my first tour with George McGovern, I
said, ``This guy is running for President.'' I was not
convinced. There were a lot of skeptics in this Chamber;
probably some on each side. You cannot have truer motives.
It is always something political. But after being on that
trip about 2 or 3 days, I changed my mind. Senator
Hollings from South Carolina was in the forefront of that
effort. He remembers how bad it was.
So we worked together on food stamps, the WIC Program,
and the School Lunch Program, particularly when it
affected poorer Americans. I think, as I look at it, that
no first-class democracy would treat its people like
second-class citizens.
I remember standing on this floor managing the Martin
Luther King holiday bill. We had the majority. It was a
proud day for me. It is now a national holiday.
The first speech I ever made on the floor was April 14,
1969, about disabled Americans.
There are a lot of people in this room who have worked
on this program. I know Senator Kennedy and Senator Harkin
and Senator Durenberger, when he was here, and Senator
Jennings Randolph before--maybe before many of you came--
was in the forefront. We stood with many who could not
stand on their own, and the highlight was passing the
Americans With Disabilities Act. Forty-three million
Americans--they are not all seriously disabled, but there
are many in wheelchairs, many who cannot even sit up. It
was a very impressive sight to be at the White House the
day that bill was signed by President Bush, and I am
forever grateful. I know Senator Kennedy and Senator
Harkin are. Have you ever seen so many wheelchairs at the
White House at a signing ceremony? Never. And now more and
more Americans with disabilities are full participants in
the process. They are in the mainstream.
So, I remember in 1983--I know Pat Moynihan remembers--
we were standing right over in this aisle. We had a
bipartisan commission on Social Security. We had met week
after week, month after month. It was about to go down the
drain. We had about given up. Everybody was disgusted. We
were getting short-tempered. We were Democrats and
Republicans. At the time the late John Heinz was a member
of the commission. As member of the Finance Committee, I
was a member. Senator Moynihan was a member. And Senator
Moynihan--I think just by chance or fate or whatever--and
I happened to meet in this aisle on my right. We said we
have to try one more time to rescue Social Security--one
more time.
It was not a partisan issue. And we did. That afternoon
we convened three more people, we had five of the
commission, and it was not long until we were back on
track. We finally made it happen, and 37 million people
have gotten their checks on time.
I think I read in the Washington Post just this weekend,
Social Security is going to be in pretty good shape until
the year 2029. So that is a pretty good fix. Maybe, as I
said earlier in the day, that is a pattern we can follow
for Medicare for the long-term solution: Take it out of
politics as we did on Social Security, make it work, make
it solvent. And the people who get the credit are the
people who get the checks--37 million of them. So, we
reached across partisan lines.
So, I worry a little about the future. I worry about our
defenses. I know there are a lot of very talented people
here who are going to continue to do that. I am not here
to make a partisan speech or even a partisan reference,
but I would hope that we would keep in mind there are
still threats around the world and also keep in mind that
we are the envy of the world.
I learned, meeting with a lot of leaders, foreign
leaders, as leaders get to do in this business--the
chairmen of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senators
Helms and Pell and others, Senator Lugar when he was
chairman--I remember when the Berlin Wall came down and
the Soviet empire collapsed, a lot of people started
coming to America. They were leaders. They were young and
they were old and they were men and they were women, and
they did not come for foreign aid. The cynics said, ``Oh,
they are coming after more of our money.'' They knew we
did not have any. But for the first time in 70 years, in
some cases, they had a right to travel. They could get on
an airplane without checking with the government and
waiting for a year or 2 years or 3 years. They could go to
church, they could vote--all these basic rights that we
take for granted. And they came to America.
Some are now Presidents, like Lech Walesa, some are
leaders of their party. As they came to our offices, and I
am certain it was true in every other office, they did not
ask for money. They wanted to come to America to see
America. They wanted to take a look at America. And I can
recall almost everyone who left my office, sometimes with
tears streaming down their cheeks, saying, ``We want to be
like America.''
We are the envy of the world. That is why so many people
want to be like we are.
So, we have lit Liberty's torch with a glow that can
truly light the world. That is what America is all about.
We are much more than a place on a map. We are the United
States, and we are a beacon of hope. We are a magnet for
the oppressed and a shield against those who would put the
soul itself in bondage.
I think we did that in Kuwait, and we may be called on
to do it again. But I would guess one thing. I would hope,
when they catalog all the amendments and all the bills and
do all the commentaries, whenever it is all over for us
here, that we have left our children something other than
a legacy of debt. Our children are important. None of us
have a perfect solution, but there has to be some solution
here where we can come together, Republicans and
Democrats, because everybody loves their children.
Everybody loves their grandchildren. We have all these
young pages here. We have an example every day of young
people who want to get ahead, who are willing to work.
They just want the opportunity.
I think, if I could hope that anything might happen, it
probably will not happen today, but this year or next
year--I felt strongly about the balanced budget, but not
enough people did. But that will be around.
So I would close with, again, thanking all of my
colleagues. I do not believe--I am just trying to think
back--I do not believe we have ever had any real
disagreements. I remember one time, I remind the
Democratic leader, that I offered an amendment that you
thought you were going to offer, and I made a mistake. I
was not trying to one-up the Senator from South Dakota. So
I withdraw my amendment. Then he offered the amendment. I
think that is called civility.
So, I would close with the words of my hero, Dwight
Eisenhower, because he was our supreme commander. He also
came from Abilene, KS; born in Texas but quickly moved to
Kansas. He was only 2 years old. It took a while. But, in
any event--this is his quote.
As we peer into society's future, we--you and I--and our
Government--must avoid the impulse to live only for today,
plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious
resources of tomorrow.
We cannot mortgage the material assets of our
grandchildren without risking the loss of their political
and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for
all generations to come, not to become the insolvent
phantom of tomorrow.
I think those words are just as good today as they were
35 years ago when President Eisenhower spoke them. We can
lead or we can mislead as the people's Representatives,
but whatever we do, we will be held responsible. We are
going to be held responsible and accountable. I am not
talking about 1996. I am talking about any time over the
next century.
So the Bible tells us that to everything there is a
season, and I think my season in the Senate is about to
come to an end. But the new season makes this moment far
less the closing of one chapter than the opening of
another. We all take pride in the past, but we all live
for the future.
I agree with prairie poet Carl Sandburg, who told us:
Yesterday is wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the West.
I tell you that there is nothing in the world,
Only an ocean of tomorrows,
A sky of tomorrows.
Like everybody here, I am an optimist. I believe our
best tomorrows are yet to be lived. So I, again, thank
you.
God bless America, and God bless the U.S. Senate.
[Applause, Senators rising.]
Mr. LOTT. Madam President, there is no question that
some of the most eloquent speeches I have heard since I
have been in the Senate were presented this morning by
Senators on both sides of the aisle as a tribute to our
good friend and majority leader, Bob Dole. They really
were very impressive in terms of the relationship that
Senators have had with Senator Dole and their love for him
and for this institution. Many Senators have enjoyed
working with Senator Dole and have learned a great deal
from him. Certainly, I am one of those that has been
studying at the feet of Bob Dole. It has been something to
behold. He is truly a master of how to get things done. We
can all learn from that. I hope that I am one that has
learned and will remember those lessons.
I served in the House for a number of years after having
worked for a Democratic Congressman named Bill Colmer, the
chairman of the Rules Committee. Until this very day, when
I remember the lessons I should have learned from that old
gentleman, I do well. When I forget those lessons, I
usually get in trouble. So I think that as we go through
life and as we go through political life, as we work in
Government, and as we go through our daily activities in
the Senate, there are certain giants like Bob Dole that we
can and should all learn from.
Madam President, there is a little known custom, I
guess, in the Senate for Members to carve their names in
the drawers of their desks. In fact, when constituents
come on the floor when we are not in session, that is one
of the things they find most interesting. They pull the
drawers out and see who signed these desks.
When you look into some of these desks, you find the
great--and sometimes not so great--names of the past. They
are a veritable rollcall of our country's history.
In 28 years in the Senate, Bob Dole did more than make
his mark upon a congressional desk. He made his mark upon
this institution, not just its legislation, but more
importantly, its character.
He devoted most of his career to the Senate, but not
because this Chamber and its business were an end in
itself. For Bob Dole, serving the Senate was serving his
country.
That service took precedence over most other
considerations in his life.
Indeed, it took precedence over his Presidential
campaign--until today.
The reason Bob Dole will not be with us on the Senate
floor after today is no great secret.
The reason is that he was convinced he would better
serve his country by restoring leadership to its
Presidency than by handling the day to day affairs of the
Congress.
We all know it was hard for him to leave, and it was
hard for us to see him leave. It affected us all, and it
reminded us once again who we are and what we are about in
this institution. Those who really know Bob Dole know that
he is leaving not out of ambition for higher rank, but out
of determination to finish the fight and be in a position
to do all that he can do for his country.
That fight, in terms of his country's future, is every
bit as important as the fight which gravely injured the
young Bob Dole in 1944.
There are some who think of duty as a burden, heavy to
bear and best shrugged off onto someone else.
There are others who embrace duty, and carry it proudly,
and do not put it down until the journey is done.
In walking out of this Chamber today, Bob Dole carries
with him a lifetime of duty.
As we saw him exit this door, we all felt an emotional
surge, and every Member of this Senate knows he will not
put that responsibility and duty down.
No one would understand better than Bob that not every
Senator wants him to succeed in his present mission.
Indeed, a goodly part of this body will move Heaven and
Earth to prevent that success.
That is not perfidy. It is democracy.
It is something Bob Dole went to war to defend, and
something he still can appreciate more than most of us.
But I dare say, despite the political and partisan
divisions on this Senate floor, as we quite often
experience, all of us understand something historic is
happening here today.
Something none of us will soon forget.
It brings to my mind two other reluctant departures in
our Nation's past.
The first would be Washington's reluctant leaving of
Mount Vernon to assume a position he did not seek, but
which his countrymen insisted he take.
The second would be Lee's agonized departure from his
post of military honor to fulfill what he considered a
higher duty.
Were he here, Bob Dole would modestly dismiss any
comparison with Washington or Lee--or any other of
American's great statesmen of the past.
He would rather let the future judge such things, and so
should we.
Whatever the outcome of this year, whatever the course
of its conflicts and controversies, the future holds a
place for Bob Dole as a giant of the Senate, a man set
apart from most by a quiet passion for his country that we
are only now beginning to understand.
But Lord willing, we will benefit from it for years to
come.
Mr. EXON. I just want to say a few words about my friend
Bob Dole. I suspect my feelings are not significantly
different by what has been thought and what has been said
by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. So aside from
the Bob Dole that we all know so very, very well, I just
want to say that I was pleased to be here and to hear that
excellent speech that Senator Dole gave as his farewell
address in the U.S. Senate. It was sad in lots of ways,
and yet it was so reassuring to see someone of the
integrity, the ability, the character, and the good nature
of Bob Dole spelled out in that speech so very, very well.
I hope that many, many people in the United States heard
that speech by my friend and colleague, the man from
Kansas.
I have worked with him so very, very long on so many
issues. Many times we have been on the same side, but on
many of the items we have been on opposite sides. But
never, as Senator Dole mentioned in his speech this
morning, has he ever, to my knowledge, violated that
cardinal rule of the U.S. Senate--unwritten, which is just
as effective: A man's word or a woman's word is their
bond. In all of these nearly 18 years that I have had the
pleasure of my association with Bob Dole, I have never
known Bob even to give a hint of breaking his word,
because if there was ever a man in the U.S. Senate for
whom we all know his word is his bond, that is Bob Dole.
On a personal note, I just want to say when I saw Bob
walk out after his address, it took me back to times in
all of our lives when there have been breakups. I suppose
the first was when we graduated from grade school and that
old gang of ours broke up and went on through our
educational process. And certainly it is true. When you
left the service of the United States of America, that old
gang was broken up. That old gang that Bob Dole was with
was suddenly broken up when he nearly gave his life in
combat, in defense of the national security interests of
the United States of America and the free world. But I
thought of that breakup when I saw Bob walk out that door
an hour or so ago.
Bob Dole meant so much to me because, despite our
differences from time to time, we always had an excellent
personal working relationship. He came into Nebraska on
two or three occasions to support my opponent in one of my
races. But never did Bob Dole say anything bad about Jim
Exon, even though he could have probably found some
legitimate things that he could and maybe should have
said. But that was not Bob's way. Bob came into Nebraska,
and he campaigned for my Republican opponent--not against
Jim Exon. I think that is the mark of not only a great
statesman but a very effective leader, which he was of his
party as majority leader on that side, but also someone
that you could be truly proud of and call your friend.
Little known outside the Senate, I suspect, was Bob's
strongest characteristic, and that was his sense of humor.
I am not sure that the public at large has understood
that. But I have had an ongoing relationship--very
friendly--with Bob Dole on many, many occasions. In fact,
this year when he was running for President of the United
States, I suggested to him--and he knew it was facetious--
that I might consider a draft to be his Vice Presidential
running mate, if he was interested in that. Bob knows that
I am a Democrat--always have been and always will be, and
we had lots of jokes about that. But over the years of
friendship, over the years of serving on very tough
issues, sometimes we were maybe at sword's point, one
would think, when we were debating a measure of some
importance on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Bob Dole never
lost his sense of humor. He never forgot his sense of
humor. And I think that is what helped carry him through
probably that life-threatening wound that he received in
battle and probably through some of the more heated
debates that have taken place here on the Senate floor. I
have never seen Bob Dole do anything but smile when
someone said something or told him something that he
thought was humor.
So I am saddened by the fact that a coworker for whom I
have great respect, has made a choice that I think was the
right choice for him to make, especially with regard to
the heavy responsibility that he carries for his party,
and he will carry in the Presidential election this year.
In that regard, maybe I can sum up my feelings,
friendship, and understanding with Bob Dole by a statement
that I made to him in one of our more humorous
conversations maybe 6 months ago right in the heat of
those very tough Republican primaries for President of the
United States. I said to Bob Dole, ``You know, Bob, if we
have to have a Republican President''--then I repeated
it--``if we have to have a Republican President, I hope it
is you.'' People that do not understand humor might think
that was a cutting thing for Jim Exon to say, but Bob Dole
knew what I was saying. Bob Dole knows that myself and
all, likely, on both sides of the aisle respect not only
the man's talent but the man's sense of responsibility and
his sense of humor which has endeared him to those of us
on both sides of the aisle.
Godspeed, Bob Dole, to you and your wonderful wife,
Elizabeth. You are a great couple. And whatever the future
holds, we will always hold you in high esteem.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from
Nebraska for his kind remarks about our friend Bob Dole,
which were very eloquent. I think he expressed it
beautifully for a lot of Democrats. I think everyone in
this body has tremendous esteem and affection and love for
Bob Dole. He is one of the all-time great Senators. There
is no question about it. He will go down in history as one
of the all-time great Senators.
Mr. President, 20 years ago, when I was first sworn in
as the junior Senator from Utah, Bob Dole was among the
first of my Republican colleagues to come up and put his
arm around me, and helped guide me and helped me to learn
the ropes.
I rise today to thank him for that, and for his
extraordinary leadership in the years since. When the
citizens from Kansas elected Bob Dole as their Senator,
they chose a man who epitomizes the qualities of
mainstream America, a team player, a war hero who
demonstrated tremendous courage and perseverance both on
the battlefield and afterward, a hard worker and an honest
and decent man, a man whom all Americans can look up to.
By now, most of us are aware of the wounds Lieutenant
Dole suffered on that April morning in 1945. That was
about the same time that my brother was killed in the
Second World War. Bob Dole could have been killed too, and
almost was.
We have also heard about his amazing and long recovery.
But less is known about how Bob Dole was injured. Richard
Ben Cramer's book, ``What it Takes,'' tells us how:
Dole got his men down to the low stone wall. Dole could
have stayed in the middle [of the platoon]. But he knew
his job, and he did it. He was out in front, with the lead
squad.
They were pinned down quick. They were pinned down in
the field, when a farmhouse on the left opened fire: a
Jerry machine-gun nest . . . the men in the field were
hamburger.
Dole had to get that machine gun. The lead squad was
going to have to flank that house and get that nest of
Krauts [sic]. Sergeant Carafa assumed he'd be going out
with the squad, but Dole said, ``Sergeant, I'll take
'em.''
Bob Dole saw many men die trying to knock out that
machine gun. It was that morning, trying to take it out,
that he was wounded. Bob Dole could have let someone else
go out with the squad. Bob Dole could have stayed behind
and provided cover. Bob Dole could have stayed in the
middle. Instead, Bob Dole was out in front.
Bob Dole has been out in front ever since. He became a
skillful legislator. He knew how to get things done around
here. But he also knew that duty required him to take
action when it wasn't always in his own best interest or
when he saw public policy going down the wrong path.
Take, for example, his leadership on addressing the
crime issue. Throughout his career, Bob Dole consistently
supported legislation to fight crime and help the victims
of crime. From the Organized Crime Control Act of 1969 to
the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act,
Bob Dole has fought to bring accountability to the
criminal justice system. But, in 1994, Senator Dole stood
up for what he thought was right and opposed the so-called
Crime Control Act of 1994 because it was a pork-laden, big
dollar, Great Society social spending boondoggle. Some of
our colleagues thought we had lost our minds when we
opposed a so-called crime bill in an election year. But
Bob Dole did it because it was the right thing to do.
He worked tirelessly for comprehensive habeas corpus
reform. He worked to crack down on frivolous inmate
lawsuits and was at the forefront of reform when, in 1984,
he cosponsored the Sentencing Reform Act, which brought
truth-in-sentencing to the Federal system.
Mr. President, Senator Dole has been a leader and a
fighter for civil rights from the beginning of his career.
Senator Dole knows full well that prejudice and artificial
barriers can hold a person down. As a Member of the other
body, he voted for landmark legislation including the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965. He was a leader in the effort to extend the Voting
Rights Act in 1982. In 1967, then Congressman Dole voted
for the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. In 1990,
Senator Dole supported the expansion and clarification of
this law to protect older workers from the loss of their
employee benefits.
Senator Dole led the passage of the Martin Luther King
holiday bill. It was a bill I voted against, and I
consider it the worst mistake I have made in my 20 years
here. I thought that we should not add another holiday due
to both the public and private sector costs involved. But,
frankly, in hindsight, I made a mistake.
Bob Dole, however, did what was right, and he brought
that bill up and helped to pass it.
He played a key leadership role in enacting the landmark
Americans With Disabilities Act. I worked hard on that
bill, and I know what he did. I was in the late night
meetings. As the ranking Republican on the Labor and Human
Resources Committee, I was in the leadership meetings. I
have to tell you, without Bob Dole, that bill would not
have passed. The ADA extended civil rights protections and
opportunities to millions of Americans with disabilities.
I can remember when it passed, he and I had tears in our
eyes because it was such a monumental day.
Yes, Bob Dole has been there for the big fights, let me
tell you.
Bob Dole recognizes that rights inhere in individuals,
not groups. In 1995, he introduced the Equal Opportunity
Act, which prohibits racial, ethnic, and gender
preferences in Federal employment, Federal contacting, and
federally administered programs. He sparked a healthy and
timely national debate on affirmative action. In his view,
every American should be treated with equal rights under
the law, without preference based on race, ethnicity, or
gender.
Bob Dole helped build the Republican Party that we have
today. He helped build the Republican majority we have
today. There were no litmus tests under Bob Dole's
leadership. He successfully knit together Senators from
Alaska to Virginia to form a working team whose sole
purpose was to achieve the goals for America that we all
held in common--goals that I personally believe we hold in
common with the American people.
We are going to miss Bob Dole in the U.S. Senate. I
suspect even his worthy adversaries on the Democratic side
have come to admire his determination, skill, and
faithfulness to the people he represents. I believe there
is unanimous agreement in this body that Bob Dole served
with honor and distinction as one of the greatest Senators
in the history of this Federal Republic.
I have to say something here that I am sure Bob Dole
does not know, but I am going to say it publicly because
it means so much to me. My brother died shortly before Bob
Dole got wounded in the Second World War. My brother was
very dear to me. I was only 10 years old when he died.
When we received the news, I immediately got a white
streak of hair on the right side of my forehead because it
was such a shock to me.
He was killed in the Ploiesti oil raid, which, of
course, was the pivotal oil raid of the European war
because it knocked out all of the Vienna-Austrian
oilfields that Hitler depended on. But Jess' death was a
tremendous shock to us.
When I came to the Senate, Bob Dole put his arm around
me. He looked like my brother, to a large degree. My
brother had the same color hair, was about the same
height, about the same build. My brother was a football
player as well. He looked a lot like my brother. I have
always considered Bob Dole, for good or bad, to be my
brother.
I have tremendous respect and admiration for this man,
this fellow who has given so much to his country and who,
if everybody in America knew him--knew him like we do--
there would be no question that he would be the next
President of the United States.
I have to say I love Bob Dole. Elaine does, too. We love
his wife Liddy. She is a tremendous human being. As both
chairman and ranking member of the Labor Committee, I
worked with Liddy Dole, who served as President Bush's
Secretary of Labor. I have to tell you I appreciated those
days and appreciated her kindnesses to me and her great
work for the country.
Today, Bob Dole is leaving the Senate to pursue a
different calling. Yet it still is the calling of public
service. He did not have to leave the Senate. Nobody could
have pushed him out of here. It would have been safer to
stay. But we have already learned that Bob Dole does not
stay safely in the foxholes. That is not what we expect of
our leaders, and Bob Dole, in my opinion, has what it
takes.
Whatever the future may hold for Bob and Elizabeth Dole,
I just want to wish them both happiness and Godspeed.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, in recent years, many in
the media, the public, and even some Members of Congress,
have come to regard those who seek positions in the public
sector with some amount of contempt and mistrust. Most of
us in this Chamber know such characterizations are not
only unfair and inaccurate, but do much to harm the
sanctity and reputation of a body dedicated to debate and
providing for the Nation.
The large majority of those who become Government
officials are honorable individuals, but there are a
handful of Senators in particular whose conduct and
dedication to service are above reproach, and who stand as
living contradictions to those who believe that this is an
ineffective and partisan body. These Senators are men and
women of principle who are dedicated to the noble cause of
working to benefit all the people of the United States.
Today, it is with great regret that I mark the departure
of a man who sets a standard for service to the Senate and
the Nation that is truly unmatched--the majority leader
and Senator from Kansas Bob Dole.
I doubt it came as a surprise to anyone in Russell, KS,
when Bob Dole first ran for elected office in 1951. The
bright young war veteran and attorney had already
established a well-deserved reputation for courage and
hard work when he declared his candidacy for a seat in
that State's House of Representatives. It was these two
simple attributes that not only help Bob Dole to win that
election, but have helped to guide him through life of
challenges, hardships, and accomplishments.
The heartlands of the Kansan prairies are where Bob Dole
learned about being tough and not giving in when in the
same situation the average person might simply give up the
fight. While this is a region of simple beauty, kind
people, and strong values, during the time of Bob Dole's
youth it was also a place that was rife with hardships for
those who lived there. It was a place where hard work was
not a virtue, it was a necessity for survival, especially
during the Nation's most severe economic crisis, the Great
Depression.
In his hometown of Russell, KS, Bob Dole also learned
about things such as patriotism and a commitment to
serving the Nation. He was taught that these words
represented more than mere ideas or ideals, they were part
of the responsibilities of citizenship in this great land.
During World War II, Bob Dole served his country as an
officer in the Army, and when he was ordered to lead an
attack on a German-held hill in Italy, Lt. Bob Dole never
had any question about his duty. It was this dedication to
duty, a commitment to serving the Nation, and pure,
unadulterated courage that sent Lieutenant Dole up that
hill, and it was those same qualities that not only saved
his life after being gravely wounded by hostile fire, but
gave his life purpose in the years following his near
life-ending injuries.
As he lay in a hospital bed, it took a man of fortitude,
determination, and courage to face 39 months of surgery,
convalescence, and rehabilitation. It took courage,
fortitude, and determination for Bob Dole to face the fact
that his dream of becoming a doctor and helping others had
ended. It took courage, fortitude, and determination for
him to make the decision to not make his disabilities a
handicap, but to force forward with life and to dedicate
himself to serving others through public service rather
than medicine. It took a man of fortitude, determination,
and courage to learn again how to do all the things that
you and I take for granted; to go back to school in order
to finish his undergraduate degree and earn a law degree;
and, to begin his career. Simply put, it took grit to
survive what Bob Dole survived and to essentially start
life anew.
Since entering politics and public service, Bob Dole has
never looked back and he has never faltered in his duties.
He has approached each position he has held with
enthusiasm and has earned a reputation for thoroughness,
fairness, and honesty. These qualities, along with those
outlined earlier, endeared him to his fellow Kansans who
sent him on to positions of progressively more importance
and responsibility. From the Kansas Legislature, he served
as Russell County attorney, and then as a U.S. Congressman
for four terms before coming to the U.S. Senate in 1968.
It is here that I met Bob Dole and immediately took a
liking to this serious-minded fellow veteran who had a
pragmatic approach to the issues before the Nation, and a
fire in him to serve.
Over the next 28 years, I became quite fond of Senator
Dole as a colleague and a friend. I was pleased to watch
him grow into his position as a Senator and to become one
of the leading spokesmen for our party not only in this
body, but throughout the Nation. His abilities as a public
servant did not escape many, including President Gerald
Ford, who selected Senator Dole to be his running mate in
1976. The longer Bob Dole served in the Senate, the more
prominent and critical his role became in the legislative
process. His razor sharp mind gave him an encyclopedic
familiarity with legislation and legislative procedure,
both which he put to good use as he ascended the ladder of
Senate leadership. Furthermore, his years of experience as
a Member of Congress gave him an insight into the affairs
or the Nation that could be matched by a few with whom he
served, and made him a valued adviser to fellow Senators,
and to Presidents. In short, Bob Dole was, and continues
to be, a man of tremendous abilities and background whose
experience allows him to have an impact on the governing
of the United States that is unique and nothing short of
beneficial.
It seems hard to believe that Bob Dole is leaving the
Senate. After almost 30 years of prominent and dedicated
service, he seems as much a part of this building as the
statute of Armed Freedom which sits atop the Capitol and
guards the District and the Nation. More important and
significant than merely enduring the rigors and battles of
the Senate for almost three decades is that during his
life and in his tenure in Congress, Bob Dole has made a
difference in the history of the United States. Among
other things, he has stood tall for a budget that will not
saddle future generations with an unfair debt; he has
fought hard to give our men and women in uniform the
resources they need to keep America free and safe; he
remained firm on the need for drawing the line against the
crime and criminals that prey on innocent Americans; he
did not flinch in working to contain our former Communist
enemies; and, he has worked hard to ensure that the United
States maintains the most dynamic economy in the world.
Time and time again, Bob Dole has been on the right side
of the issues, working to create legislation and policy
that is beneficial to the citizens of this Nation, and
leading this body toward a vision of an America that is
safe, wealthy, and full of opportunity as long as there is
a United States. It is with no small regret that I say I
will miss my colleague, my leader, and most importantly,
my friend, Bob Dole. I wish him well and thank him for his
service, and for the example he has set for selflessness,
patriotism, and humility.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, today a giant in the
annals of the U.S. Senate, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas,
the Republican leader, has chosen to leave this great
institution to pursue and, I believe to win the Presidency
of the United States. The Senate will never be quit the
same; for Senator Dole has that rare and admired quality
of making things happen, getting things done, and moving
this tradition-layered institution forward.
All of Bob Dole's adult life had been spent in service
to the American public and today he has not ended that
service. He is just entering the final phase of his public
service--campaigning for the highest office in the land.
Mr. President, for the past 16 years, I have been
privileged to represent the people of the State of Alaska
in the Senate. And throughout my tenure in the Senate, Bob
Dole has been a friend to the people of Alaska and a
leader who has always been sensitive to the special needs
of our young State.
Bob has traveled extensively in Alaska. And he
understands that unlike States that entered the Union in
the 18th and 19th centuries, Alaska, which has only been a
State since 1959, is far more dependent than other States
on decisions made in Washington.
Almost 70 percent of Alaska is owned by the Federal
Government. Fifty-four million acres of Park Service land
is in Alaska--68 percent of all Park Service land in the
Nation. Fifty-seven million acres of designated wilderness
is located in Alaska. That's over 60 percent of all
wilderness lands in the country.
And 76 million acres of Fish and Wildlife Service land
is in Alaska--That's 85 percent of all Fish and Wildlife
Service land in the United States.
The purpose in providing these statistics is to
reiterate to my fellow Senators that almost any economic
activity that is done in Alaska can only get started if
the Federal Government does not stand in the way. Bob Dole
has always understood that.
Bob Dole also understands that our natural resources can
be developed in a responsible manner using our best
technology without harming our environment.
Bob Dole does not sell America's technology and
ingenuity short--he believes that it is better to harvest
our abundant resources in an environmentally responsible
manner rather than sending our dollars and jobs overseas
by importing resources.
Mr. President, Bob Dole has served as the Republican
leader for more than 11 years-longer than any Republican
leader in history. He has had to juggle and balance the
interests of States as different as Florida and Alaska in
order to get legislation from the drawing boards to
President's desk.
Throughout all of the time I have known Bob, he has
never sacrificed what is important to Alaska's 600,000
citizens in order to get a piece of legislation adopted.
In fact, it was Bob Dole's leadership that ensured that
for the first time last year, Congress authorized oil
exploration in ANWR.
And when Bob Dole moves to the White House next year.
Alaskans can be assured that the roadblock to our economic
development will finally be removed. He knows that
America's economic security cannot be assured so long as
we are dependent on foreign countries for more than 50
percent of our energy needs.
Mr. President, Alaskans will miss Senator Dole's
leadership and sensitivity to our State's needs. I will
miss him as a person and friend that I have grown
accustomed to talking with every day. Bob Dole's destiny
will take him to even greater challenges and
responsibilities next year. And I know he will always keep
Alaska's special needs in mind whenever he makes decisions
on economic policy.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we have just said goodbye to
the majority leader, who has just retired. He has left the
Senate with great support from those of us who have known
him and really do have a great love for Bob Dole.
I have known him since he was a Member of the House. I
was not a Member of the House, but I knew he was there in
the House. Bob Dole and I came to the Senate at the same
time. As he leaves today, I am, as he just said, the sole
survivor of the class of 1968. He has been a great friend
of mine. I have been on the floor before to say how I felt
about Bob Dole.
I have also remarked about the fact that he has also
been a great friend of the State I represent. He assisted
us greatly in the passage of the Alaska Native Land Claims
Settlement Act, which paved the way for the trans-Alaska
pipeline. He assisted me many times in matters pertaining
to the oceans--the Fishery Conservation Act, which
protects the fisheries off our shores. He voted with us on
the Alaska Lands Act, on issues that we tried to change in
that bill in 1980. He and Elizabeth Dole were very helpful
in assisting us on the Alaska Railroad transfer. As a
matter of fact, as I have told many of my friends, their
Christmas card that year was the photograph of the
Secretary of Transportation and her husband standing at
the back of the superintendent's car on the Alaska
Railroad. That was Elizabeth's trip to Alaska, and Bob was
traveling with his wife in her official capacity. He was
of great assistance to me at the time that we had the
terrible disaster of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. I could
go on and on and talk about things that Bob has done with
me.
What I really want to talk about, though, today is Bob
Dole as a leader. As he said to some of us today, he
believed that, as the leader, he tried to reach out to
those of us here in the Senate who might disagree with
him, and reach out to Americans. Recently, we had a report
of a poll in my State that showed Bob Dole is more popular
than almost any of us who are elected officials in Alaska.
He is well known in the north country because they know
that he has gone out of the way on the campaign trail to
go as far away as Alaska. I am one of those.
There are not very many of us remaining here now who saw
service in World War II. Part of my role has been to work
as chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee to
assure that we keep the mandate we received from the
Constitution to provide for the common defense.
Bob Dole has never, ever voted against those of us who
believe in a strong defense. He joined all of us who
worked together in the Reagan years to see to it that we
could rebuild our national defenses--really our total
military capability--at the time that the Soviets were
going into an enormous military monolithic Communist
dictatorship. He was quite successful in getting the
Senate to help President George Bush at the time of the
Desert Storm victory. He knows the value of defense. One
of the issues he is talking about now, as he leaves us, is
our missile defense system.
He has told us himself today about his role in the
Disabilities Act. He has worked with us in child
nutrition, and he certainly has been responsible for the
family tax credits coming back to where they should be. We
hope to really increase those in the future. As was
remarked here on the floor by our leader, he has reduced
the tax rates in our country from a maximum of 90 percent
to a maximum of just over 30 percent--for most Americans,
28 percent.
But I am really full of memories today as we have seen
our leader leave us because, as he mentioned in his
statement, in 1984, I, too, was a candidate to become the
leader of the Senate. After several votes, it came down to
a contest between Senator Dole and myself.
During the counting of the vote, he came over and
congratulated me and thought that I had won. To the
contrary. He won the election by a narrow vote. At that
time, I asked for recognition and asked Senate Republicans
to vote unanimously for Senator Dole because it was clear
we needed a united Republican group in the Senate to move
forward. In retrospect, I think that was probably one of
the smartest moves I ever made and one of the best votes I
cast--to assure that Bob Dole was elected the leader of
the Republican side unanimously. He has shown us what he
can do.
I want the Senate to know how much he demonstrated his
philosophy of reaching out. After that election, he asked
me to come see him, and he told me that he had some things
in mind. For instance, one of the things he wanted to do
was have the Senate more involved in the oversight of the
arms control negotiations that were going on at that time.
He asked me to chair the arms control observers group
which he created at that time. He got the support of the
minority, and we created a bipartisan group that played, I
think, a very successful role in working on arms control
negotiations.
He also came to me--I think this is probably not too
well known in the Senate--and said that he was
disappointed that the move to bring television to the
Senate had failed, and he asked me if I would work with
others in the Senate to bring that about. It was at that
time a privilege, really, to represent the leader in
meeting with Senators from the other side and on our side
of the aisle. There were some Senators who changed their
positions when they realized that the new leader was very
sincere and wanted to have the American public know what
was going on in the Senate.
I think that the Senate has been changed by television
coverage in the Senate--some good and some bad, but mostly
good. I believe it has demonstrated for the country what
is ahead of us if Bob Dole is successful in his new quest,
because he does reach out for people. He makes sure that
everyone involved around him has a meaningful role and
listens. He listens to advice. If there is one thing that
I think can be assured in the days ahead, it is that
candidate Dole is going to listen to America and America
is going to listen to candidate Dole. For myself, I can
think of no better thing for the country than to know that
we go to the beginning of the new millennium with a new
President.
So I hope, Mr. President, that this day, this decision
that my good friend has made to leave this Senate, which
he loves and we all love, proves to be the right decision
for him and for the country. I know that he has not left
our hearts because those of us who know him will be with
him all the way along the trail.
As the statement made by Theodore Roosevelt was read
today in our meeting, as we gave him the bust of Teddy
Roosevelt, Bob Dole has known both victory and defeat, and
he has shown his courage and his ability to stay the
course. I believe he has what it takes. I hope he will
know victory in the days ahead.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to salute the
energy, intelligence, and personal strength of a man who
is leaving a remarkable career in the U.S. Senate, the
majority leader, Senator Robert Dole.
Many of my colleagues have worked with Senator Dole far
longer than I, but it didn't take me long after I arrived
here in 1993 to develop a healthy respect for his skill as
a legislator and for his ability to lead his Republican
colleagues. Moreover, it quickly became clear to me that
Senator Dole is a man shaped and defined by his ability to
meet challenges without flinching and to overcome them.
He has been accorded well-deserved praise from both
sides of the aisle, and his colleagues on the other side
have demonstrated their respect for his abilities by
making him the longest-serving Republican majority leader
in the Senate's history.
Mr. President, Senator Dole's government career since he
joined the Senate in 1968 is widely known and respected.
He has played a pivotal role in the passage of several
pieces of important legislation, including, for example,
the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990.
For many years, Senator Dole was a supporter of
legislation to protect civil rights. For example, his
efforts were crucial in the passage of the renewal of the
Voting Rights Act in 1982.
His imprint is also on the Food Stamp Program, on Social
Security, and other important measures.
One legislative achievement that may not get much
notice, but which helps some of our Nation's most
vulnerable people, is Senator Dole's support for the
Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, or PACE.
Senator Dole and I share an interest in this innovative
long-term care program, which is a nationwide effort to
integrate services for certain elderly Medicare and
Medicaid patients. PACE has managed to provide an
extensive array of services while saving money, both
laudable goals.
On another issue--committing United States forces to
Bosnia--Senator Dole and I were in disagreement, but even
though we were on opposite sides of the final vote to send
American troops there, I recognized his efforts to work
for bipartisanship and to take a risk to support what he
regarded as the necessary action in this area.
Mr. President, it is unfortunate that, during an
election year, the Senate is so often consumed by partisan
tensions and maneuvers. Nevertheless, the U.S. Senate is
an institution where it is possible to reach across the
aisle and find common ground.
Senator Dole has devoted many, many years to the Senate
and to working on issues of enormous public interest. He
has earned the respect and admiration of all of his
colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike.
Mr. President, Bob Dole will be long-remembered in the
U.S. Senate, and this Chamber will simply not be the same
without him.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today the Senate loses one of
its true legislative craftsmen. When I came to the Senate,
Bob Dole had already earned a reputation as a legislator,
a Republican who could cross the aisle to work with
Democrats to solve problems and reach compromise. This is
the essence of the Senate. I soon learned that the
reputation of the Senator from Kansas was well earned.
Over the years my respect for his ability to craft a
legislative solution has grown. We will all miss his
skill.
We will also miss Bob Dole for his sense of humor. The
Senate can be a place of high drama, high pressure, and
sometimes high dudgeon. Bob Dole, who has himself shown a
real bite from time to time, and who is a tough fighter
for his point of view, more often than not is able to
defuse the situation, and sometimes disarm his opponents
with a quip or a flash of his wit which leaves them
laughing.
But, most of all, Mr. President, Bob Dole will be
remembered in the Senate as a man of his word. There is no
greater compliment which one Senator can pay to another.
In this body, a Senator is only as good, only as
reliable, only as effective, as his or her word. Senator
Robert Dole has earned the respect of all who have served
with him in this Senate.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, there are few true heroes in
this country, but one who has lived in our midst for many
years is Bob Dole, who has accomplished so much in his
life and is going off to accomplish more. He was a hero in
war who now and forever will bear the scars of his service
to his country. And he is a hero in peace--a man who can
maneuver through the legislative trenches with grace and
daring, avoiding minefields and pitfalls, running the
gauntlet while dodging bomb blasts from his opponents.
He leaves us today to enter a new battleground, where, I
have no doubt, he will prevail with the same creativity
and tenacity that had made him such an able Senate leader.
Bob Dole has the experience, the temperament, and the
judgment to be President. He is a man of honor and courage
who understands the workings of Government at the highest
levels but has never lost his understanding of common men
and women. That's because he is a common man, who through
the sheer force of his intellect and industry has reached
uncommon heights.
There are, of course, many stories that could be told to
illustrate the spirit and fortitude that has brought Bob
Dole to such heights, but two of my favorites date to
1952, the year he was elected county attorney in Russell,
KS, and began his political career.
One night after Bob was elected, a man named Huck Boyd
was driving through Russell after midnight and saw the
light still on at the county courthouse. Huck Boyd was
editor of a weekly newspaper and thought there might be a
break-in, so he pulled over to investigate. It turns out
that Bob Dole, the new county attorney, was still working
at his desk. And it also turns out that Huck Boyd was
Kansas' member of the Republican National Committee, and
was so impressed by this hard-working young man that he
started talking him up throughout Kansas as a future
political superstar.
But the quote I like best comes from the story of the
1952 county attorney election itself. Two young men who
had come back from World War II were running--Bob Dole and
Dean Ostrum. Dean was a bright young man who had enjoyed
many of life's advantages and was the son of perhaps the
best lawyer in Russell. Bob Dole didn't have all the
advantages of life, had seen more adversity in 29 years
than most people see in a lifetime, and was the son of
Doran Dole who worked in a local creamery. As the campaign
wore on, Bob outthought and outhustled his opponent, won
by 200 votes, and launched his political career. The quote
I like is from Dean Ostrum years after the campaign was
over:
``How long was my day? I don't know, but it wasn't as
long as Bob Dole's I'm sure of that.''
Forty-four years later that statement still rings true.
No one I know has ever outworked Bob Dole.
One of the reasons I believe so strongly in Bob Dole's
candidacy is because we share common views and values. We
believe that consensus and compromise make for good
government. We believe that rigid ideas and hardened
positions drive people apart and lead to stalemate and
paralysis. We believe in Ronald Reagan's theory of the big
tent--that the Republican Party is a caring and
compassionate organization that welcomes people of all
backgrounds, a party that does not demean minorities by
ridiculing their ancestry, a party that speaks of hope and
promise and does not exploit fears and anxieties.
We believe in a strong national defense, that America
cannot be the world's policeman, but neither can we afford
to become a prisoner of world events. Some want to walk
away from the world, but Bob Dole knows the world won't
walk away from us.
We believe that the best protection for American
industry and workers is to open up our minds through
education, training, and competition--not by shutting down
our ports. We believe we must prevent illegal immigration
but not punish those who seek the blessings of America by
complying with our laws.
Bob Dole, like Ronald Reagan before him, has dedicated
his life in public service to tearing walls down around
the world and not putting them up around America.
We also share a common belief that for government to
operate most effectively--or in this day and age some
might say to operate at all--it is necessary for
policymakers to understand that goals cannot always be
achieved at once. Progress must often come in small steps.
Bob Dole understands that principle better than most and
he has the judgment, gleaned from years of experience, to
know when those steps can be taken safely--or when one
more step will send us hurtling over a dangerous
precipice.
Bob Dole understands that power and responsibility must
be returned to the States. We have a $5 trillion debt that
is gobbling up our children's economic future, and we know
we have to slay this monster or it will surely slay us.
The man who stood for so many years beside us in the
Senate does not appear to be wearing armor. But he is.
It's made of a composite stronger than anything that can
be manufactured by campaign strategists, pollsters, or
spin-meisters. It's made of a belief in God, country,
family, honor, and duty.
I have known Bob Dole for more than 20 years as both a
friend and a leader. He is a man of good heart and good
humor who calls forth the better angels of our nature.
As President of the United States, he will make America
safe and sound for us and our children. As President of
the United States, he will help make the world safe for
America.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, as Bob Dole leaves the U.S.
Senate today, we are participating in a celebration unlike
anything we have witnessed in the Senate for many years,
and are unlikely to see again in this century. The
abundant flow of affection in the midst of applause and
tears are testimony to our recognition of Bob Dole's
investment in the Senate, our recognition of the hold his
leadership has on our perceptions of the Senate, and the
meaning of statesmanship, public service, and patriotism.
Senator Bob Dole of Kansas was easily reelected to a
fifth term in the U.S. Senate. After 8 years of service in
the U.S. House of Representatives, he is in his 28th year
of Senate service. On most days in the U.S. Senate and in
most battles, Bob Dole has been the voice and the very
visible, energetic leader of the Republican Party.
Bob Dole is the personification of hard work,
constructive intelligence, personal loyalty and the
determination to succeed against all odds.
His life has been filled with honors and recognition for
significant achievements. But perhaps the defining moments
of his life were those he spent on a mountainous Italian
battlefield.
The troops he led as an Army infantry lieutenant were
exposed to deadly enemy machine gun fire. He led the
charge to eliminate the enemy emplacement. He absorbed
withering fire which tore his body and almost ended his
life.
His heroism was recognized promptly. But his ability to
force feeling and movement into his wounded body, to
restore some hope that he could feed himself, dress
himself, and function as a working, contributing man, took
years of agonizing treatment, therapy, and persistence
beyond comprehension.
Bob Dole is intellectually and physically tough because
his very life and being have depended upon that toughness.
But those same fateful experiences have undergirded his
compassionate championship of all handicapped Americans
who have counted upon him to extend a strong hand back to
pull them into the fullness of life in America.
From his early days in Russell, KS, Bob Dole has
understood the struggle of many families to keep food on
the table. He has been the Senate champion for thoughtful
nutrition programs, including comprehensive knowledge
about food stamp distribution and a host of food programs
for the working poor of our country.
I first met Bob Dole when he was Chairman of our
national party, and later as our Vice Presidential nominee
in 1976. In the days following that election, I called Bob
Dole to thank him for his leadership and to ask for his
help in fulfilling my first Senate campaign pledge,
namely, to seek a seat on the Agriculture Committee. Even
at a time of his own personal discouragement, he was
characteristically helpful to me. I was seated at the end
of the minority side of the table as the most junior
member. I have witnessed for 20 years the mastery of Bob
Dole as a farm legislator.
His energy level is astonishing. His capacity to
entertain new ideas and his generous ability to boost
other people have strengthened my enthusiasm for this
remarkable Kansan.
He deserves the opportunity to serve our Nation as its
President. The Nation deserves his Presidency, which could
be a term of remarkable achievement based on his innate
courage and wisdom, and his universal experience with
public persons and public issues.
I will be one who strives to help him realize new
dimensions of leadership, because I have witnessed his
integrity and I have confidence in his judgment. For the
moment, I believe it is most important simply to recognize
that to applaud Bob Dole is to applaud the vitally
important concept that good people arise in America to
assume great responsibilities. Our country is stronger
because this Senator always saw his duty and inspired so
many Americans to follow him.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join in wishing the
majority leader well--but not too well--as he takes his
leave of the Senate.
He and I have differed on many occasions on many issues
during the many years we have served together. But we have
also been able to find many opportunities to work well
together on many different issues of both foreign and
domestic policy, and I have great respect for his ability
as a Senator and Senate leader.
Of course, I liked it better when he was minority leader
instead of majority leader.
In fact, we have worked closely on many significant
issues over the years. I think particularly of the
Americans With Disabilities Act in recent years. Senator
Dole was a strong supporter from the beginning. He stepped
in early and often, and prevented many abrasive
confrontations on that bill. As a result, it was enacted
with broad bipartisan support in Congress, and has become
one of Senator Dole's and Congress' most notable
achievements.
Senator Dole and I also worked well together on other
civil rights bills, on voting rights bills, on child
nutrition legislation, and a range of other issues. In
addition, we served together on the Senate Judiciary
Committee for 6 years at the end of the 1970's and the
beginning of the 1980's, and I was consistently impressed
with his day-to-day ability on the issues and his tireless
energy and dedication.
I also have many warm memories of the daily radio
debates we did together for 4 years in the 1980's on our
program called ``Face Off.'' We were usually, but not
always, facing in opposite directions on the issues, but
Senator Dole's intelligence and wit always shone through,
and helped make the daily analyses both enlightening and
enjoyable.
Often, even in the most contentious debates in the
Senate, his excellent sense of humor was particularly
effective, and he used it skillfully to defuse the tensest
moments.
Now, Senator Dole leaves the Senate with a record of
many accomplishments that have served the Senate well, the
Congress well, the State of Kansas well, and the people of
America well.
I join Senators on both sides of the aisle who have
found it a great privilege, a great honor, and a great
education to work with Senator Dole over the years. We
admire his leadership and statesmanship, and we value his
friendship. We respect him, and we will miss him very much
in the months and years ahead.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise today, as have my
Senate colleagues, to pay tribute to the distinguished
Senate majority leader, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas.
Mr. President, the great American patriot Henry Clay,
who also served as a Member of the House and the Senate,
once said, ``Of all the properties which belong to
honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of
character.''
He was right. As imperfect beings, we all strive to
cultivate virtuous qualities--we endeavor to be kind; we
are mindful to be courteous; in trying times, we struggle
to maintain a sense of humor, but character, as the fiery
turn-of-the-century evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, once so
bluntly defined it, ``is what you are in the dark.''
Character is not something one can put on, like a new
set of clothes. It is not something one trots out on
special occasions, like courtly manners. It is not
something one can pretend to possess. Yet, despite its
ethereal quality, character is unmistakably apparent. It
is the steady hand in times of crisis, the quiet voice in
times of stress. It is courage in the face of adversity,
strength of purpose, when all else seems to fail. It is a
``property,'' as Henry Clay put it, whose value is beyond
measure, a characteristic no amount of money can buy.
Mr. President, Robert Dole is a man of character. A man
who has remained true to his convictions; a man unafraid
to defend his beliefs; a man who says what he thinks, and
means what he says. He is a doer, not a talker; a fighter,
not an equivocator; a leader not a dodger.
Today he leaves the U.S. Senate and the battlefield he's
loved so well for so many years, the Senate floor. But he
goes not gentle into the good night. He leaves on one last
mission. He leaves to engage perhaps the most important
battle he will ever fight--a battle not just for the heart
and soul of America, but--more importantly--for the future
of America. A battle that will lose or save America for
the next generation; a battle to accomplish what all
generations except ours have done before us--leave America
a better place for our children and our grandchildren.
Mr. President, it is a battle that must be fought; a
battle that must be won. And I can think of no one better
to lead the mission than Bob Dole.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, today Senator Dole becomes
citizen Dole. He has every right to be proud of that hard,
courageous decision. We in the Senate have every reason to
be sorry for it.
Senator Dole leaves a legacy of lasting influence. He
led this body to historic accomplishments, including the
rescue of Social Security and the first balanced budget in
a generation. He led his party, 2 years ago, to historic
victory. And now he has accepted one more opportunity to
serve--one more chance to lead.
This is the common thread that runs through an uncommon
life--leadership. He has provided a definition of the
term.
Senator Dole has mastered the art of consensus. He knows
when a breakthrough depends on one well-placed word. He
knows how to cool tempers and emphasize agreement. He
knows how to turn the chaos of this process into tangible
achievements. These are rare and important qualities.
But this is only half of the story. I have seen another
side of Senator Dole's leadership. He once put it this
way:
I believe there is a place for honest negotiation in
politics. It is an essential part of Democracy. Every
political movement, and every public official, however,
must locate a place where compromise ends--a core of
conviction where we keep our conscience. There comes a
time when even practical leaders must refuse to bend or
yield.
For Senator Dole that core of conviction is basic and
clear, permanent and solid: safe streets, strong families,
military strength, fiscal responsibility, a decent public
culture. These commitments are nothing new and everything
important. They are rooted deeply in the soil of the
midwest in the lessons of a small town in his experiences
of suffering and service. Bob Dole understands the secret
strength of America, because he embodies it.
Senator Dole understands that Americans value freedom
and responsibility, but must still care for one another in
times of crisis and need. He understands the fears at the
edge of poverty, because he felt them in his youth. He
understands the price of liberty, because he paid it
himself. He fights strongly, because he believes deeply.
We have come to depend on this core of conviction, based
on the lessons of a life.
In his legislative career, Senator Dole has displayed
both elements of true leadership: consensus and
conscience, flexibility and firmness. He is an example to
all of us who work with him--who follow him--who respect
him. Leaving the security of the Senate is just another
example of the moral courage we have come to know the
essence of leadership at the moment of testing.
T.S. Eliot wrote, ``in my end is my beginning.'' This is
the end of a distinguished legislative career. It is the
beginning of a new mission. That mission takes Senator
Dole beyond this body, and we regret it. But I am
convinced it will take him to the White House. Senator
Dole--citizen Dole--has only begun his service to this
Nation.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to honor and remember
our distinguished majority leader, our colleague, and our
friend, Bob Dole, as he prepares to leave the Senate.
When you work with or around Bob Dole, you soon realize:
He has consistent values and an unwavering commitment to
them.
He's been in there fighting for a balanced budget--not
because of some green eyeshade interest in the numbers,
but because he knows its a moral issue.
He's been fighting for years, consistently, for a
balanced budget constitutional amendment because he
understands this is a principle of fundamental fairness,
and he understands how the Constitution really works,
protecting the basic rights of the people by preventing
the Government from abusing its powers.
I've worked with Bob Dole on other constitutional
issues, from protection of second amendment rights to
private property rights.
When Congress passes the 28th amendment--the balanced
budget amendment--some time in the near future, even
though he will have left the Senate, it will be, in part,
a monument to Senator Dole's years of hard work.
I remember many events, many battles, high points and
defeats, as Bob Dole and I have worked together for the
balanced budget amendment.
When I was in the House, in the early 1980s, Charlie
Stenholm, a Democrat from Texas, and I started CLUBB--
Congressional Leaders United for a Balanced Budget.
Pete Wilson was our Senate Co-Chair and Bob Dole was a
charter member.
When we met with taxpayer groups, and stood on the steps
of the Capitol with mail bags full of hundreds of
thousands of letters and petitions from Americans
everywhere--Bob Dole was always there with us, promoting
the balanced budget amendment.
CLUBB worked with taxpayer groups to schedule Members of
Congress around the country to meet with local leaders,
State legislatures, and others on behalf of the balanced
budget amendment.
I remember back to 1985-86 and how it impressed me that,
here was the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, a man
busy with every issue before Congress--and he took the
time and effort to travel whenever he could, wherever he
could, to bring the balanced budget crusade to Americans
everywhere.
And last year, after our constitutional amendment fell
one vote short, and then again this year, he showed that
the Senate could break with history and make history,
could muster enough courage, under his leadership, to
actually produce a balanced budget.
Citizen, Senator, Majority Leader Bob Dole has worked,
fought, and spoken to the Nation for the balanced budget
amendment because he cares about the future of our Nation;
because he cares about our children, and what kind of
opportunity we leave for them; because he cares about
having a country that provides for the security of our
seniors and the best possible jobs for our working men and
women.
Many, many aspects of Bob Dole's life have demonstrated
how much he cares about people, especially the helpless,
and about our country.
Much has been said about his record as a war hero and
his war injuries. And, of course, much has been said about
his public service.
Unlike many in politics, he has not just sympathized
with people's pain, he has been there.
Doctors first said he would not live because of his war
injuries. Then they said he would never walk again.
But he did much more than walk--he soared on the wings
of self-sacrifice and service to others.
Because of the values he learned growing up in Russell,
KS, because of the lessons of life, he understands people
and cares about people.
This understanding has shown through in his leadership
here in the Senate, where he has been perceptive about the
strengths of his colleagues and what things are important
to them.
It has particularly struck me how he, as leader, has
always looked to match those strengths and interests with
the tasks at hand to give his colleagues leadership
opportunities, and to accomplish something good for the
Nation.
The Senate will miss his leadership, his dedication, his
integrity, and how he cares about people.
And in the coming months the Nation will learn much more
about those qualities, and will call upon him for one more
heroic mission.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to join my
colleagues in paying tribute to the Senator from Kansas.
The significance of this day should not be diminished by
reference to or discussion of the gentleman's future
pursuits. They should more importantly reflect the tenure
and service that he has already given his State of Kansas,
the office of majority leader, the institution of
Congress, and this country as a whole.
Mr. President, I remember my first direct interaction
with Bob Dole in 1993 as we crafted fundamental
entitlement reform to the supplemental security income
system. I could talk today of our work in shaping the
direction of our Nation's social policies, more recently
during a very intense debate here last fall on a
comprehensive welfare reform package. I was honored to
have been of assistance to him in managing the floor
discussion, and it was during this debate that Senator
Dole's guiding hand was once again exhibited in
maneuvering this body through one of the more contentious
and important discussions of national policy.
As the youngest member of this body, however, it is with
a different perspective that I would like to focus my
remarks today. Many of Bob Dole's most significant
experiences, especially his service in defending this
country in World War II, largely precede my 38 years. His
35 years of service and leadership in Congress roughly
bridges the span of my life. And while I have only had the
honor to serve under his direct leadership in the Senate
for a year and a half, I have indirectly benefited from
Bob Dole's sacrifices, courage, and convictions for the
better part of my life.
Today's speeches have been filled with personal
reflections, tributes to service, and legislative and
policy histories that all have been influenced by the
gentleman from Kansas. As moving and genuine as these
reflections have been, time and history will truly capture
and attest to the magnitude of Senator Dole's service and
the importance of his departure.
Rapid change in the character and makeup of both
Chambers has marked my 6-year service in the U.S.
Congress. Since my election in 1990, the U.S. Congress has
experienced not only one of the largest single year
turnovers since the 1974 elections, but has also ushered
in a historic change in the majority parties of both
houses.
And in the midst of this profound change, individuals
like the Senator from Kansas have remained a stabilizing
force to this institution. As it is far too easy to get
lost in the direction of our own careers, we must not
allow ourselves to lose sense of those who have shaped the
institution of Congress and those who have left a lasting
imprint on the direction of our Nation. History will
undoubtedly record Senator Dole as one of those people.
As the longest serving majority leader in the U.S.
Senate, Senator Dole possesses an instinctive ability to
navigate the Senate's process of forced compromise. While
at times during this session these abilities have served
as a source of personal consternation, I readily
acknowledge that these are qualities that a leader must
exhibit to carry out the duties and responsibilities of
this Chamber. These are qualities that a leader must
espouse to bridge the ideological differences that
manifest themselves in the direction of our policies.
Clearly, the history and service of Senator Dole's 35
years in Congress is an inspiration to all of us and a
challenge as we, in his absence, try to foster and
maintain the integrity and direction of the institution of
the Senate.
The hallways of the Senate will long be filled with the
images of Senator Dole's presence and the echoes of his
trademark late night walks from this Chamber, through the
Vice President's lobby, and to the majority leaders office
overlooking America's Mall of monuments to this Nation--
the view across what will now be known as the Bob Dole
balcony.
Mr. President, it is indeed a distinct honor to
congratulate and thank the Senator from Kansas for his
service to our country. I rise with the distinction of
being a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and the honor of
being a colleague of the Senator from Kansas. I rise with
the privilege of representing 12 million Pennsylvanians in
the rich tradition and history of Senators Hugh Scott,
John Heinz, and Harris Wofford, who have had the honor to
serve with Senator Dole at this very desk before me, and
have been enriched by the shared service and experiences.
But most importantly, I rise as a personal beneficiary of
the Senator's sacrifice, his service, his steadfastness,
and his wisdom.
In closing, Mr. President, I stand today with the
privilege of speaking in some small way for those
Pennsylvania voices in sharing our blessing for the
continued strength, courage, and conviction in life's
pursuits for Mr. Dole and his family.
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I rise for a final,
heartfelt tribute to Senator Dole.
In another unselfish act on behalf of his country,
Senator Dole will leave the Senate where he has so well
served the people of Kansas in order to better serve the
American people as our next President.
Mr. President, by any definition, Bob Dole is a great
man--a man whose entire life has been dedicated to serving
his country with honor, with courage, and with integrity.
Bob Dole is an American hero. He fought to defend this
country during times of war. And throughout his career he
has fought for policies to ensure prosperity and security
at home and peace around the world.
Mr. President, Bob Dole has remained dedicated to the
same causes and principles that led him into public
service over 40 years ago. He is a man certain of his core
values, and anchored to his unwavering principles of
service to country, honoring individual freedom, and
bettering the lives of every American.
Mr. President, Bob Dole represents what's right about
America: integrity, courage, compassion, and patriotism.
Mr. President, it will be difficult to imagine the
Senate without Bob Dole's strong presence and skillful
leadership. Bob Dole's monumental legislative
achievements--first as a legislator and now as leader--are
the direct result of his strongly held convictions, his
forceful advocacy, his skill at debate, and his respect
and tolerance for other Senators' views, perspectives, and
experiences.
His native State of Kansas and the many noble causes he
has championed over the years have benefited from his
legislative skills. As his colleagues, we know--and
history will record--that he has had an indelible
influence on this body, our Government, our people, and
our times that will be felt well into the next century. He
will leave an imprint deeper and stronger than few
Senators in history can rival.
Mr. President, some personal comments on Senator Dole
are unavoidable at this moment. How could a Midwestern-
Kansas conservative from a rural and agricultural State
become friends and have so much in common with an ethnic
second-generation Italian from Long Island?
In Bob Dole's own words:
Al D'Amato and Bob Dole--at first glance it seems like
an unlikely friendship. One was raised on his mother's
pasta in the heart of America's largest city. And the
other was raised on his mother's fried chicken on the
plains of rural Kansas. But when New Yorkers sent Al to
the United States Senate in 1980, it didn't take me long
to discover that we had a great deal in common.
Both of us call them like we see them. Both of us
believe in the neighborhood values that made America
great--values like hard work and personal responsibility.
Both of us don't give up without a fight. And both of us
have never forgotten from where we came.
Mr. President, these insightful words are from Bob
Dole's introduction to my book. They reveal Bob Dole's
basic decency, his solid foundations, and his strong
character. These are the qualities that attract people to
Bob Dole and the reasons he is so admired.
Mr. President, as my dear friend, colleague, and leader,
Bob Dole, departs the Senate to pursue the Presidency; he
leaves with my continued admiration and support. His
unique and historic journey has taken an unexpected but
necessary turn. With his beloved Elizabeth beside him in
his quest for the Presidency, I know my friend has made
the right choice.
Mr. President, the Senate will miss Bob Dole and I will
certainly miss my friend.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, one of the stories Bob Dole
likes to tell in speeches and interviews has to do with
the events in the first 2 weeks of 1983 when, quite
literally, the Social Security system was saved. As with
many tales told on political campaign trails, it is not
one hundred percent accurate. We all recall that opening
passage from Huckleberry Finn in which Huck tells us that
we will recognize him from the book about Tom Sawyer which
was written by Mr. Mark Twain, ``and he told the truth
mainly.''
Which Bob Dole does. The only part of the tale he leaves
out is his own role. It could not have happened without
him. To the contrary, he made it happen.
I was there. I so attest. It was January 3, 1983. A new
Congress was convening. I had just been sworn in for a
second term. This was agreeable enough, indeed, hugely so,
but there was a cloud over the occasion. I had gone on to
the Finance Committee in 1977 and had worked on the Social
Security Amendments of that year, under the superb
leadership of Gaylord Nelson. We had realized the
actuarial troubles the Social Security Trust Fund would
face with the curious demography of the baby boom on the
still-distant but recognizable horizon. We put in place a
number of F.I.C.A. tax increases to provide for this. And
thought our work was done. Then came the second oil shock
and the great inflation of the late 1970's. For the first
time in our history price increases ran ahead of wage
increases. The Trust Funds sank to the point of
approaching insolvency. In 1981, the new director of the
Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman, warned
the country to expect the ``world's largest bankruptcy''
on a date certain in the near future. It wasn't as bad as
that, but Robert J. Myers, the former chief actuary, knew
it was bad enough and he passed this on. President Reagan
called for and Congress created a Commission on Social
Security Reform, headed by Alan Greenspan. We met all
through 1982, but could come to no agreement on what to
do. The year ended, the Commission ended, an
inconsequential report was drafted.
But something had, in fact, happened. Bob Dole, a member
of the Commission, had listened. He always listens, as
Senators know. But this time he was listening to
information quite at odds with all he had ever heard. That
Social Security was not a crazy New Deal Ponzi scheme
certain to go broke one day. That day being at hand. Which
is what so many members of his party were willing to
believe. No; he learned, largely from Myers, there were
difficulties but they could be resolved and should be
resolved.
On that January 3 morning, Senator Dole had an op-ed
article in The New York Times. I ask unanimous consent
that it be reprinted in the Record.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to
be printed in the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, January 3, 1983]
Reagan's Faithful Allies
(By Bob Dole)
Washington.--In this city, which makes history but
prefers headlines, today's hottest story is President
Reagan's problem with his allies on Capitol Hill. But
those who believe that they see a divisive split between
the President and Congressional Republicans ignore Ronald
Reagan's many achievements, misunderstand the role of
Congress, and exaggerate the tension between the
Presidency and Congress that has naturally existed since
the Founding Fathers found room for both in the
Constitution.
It is important to understand that Presidents of both
parties have always had differences with their friends on
Capitol Hill. Thomas Jefferson had to endure a Speaker of
the House who was not only a fellow Democrat but his own
son-in-law and who had the irritating habit of publicly
charging members of the Jefferson Administration with
corrupt land speculation.
Abraham Lincoln found his military decisions criticized
by his own party's select committee on the conduct of the
war, and his nascent plans for Reconstruction road blocked
by the so-called radical Republicans.
Theodore Roosevelt's pioneering efforts to regulate
commerce and preserve the natural splendors of the West
ran counter to the property-loving instincts of Republican
legislators.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw the wave of his personal
popularity crest in 1937, when disgruntled Democrats shot
down his plan to pack the United States Supreme Court.
Lyndon B. Johnson failed to unite Democrats behind the
Vietnam war and, in the end, abdicated. So did Richard M.
Nixon when many of his strongest supporters made clear
their distaste for his handling of Watergate. Earlier
still, Mr. Nixon watched as two Supreme Court nominees
were torpedoed by Republican Senators.
Jimmy Carter's term was rendered all but irrelevant by
Democrats of the Kennedy stripe. Now, after two years of
remarkable leadership, the equal of anything seen in this
city since the heyday of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society,
it has become fashionable to claim that Ronald Reagan's
mastery over Congress has become frayed and that his
options for future guidance have narrowed to little more
than graceful acquiescence.
Much of this is the product of journalistic boredom or
perhaps, Democratic wishful thinking. Those interested in
the sounds of genuine partisan division ought to pitch
their hearing to the tunes of Mondale and Glenn and Hart
and Hollings and Askew and Cranston.
What's more, those now debating responsibility for next
year's agenda all too easily overlook Ronald Reagan's
achievement in setting the decade's agenda. They forget
that the President has already engineered a major shift in
relations between the individual and his Government. And,
in their own preoccupation with current headlines, they
obscure a personal history of political resourcefulness
and a gift for compromise familiar to anyone who has
examined Ronald Reagan's Governorship in California.
So, before Republicans start believing the fashionable
theory of a White House-Capitol Hill split, we ought to
remind ourselves that we are led by a persuasive chief
executive, that we enjoy strong, experienced leadership in
both houses of Congress and that the issues confronting us
present as much opportunity as peril.
Social Security is a case in point. With 116 million
workers supporting it and 36 million beneficiaries relying
on it, Social Security overwhelms every other domestic
priority. Through a combination of relatively modest
steps, including some acceleration of already scheduled
taxes and some reduction in the rate of future benefit
increases, the system can be saved. When it is, much of
the credit, rightfully, will belong to this President and
his party.
Similarly, the mashed-potato circuit echoes to the
plaintive cries of born-again protectionists who address
the symptoms and not the illness plaguing our economy.
Whether through local-content legislation or export
subsidies, they would scuttle free trade and risk a global
war, with tariffs and other trade barriers as lethal
weapons. Wrong as they may be in their prescription, these
new economic isolationists have struck a responsive chord
in a nation deeply worried about present and future
employment. Again, the trade issues provide Republicans at
both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue with the potential to
reach out to working people, to demonstrate not only
verbal concern but practical solutions.
The nation's headline writers like to call President
Reagan The Great Communicator. Historians, I'm convinced,
will label him the Great Reformer. It is his willingness
to question this city's conventional (and costly) wisdom
that Republicans must emulate as we tackle priorities too
pressing to put off. No one is more eager to extend the
Reagan revolution and to avoid political trench warfare in
the coming session than Congressional Republicans.
The atmosphere within which the new Congress convenes
will be shaped by perceptions that, in politics, are
sometimes the equivalent of reality. And it is as a
supporter of the President's objectives that I express
concern about perceptions of his program. Clearly, they
will not be improved so long as the Congress, public and
news media discern an imbalance between human needs and
military hardware. When the Constitution mandated the
Federal Government to provide for the general welfare, it
said nothing about the generals' welfare.
The problem of perception might also be improved by a
closer partnership between the White House and its natural
allies on Capitol Hill. A modest but useful first step
would be more frequent and constructive give-and-take
sessions with G.O.P. leaders. For we, no less than his own
department Secretaries and other personnel, belong to the
President's official family. And we, no less than they,
wish the next two years to be as successful as the last
two.
Certainly, tackling Social Security and trade issues
will engender controversy. But the alternative is momentum
surrendered and an anxious public disillusioned. This
President has always insisted that purely political
considerations will not affect his judgment. That is one
more reason why he is free to propose and achieve reforms
on a historic scale. By doing so, he insures that he will
not have to wait for history to express gratitude.
Those who say that the bloom is off the rose for Ronald
Reagan forget that the rose is a perennial. With a little
imaginative gardening now, it will blossom handsomely in
1984.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, note that paragraph about
Social Security. ``. . . The system can be saved.''
I had read it. I went up to Senator Dole on the floor
and said, ``Bob, if you think that, and I think you are
right, oughtn't we give it one more try?'' He asked me if
I could meet with him the next day. Both of us were
planning vacations, but this came first. At 4 o'clock
next, Tuesday, January 4, we met in his office. I give you
now the events of the next 13 days. They are written from
my daily schedule, but think Bob Dole all along.
Tuesday, January 4, 1983, 4:30 p.m.: Senators Dole and
Moynihan meet with Robert J. Myers re Social Security.
Wednesday, January 5, 2:00 p.m.: Senator Moynihan meets
privately with Alan Greenspan, Congressman Conable and
Robert J. Myers re Social Security.
4:30 p.m.: Meeting at James Baker's residence with
Senator Dole, Cong. Conable, Robert J. Myers and Alan
Greenspan.
Friday, January 7, 8:30 a.m.: Meeting at Blair House re
Social Security.
2:30 p.m.: Senators Dole and Moynihan meet with Robert
J. Myers.
Saturday, January 8, 9:30 a.m.: All-day confidential
meeting at residence of James Baker--also with Richard
Darman.
Tuesday, January 11, 5:15 p.m.: Confidential meeting at
Blair House.
Wednesday, January 12, 3:15 p.m.: Meeting re Social
Security at Blair House.
Friday, January 14, 10:30 a.m.: Meeting with David
Stockman, Richard Darman and Robert Myers in Senator
Moynihan's office.
Saturday, January 15, 11:00 a.m.: All-day meeting re
Social Security at Blair House--Agreement reached.
Monday, January 17, 7:10 a.m.: Senators Dole and
Moynihan, and James Baker interviewed on ABC ``Good
Morning America'' re Social Security.
Indeed, I have a handwritten note in my Economist Diary,
``Noon Jan. 3, 10:00 p.m., January 15, 13 days.''
Thirteen days that changed the world for a good many
Americans. They were Dole days and should never be
forgotten.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, though I cannot join my
Republican colleagues in wishing Senator Dole success in
his next endeavor, I join with Senator Daschle and all of
my colleagues in wishing the distinguished majority leader
and his wife and daughter good health and every happiness
in the future. To leave his beloved institution after such
a long and illustrious public service career--for whatever
reason--is, I am sure, difficult, but there is no greater
reward than the legacy of honorable public service.
Though we may not have agreed on many issues in the time
we have served together in this body, there is one in
particular we agreed on and we worked together to make it
happen. The Brockton, MA Little League became a national
model for the establishment of a challenge division for
little leaguers with disabilities, thanks to the efforts
of Senator Dole. He is a fellow veteran and a man of
proven personal courage and deep political conviction. He
has been an integral part of the history of this
institution and he will be missed.
Whatever our politics, whatever our philosophy of
Government, this Nation, the democratic process, and the
U.S. Senate are well served by those who have both the
courage to survive against the odds in the face of
extraordinary personal hardship, and the common sense to
seek reasonable compromise for the survival of the Nation.
The distinguished majority leader's life has indeed been
one of personal courage and political compromise. His
record of public service speaks for itself, and as he
leaves here today, we wish him well. As colleagues, we
must put politics aside for a moment, remember the man and
his career, and say to the distinguished major leader:
Thank you for the lesson in service and democracy that you
have given us.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, today we recognize the
departure of a great friend and colleague, Majority Leader
Robert Dole, from the U.S. Senate. In honor of his
departure, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the
Record a poem by Albert Caswell, a longtime guide for the
U.S. Capitol, which pays tribute Majority Leader Robert
Dole.
There being no objection, the poem was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
The Measure of a Man
(By Albert Caswell)
What is the measure of a man?
Today, high atop the Senate we sit and understand.
What is the measure of a man?
It's not power, wealth, or looks, but how we conduct
our lives.
This alone, is what put us in the record books.
What is the measure of a man?
In the Senate this day, comes a great leader of
character and class,
Who climbed every mountain the Lord put in his path.
What is the measure of a man?
For against all odds, time and again, his back to
the wall,
One Robert Dole, heart of a lion, has always stood
tall.
What is the measure of a man?
Yet for all his strength and all his glory,
His warmth, kindness, and humor tell the story.
What is the measure of a man?
He walks in, stillness in the gallery, listen
closely, hear the silent tears.
Historians and friends sadly know, a man of his
stature will not come our way for many years.
What is the measure of a man?
For on this day, June 11, 1996, Robert Dole gives up
his greatest love of all,
To answer our nation's cry for leadership, he hears
the call.
Today, we see and understand,
What is truly the measure of a man.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, today has been a very
interesting day for our former leader, Bob Dole. While the
U.S. Senate suffers what I believe is a tremendous loss
today with the departure of the majority leader, Senator
Robert Dole, I can tell you it is a great day for America.
I believe that. For, while Senator Dole leaves behind a
legacy of extraordinary leadership and commitment to this
institution, his departure promises the American people a
much more important commitment to this country. But,
perhaps more important, his departure gives the American
people a better opportunity to learn more about a man that
I and many of my colleagues greatly admire and have come
to know. So I would like to spend just a few minutes to
describe the man that I have come to know, with whom I
have worked, and I hope the American people will come to
know over the next few months.
Bob Dole, Senator Dole, is a man of his word. You can
trust him. He is a plain speaker and not one for flowery
oratory. He believes in what he says. He means what he
says. He does not try to be everything to everybody. He
stands for a few important principles--not everything.
Senator Dole is honest and he is very straightforward.
He is loyal. He is a doer and he is not a talker. His
values are constant; they do not change from day to day.
He knows who he is, where he comes from, where he wants to
go, and his word is his honor. He is a man who chose
sacrifice over self, finding strength at an age when
others sought the leisure of self-expression.
Briefly, Bob Dole is a man of courage, a man of
character, a man of integrity. These measures of the man
are what sets Bob Dole apart and what has led his
colleagues in the Senate to entrust him with leadership
time after time.
It will be these same characteristics that will
distinguish for the American people who they should trust
to lead them in the years ahead. While it may be easy for
others to constantly change what they stand for in order
to distinguish themselves on the issues, character,
courage, and integrity are not mantles of convenience.
They cannot be adopted at will, converted by choice, or
otherwise assumed. They are bedrock principles.
They are like a fingerprint, intractably a part of you,
easy to trace and difficult to fake.
Over the next few months it will be for the American
people to ask the same question that the Senate has, who
do they trust to lead this Nation? I believe the answer
will be the same ultimately. It will be Senator Dole.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, on behalf of the people of
Ohio, I join all my colleagues in paying tribute to a
legislative giant who left the stage of the U.S. Senate
just a few moments ago.
The Bob Dole America saw earlier today is a person we
all in the Senate know: A man of character, a man of
integrity and a man of utter devotion to the future of
this country.
It is strange in politics, it is really an oddity in
politics that a person's public image sometimes differs
from his or her true qualities. That sometimes is the case
with Bob Dole.
I have watched some of his press conferences earlier in
the campaign and particularly read some of the earlier
stories and newspaper articles about him. When I did that,
I realized there was something missing, that this really
was not the Bob Dole that I have seen for the last 18
months.
The Bob Dole that I have seen was the real Bob Dole, the
individual, the leader, the war hero, the consensus
builder and a man of enormous compassion. In listening to
his speech earlier today on this floor, I did see those
qualities clearly on public display, as did the American
people. This is Bob Dole, many times a man of few words,
but a man who shows tremendous character and leadership in
his actions.
Upon joining the Senate a little over a year ago, I
became a Bob Dole watcher. I had the opportunity as a
Member of the House for 8 years to watch him from afar,
but I have had the opportunity now for a little over a
year to see him up close and watch how he operates and
watch how he gets things done. I have seen him, as we all
have, preside over four different meetings at once, moving
from room to room to room and never lose track of what is
going on.
Bob Dole is someone who keeps in mind the big picture. I
think the majority leader of the U.S. Senate always has to
keep the big picture in mind. Yes, he has to understand
details, he has to understand the nuances of legislation,
how you get bills passed, but he also has to keep in mind
the big picture: That you have to ultimately get the job
done, that you ultimately have to get the bill passed,
that you ultimately have to get things to happen.
This is the Bob Dole I saw earlier today. Earlier today,
Bob Dole told how he and Senator Moynihan and others made
the last, brave attempt to reform Social Security in 1983,
with the result that Social Security is safe for another
generation.
That leadership ability is still there. I had the
opportunity to see that many, many times in the last year,
year and a half, but my favorite example that I use to
illustrate Bob Dole's leadership is the welfare reform
bill that we passed. Unfortunately, the President
ultimately vetoed the welfare bill, but the bill we passed
in the Senate, Bob Dole was able to get 87 votes for.
I do not think anyone in this Chamber, anyone in this
country, none of the political experts a year ago, a year
and a half ago, if we had been talking about welfare
reform, would have thought Bob Dole could have brought a
welfare reform bill to this Senate and could have gotten
87 votes. What an achievement--what an achievement.
Bob Dole was able to deal with the Governors, trying to
put that together, certainly no easy task, and the Senate,
equally difficult. And he put together a fair and balanced
welfare reform measure. He was able to accomplish this
amazing feat, because he never lost sight of the need to
ultimately reform a system that has long failed the people
it was intended to help.
Mr. President, here is a man who is capable of making
tough decisions and right decisions. As he pointed out in
his speech earlier today, the Senate is not like the House
of Representatives. The Senate leader has fewer tools to
control the Senate than the House Speaker possesses in the
House. The Senate leader rules--not rules--really leads by
consensus. He cannot dictate, he must lead, and I have
seen, as we all have in this Chamber, Bob Dole lead.
I have been to more than one meeting with Senators, and
Senators only, where a Senator complained that he or she
had not been consulted on an issue or had some other
complaint to the leader, Senator Dole, about how things
were going, what he had done, not done. I had seen Bob
Dole look at them, as only Bob Dole can, and say, ``Well,
if you want someone else to lead, if you want someone else
to be a leader, that's fine, but you elected me to lead.
As long as I am the leader, I intend to do just that.''
And that was the end of the conversation. That is Bob
Dole. That is leadership.
But, Mr. President, my admiration for Bob Dole goes far
beyond his ability as a majority leader. It is personal as
well. Bob Dole has the insight born of someone who
suffered an enormous and unexpected tragedy. He was a star
athlete who went off to war and came back with crippling
injuries. This is not campaign hype of anything. Senator
Dole would rather downplay, and always has throughout his
life, the struggles that he encountered when he came back
and what he had to go through when he came back from World
War II. He would rather downplay what he struggles with
every day, since he was literally blown apart in World War
II.
We all expect in life to lose our parents, even a
spouse. Certain things you expect to happen, but there are
other defining tragedies that go beyond the normal course
of events, that go beyond what we are taught to expect. I
have thought about this often since suffering the loss of
our daughter, Becky. I, too, am also very reticent to talk
about such a deep and personal tragedy, but I cannot help
but admire the way Bob Dole has worked through his own
suffering. He understands daily pain, and I take great
comfort from seeing this in him. He understands that life
is not fair. Through dealing with pain, he has learned to
understand himself, and these, Mr. President, are not bad
qualities to have in a leader or in a President.
The President who comes to mind who reminds me the most
of Bob Dole in some ways is Franklin Roosevelt, who also
faced physical disability with silent courage. Like
Roosevelt, Bob Dole's identity and his understanding of
life were forged by pain. When Senator Dole made the
historic announcement last month that he would leave the
Senate, the room was very crowded. It was so crowded that
where I was, I could not see the expression on his face as
he made the speech, but I could hear the emotion in his
voice. Bob Dole has the two seemingly opposite qualities
of toughness and compassion. He had to be tough to leave
the Senate. Most people do not leave voluntarily after
spending a lifetime to get here. But he showed his more
emotional side, too, when he made his announcement. His
voice quivered during his announcement, not an easy public
display for him, and he was even more emotional when he
broke up during an earlier private meeting with us.
But as difficult as this decision was for him, I believe
he will find it liberating to have left the Senate. I
recall my own decision to make a second run for the Senate
after losing the first time. I realized at that point that
if I lost the second bid that my political career was
over. If I lose this race, what happens? The same is now
true for Bob Dole who said he has ``nowhere to go but the
White House or home.''
Bob Dole had fixed in his own mind that his time as
majority leader had passed and that the time had come for
another challenge. Once he made the mental leap from the
Senate Chamber, it was time to act.
This is the real Bob Dole. And as he said goodbye to us
then and again today, his friends and coworkers, Bob Dole
looked like a leader. He looked like a President.
Mr. President, I, like the rest of my colleagues, will
always remember the demeanor and courage of this great
statesman as he said farewell to the U.S. Senate.
Mr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, 15 months ago I told Bob
Dole I would enthusiastically support his quest for the
Presidency of the United States. We see in his quest for
the Presidency that he now has left the Senate of the
United States. I think all of us have so many emotions
that we are feeling today. I know the Nation, the Senate,
and I would regret the day when the clerk would call the
roll and the name of Bob Dole would no longer be called.
That day has now arrived.
It would be easy to dwell on the truth that the Senate
will lose a man that history will hold in a place of great
honor. Rather, I think it is more important that we
celebrate Bob Dole's victories, his leadership, his humor,
and his ability to get things done.
Mr. President, I want to discuss for a moment, then, a
personal experience that I had with Senator Dole. It was
with great pride and honor when Senator Dole designated my
legislation to stop unfunded Federal mandates, S. 1. As we
all know, the significance, of course, is that this
denotes a majority leader's stamp of approval in his
priority on legislation. A majority leader does not want
his bill that he has designated ``No. 1'' to fail.
Having said that, it is all the more remarkable that he
chose my legislation because I had only been here 2 years.
I had no track record. It would have been far safer for
Senator Dole to choose some of the seasoned veteran
Senators, such as Senator Domenici, Senator Roth, or
Senator Hatfield, to carry this type of legislation. Not
only did he choose my legislation, but he then designated
me to be the floor manager, a responsibility I had never,
ever done before.
I say this not in any way to somehow bring attention to
myself, because I say this with all humility, to make it
clear that Bob Dole was not taking the normal course of
action. It was indicative of his leadership of reaching
out to others who may not have had all of the credentials,
all of the experience, but who do have a passion to get
something positive done.
He transfers his belief in a person so that that person
will not ever want to let Bob Dole down. I believe that is
what he will do for all of America. He will tap that
spirit in others and help them to reach new heights. It is
one thing to have the ability to do something yourself, as
Bob Dole has that great ability, but it is a greater
achievement to instill in others that same can-do spirit
and then go and do it. But you must have someone who
believes in you.
Bob Dole believes in people. Bob Dole believes in
America. He instills in others that desire to reach within
yourself and to do something great. It is a high honor to
be elected by your fellow citizens to serve in the U.S.
Senate. To then have been able to serve while Bob Dole was
here magnifies that honor.
When we had the debate on Senate bill 1, Senator Robert
C. Byrd described the new majority leader, Bob Dole, to
his Democratic colleagues by saying, ``The leader over
there is tough. Wait and see. He will use the rules on me,
and I respect that, and I admire that.''
Well, yes, Bob Dole is tough. He is tough, but he is
also wise. When duty calls for him to be bipartisan, the
man knows how to be bipartisan. But he also knows when it
is time to be partisan, and he can be partisan. He is
tireless. How many times have we been here on the floor of
the U.S. Senate at midnight, and many of us are starting
to find that our energies are sagging, and there is Bob
Dole, crisp, with his humor that props us up, keeps us
going. There is Bob Dole, who has a solution.
I am going to miss hearing Bob Dole telling Senators to
work it out, work it out, work it out. If it could not be
worked out, he would always say, ``Do you have the votes?
Let us vote.'' For my part, Bob Dole taught me the
importance of working with and listening to all Senators
and of seeking solutions that do not abandon principle. I
want my children, Heather and Jeff, to learn from Bob Dole
that they can overcome any adversity--any adversity that
comes their way. I cannot think of a more honorable man
that I would entrust the future of my children to.
Finally, a word to Elizabeth and Bob Dole. I hope you
leave the Senate with a deep and abiding satisfaction of
mission accomplished, job well done. My wife Patricia and
I will keep you in our prayers in the coming months, and
we will ask for God's peace and protection for your
family. We look forward to working with you--you, who I
believe will be the next President and First Lady of this
great country.
Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today
in wishing our majority leader a senatorial farewell. His
contributions are well known, his integrity is
unquestioned, and his service has been an example for each
one of us on both sides of the aisle.
I want to just comment about the service factor in his
life and how we are all drawn to those who serve--whether
it is a Boy Scout who walks a hobbling grandmother across
the street, or a community clothing drive, raising money
for charity, or a PTA member spending hours at local
meetings. Service we admire, service we respect, and
service from our elected officials we always expect.
Majority Leader Dole is no exception. Kansans expect him
to represent their interests. Republicans expect him to
lead the party, and Senators--well, we expect him to guide
us through the joys and trials of partisan politics. So,
as a U.S. Senator, I have often expected him to serve me
as well. Long before leaving this Senate, Bob Dole had my
admiration. Long before he led this Senate, he had my
respect, and I am led to believe that long before he was
decorated as a war hero, I would have wanted Bob Dole as
my friend.
The issues we debate during the 104th Congress we have
debated before. Like a pendulum, important issues swing
away from us, and eventually they swing back. Every so
often, we see a leader who is able to stop the pendulum,
who is able to lead us into a solution that gives the
pendulum a bit of a rest. For the causes of the
disadvantaged and disabled Americans, Senator Dole has
proven to be such a leader. And for the need to reduce our
deficit, he has few equals.
As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I have seen
the work that he has done. I have seen the money come in
and, with greater detail, I have seen the money go out.
Senator Dole's legacy is his willingness to fight for the
welfare of today while just as eagerly vying for the
welfare of our children and our grandchildren for the
future.
So, in 1968, he joined the ranks of this body, and in
1996 he leaves. I shall not wish him a happy retirement,
for no matter what lies ahead, he will not retire. I
expect his service will always continue. I wish him well.
Antoinette and I both pray that Bob and Elizabeth's future
will be strewn with God's blessing.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, not far from the Capitol,
on Constitution, across from the Navy Memorial, is a
building that houses the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution of the United States and other major
artifacts of our beginning. On the outside of the
building, it says, ``The Past is Prolog.''
As I have heard the eloquent statements throughout the
day and throughout the past several weeks about our
majority leader, this has come to mind, because the future
is always guided and shaped by the past.
Bob Dole is a man of this century. Bob Dole's life
experience is that of a giant figure in American history.
The experiences of his life are immeasurable. The
knowledge that has been accomplished by it would be hard
to calculate. The capacity that it represents has a far
and long reach. So when the Senator from Kansas came at
midday and gave us his farewell address, you could measure
some of the energy and reach and capacity of this world
figure, of this American figure, by the response that he
received on both sides of the aisle, and throughout
America, I am sure.
I have always said that whenever I think of Bob Dole, I
think of the heart and soul of America. I think we saw
that expressed over these last several days. He truly is
the embodiment of everything that we have come to think of
as America--the fortitude to overcome adversity,
perseverance, patience, strength, agility,
entrepreneurship, problem solving, getting things done. He
leaves with the love of his family of colleagues, all who
have wished him a safe and secure journey. He
characterizes what is yet before him as ``one more
mission.'' I think that statement properly casts what lies
before him, but it also reminds us of what he has endured.
He is a man who has endured and built the American
mission. He brings to his task, as I have said,
immeasurable resources.
I believe, as Senator Simpson alluded, that as Americans
come to know him as his colleagues do, they will readily
embrace this man and his mission and his love for America.
I loved it when he gave that famous address as he
announced that he would retire from the Senate. He said,
with no disrespect to the Congress, that his life had not
been about the Congress. He said, ``My life has been about
America.'' Gratefully, it still is. So I join those in
wishing him a safe journey and Godspeed.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise at this time to speak
in concert with so many others who have spoken today about
the career of Senator Bob Dole who today moved on to a new
role and new responsibilities and left behind a legacy
that is virtually unsurpassed in the history of the
Senate. Obviously, the accomplishments that Bob Dole
achieved, both as a leader in the Senate as well, in his
earlier career, as a Member of the House of
Representatives, have been chronicled pretty thoroughly
both by the media as well as by Senator Dole himself
today. It is a legislative record that any of us would be,
I think, immensely proud to have at the end of our careers
here in this institution.
So, what I thought I might do instead was to just spend
a minute or two talking about the personal side of Bob
Dole, the side that many of us here in the Senate know but
which is maybe not as well known to the American people.
I have certainly come to know Bob Dole as a friend. He
is somebody who, from the very day that I arrived in the
Senate, had a door that was open to me, and I know it was
open to others in the freshman class that makes up this
104th Congress. He is a man who did not view himself as a
senior Member and we as, somehow, junior Members not to be
on the same playing field, but somebody who viewed us all
as Members of this institution, as equals, who treated us
that way, as he treats everybody.
He is a man of great compassion, a person who, through
his own life's experiences, I think, probably cares about
and sympathizes and understands the problems that his
fellow citizens have more than virtually anybody else in
national leadership. He is a person who, I think,
personifies the words trust and honesty and integrity more
than anybody I have ever worked with in the political
process or in the private sector. I have never known
anybody who has served with Bob Dole who has not said that
his word was good, that his word was always one that you
could count on. That is clearly a reason why he is held in
such high esteem on both sides of the political aisle.
These qualities, his capacity to be a good friend, his
compassion for his fellow citizens, the honesty, the trust
and the integrity that he brought to his service here in
the Congress of the United States, make him a giant, in my
opinion, a giant who will be remembered far beyond the
balcony which today was named after him. But he will be
remembered along with the names of Webster and Clay,
Johnson, Mansfield, and others who have served and who are
remembered as the important ingredients in the formation
of our democracy and its continuation.
I would just say this. Although my tenure in the Senate
has lasted only a year and a half, I am extraordinarily
proud that I had the chance for that year and a half to
serve with Bob Dole. I happen to be one of those who
believes that his career in public service is not coming
to an end today but that in just a few months he will be
back in a different role, working together with us. But I
am proud that I had the chance to serve as a fellow Member
of the U.S. Senate with him.
Some people come to this Chamber and perhaps never are
given the opportunity to work closely with one of the
giants of our Nation's history and of the Senate's
history. I feel very lucky and fortunate to have had that
chance, even if it was only for a year and a half.
I wish him and his family great good fortune as they
move on to a new challenge in this political campaign, and
the best of luck and best wishes for the future.
Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to
our friend, Bob Dole. It has been my pleasure over the
years to hold over 30 joint meetings with him in my State,
in my time as a Congressman and as a Senator and when he
was running for South Dakota's early primary. There were
at least 30 meetings. I learned a great deal from Bob's
service, and I learned that his tireless energy was always
an inspiration to me. In fact, he would always shake hands
with everybody at the end of those meetings, regardless of
how long it took. But he offered a great deal of substance
when somebody asked him a complicated question. He would
give the full Senate answer, so to speak. I believe that
he will go down as one of the great Members of this
Chamber, in terms of legislative accomplishments and
contributions.
I was one of the first Senators to commit to him for
majority leader or minority leader--whichever was the
case, because at the time we did not know for sure. I was
one of the first Senators to endorse him for President. I
think his career in the Senate represents the best of
Senate life. I guess everybody knows about his wit and his
determination. I could never believe or comprehend how he
had so much energy. He literally went 7 days a week. He
would be as energetic on Sunday night when he was coming
back to Washington.
I also visited at least 15 States with him during the
time he was a Presidential candidate or chairman of the
party or when I was a Congressman, and he did the same
thing there, too. He was not a golfer or a tennis player.
He just worked all the time. I have never seen anything
like it. He would fill up the whole weekend with work and
visits. To him, it was service. I just would not have that
much energy because I need a day off now and then. I pay
tribute to him because he is one of the great Members of
this Chamber that I have served with, and it has been my
pleasure to work side by side with him.
I have a number of other reminiscences, which I will
place in the Record. During this short time, let me also
say that I have felt a great deal of friendship and still
feel a great deal of friendship with Bob Dole. He is a
person with whom I could always talk to if I was
struggling in some of my campaigns, or whatever. He would
always be there to help. Just recently, he invited me
along on four stops in several States with him. His energy
is as great as it has ever been.
Bob Dole is a great man. He will be a great President,
and I will miss him very much here in the Senate. It feels
lonely around here without him already, without his quips,
and so forth. I came in a little late at lunch today and
he said, ``You are late, Pressler. We are going to count
you late.'' He was full of quips all the time. I pay
tribute to my friend, Bob Dole, a great U.S. Senator, who
will be a great President.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we witnessed today the
departure from the Senate of one of the giants of American
history. On a day like this, obviously, all of your
memories come back to you. I remember the first time I met
Bob Dole. It was in this room in the early part of 1969. I
was a fuzzy-cheeked staffer back here on what was then
these big stuffed couches. Bob Dole was a freshman
Senator. Since desks on the floor of the Senate were
assigned on the basis of seniority, he sat near the back.
I remember him as being the most popular of the freshman
Republicans with the staff. Why? Because he was nice to
us. This is a place where, as many know, some Senators are
a little full of themselves and frequently are not all
that nice to staff. Bob Dole was not only nice to us, his
humor was often practiced on us before he related some of
it on the floor.
In short, you could sense from the beginning, from the
day Bob Dole walked in here, that he was something
special, that he was not going to be just your average
Senator. So like everybody else, I watched his development
over the years. I left as a staffer and went back home to
do my own thing. My next recollection of Bob Dole was in
1980, his first campaign for President, which was not
conspicuously successful. I remember picking him up one
day in Kentucky and taking him to a meeting and watching
him tirelessly work the crowd. He had to have a sense that
his campaign was failing. But as Woody Allen said,
``Eighty percent of life is showing up.'' Bob Dole was
driven. He always showed up. He continued to push.
The next time I saw him was in 1984, 3 days before the
Senate race in Kentucky. All of a sudden, the word had
spread around that this challenger in the Senate race in
Kentucky might have a shot. Bob and Elizabeth Dole came
in, and we wheeled around the State in their plane, and
they gave me the boost I needed at the end to get over the
finish line.
In short, like everybody else here, I have had a number
of reminiscences of this great American. On a day like
this, they all come back. It seems like there is a giant
sort of gap here in the Senate with his departure. Today
was a bittersweet day for all of us. I think it is kind of
a mixture of exhilaration for him that he goes out on this
new challenge, undeterred by all of the restraints that
are obvious here, but at the same time he regretted his
departure. I only add: Godspeed, Bob Dole. I think we will
be seeing you in Government once again.
Mr. SMITH. Madam President, today I rise to join so many
of my colleagues in a tribute to my friend and my leader,
Senator Bob Dole, who, as we all know, is leaving the
Senate today, June 11, 1996.
As a former history teacher, I could not help but sense
the historical significance of this day. It really was a
flashback to the old days of the great oratory that took
place on the Senate floor, with the likes of Calhoun and
Clay and others, when Bob Dole took the podium that he so
many times has stood at and addressed the U.S. Senate. You
could hear a pin drop in the Chamber and in the gallery,
not always the case here on the Senate floor, with a lot
of hustling and bustling and talking and people not paying
attention.
That was not the case today. Senator Bob Dole took that
podium, addressed the country, the Chair, his colleagues
and friends, many, many staff in the galleries, and the
Chamber was hushed and quiet and everybody was listening--
as well they should, Madam President, because when the
history books are written, they will write about the great
Senators who have occupied this Chamber: Henry Clay, John
C. Calhoun, Bob La Follette, Robert Taft and, yes, Daniel
Webster. Daniel Webster used this very desk, Madam
President, that I now have the privilege of speaking from.
It reminds me that we are just a brief blip on the radar
screen of time; here for only an instant. But Bob Dole is
one of the great ones, and he will be remembered as one of
the great ones.
As a history student, I tried to catch a sense of what
was happening. I looked at faces, watched people in this
Chamber, as I watched, at the same time, Senator Dole.
Without singling anybody out by name, I could not help but
notice one page, a young lady, standing here on the floor
of the Chamber during that speech and after the speech
with tears running down her cheeks. It really was a very
moving tribute to the kind of person Bob Dole is, because
he commands the respect of not only his colleagues but
every single man, woman, youngster, page. He could talk to
a page as easily as he could talk to a President or world
leader. That is what makes him such a great man.
Today, he left the Senate to move on to other things. I
remember many emotional private goodbyes that he shared
with his colleagues. I remember when we had the meeting
when he told us he was leaving. Most of us did not expect
him to do it. If we were honest, we would say we did not
expect him to say that. We thought he might leave the
leadership post but not the Senate. But when he did it,
and the way he told us, we knew it was the right thing. We
knew it was right, because he needed to be out there
debating, not other Senators on the floor of the Senate,
but the President of the United States for the Presidency.
We all knew that.
Today, I think you saw with the type of speech that Bob
Dole gave the kind of person he is: humble, gracious, and
humorous, that great sense of humor. In all the tough
battles we have here, he still finds that humor, which has
always been a remarkable characteristic.
So he is leaving the Senate. But he left today after
that speech with the longest applause that I have ever
seen given anyone in this Chamber or in the House Chamber.
I have seen Presidents when we have gone to the State of
the Union--great Presidents--receive a lot of ovations. I
have never seen anybody receive a longer ovation than Bob
Dole received here today, and that is a tribute to this
great man who was elected to the House of Representatives
where, Madam President, you and I both served together. He
was elected in 1960 and served four terms in the House
before he was elected to the U.S. Senate, which really has
come to be, the past 27 years, his home.
But he gave nearly 36 years of service to the State of
Kansas and to the people of the United States of America.
When you think about that many years of public service and
reflect on the fact there is not one word or taint of
scandal in any way, shape, or form, an unblemished,
perfect political record, it is remarkable.
He served his country and the Senate and the people with
humor, with humility, and we will never forget him.
His wife, Elizabeth, who has been by his side for so
many years, is such a gracious woman and such an asset to
Bob Dole. Those who serve here know how important the
support of your family is as you put in the long, long
hours that we have to endure in the Senate.
Bob Dole said today in his remarks, ``My word is my
bond.'' That is what it is all about. It is character. It
is integrity and character. If you leave here, the legacy
you leave, if no one says anything about you other than
when he gave his word he kept it, you cannot do any better
than that.
I tried to think about what I might say here as my
tribute in my own way, because so many people have so many
wonderful things to say about this great man. I just want
to share a couple of personal things, because they are
important to me and I think it captures my feeling about
Bob Dole.
I come from a military family. My father served in World
War II as a naval aviator and was killed at the end of the
war, leaving my mother as a widow to raise my brother and
me. She did that alone. I lost my dad, as I say, in World
War II, and Bob Dole nearly lost his life in that same
war. Severely injured, he had to fight his way back, not
only from the brink of death but after that, paralysis,
and became a U.S. Senator.
But we, the sons and daughters of that generation, those
of us who had parents who were in that war, World War II,
we know, we are grateful. Perhaps we know and are a little
bit more grateful than others for what they did and the
sacrifices they made and how important they were to save
the world from tyranny. It took heroes like Bob Dole--and
he was a hero, he is a hero --it took heroes like Bob Dole
to make that happen. We owe him, and thousands of others
like him, a huge debt of gratitude for their service and
their sacrifice to our country, because when the call
came, they stepped up and they stopped tyranny.
So Bob Dole did not get here the easy way. We hear a lot
of stories about how everybody in the Senate is rich and
everybody gets here the easy way and you live this great
life, but Bob Dole made it the hard way. You cannot help
but admire and respect a man like that.
I turned to him in 1993 to be a part of one of the most
personal and meaningful experiences of my entire life, and
I want to share that with my colleagues and with the
American people.
When my father died in 1945, it was 2 days before my
fourth birthday, so I only have two memories of my dad. My
brother has no memories of our dad, because he was less
than a year old. I had always wanted to have my father
buried at Arlington, but I never wanted to bring that
subject up with my mother because he was not buried at
Arlington and I did not want to put my mother through that
experience of having his remains moved from where he was
buried in New Jersey to come here to Arlington where I
believe he would have liked to have been laid to rest. So
I put it off.
Then in May 1993, my mother passed away. She used to say
she was a one-man woman, and she was. She never remarried
after she lost my dad. But she always would go by the
cemetery and she would say, ``Put me there with him so
that we can be together forever.''
When I made the decision to bury my parents--both of
them--at Arlington National Cemetery in May 1993, I asked
Senator Dole if he would have the time to come and give a
few remarks at that service. Within a matter of minutes,
the response came back: ``Of course.''
I asked Bob Dole to say just a few words. I listened as
this man made connections to my parents that I just could
not believe anyone could do so spontaneously. He did not
know my mother. He did not know my father. But I listened
to Bob Dole say very movingly of how my father had stood
guard in the night and how he had made the ultimate
sacrifice. I listened as he spoke of how my mother had
stood guard here at home when my father went away to war.
I listened, Madam President, and I knew how proud my
father and mother were, looking down from Heaven to see
this American hero, Bob Dole, speaking at their memorial
service in Arlington National Cemetery.
He even made the connection my dad served on the U.S.S.
Wichita. He said, ``Any man who would serve on the U.S.S.
Wichita, named after a city in Kansas, had to be a great
man.'' He made that ceremony so personal that many of my
relatives came up to me afterwards and said, ``Did Senator
Dole know your parents?'' I said, ``I think he did. I
really think he did.''
So holding Bob Dole in the esteem I do, I was honored
that only 8 months into my first term in the Senate,
Senator Dole selected me to be vice chairman of the Senate
Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. It was a great honor
for me to serve in that capacity. I shall always be
grateful to Bob Dole for giving me that opportunity. Of
course, he also selected me for the Ethics Committee, and
I may hold that against him for a little while.
But, Madam President, in 1994, I had another moving
experience. I attended the 50th anniversary commemoration
of D-Day at Normandy. I saw there a sight that I will
never ever forget. My wife Mary Jo and I went, and Bob
Dole went as well. He retraced his steps in Italy. To see
him there back with those people who helped to save his
life, and to walk those hills where he was wounded, and
then to go to Normandy after he left Italy, to the beaches
of Normandy with those rows and rows and rows of crosses,
and to think of the sacrifices, and men in wheelchairs,
men with lost limbs, hugging, saluting this man--it was a
great honor just to be there for the celebration of
Normandy, but to be there in the company of Bob Dole, I
shall always be grateful to Senator Dole for giving me
that opportunity. I have never seen such admiration,
gratitude, respect, and love as there was for that man.
They loved him. They absolutely loved him.
Another just little thing, but last summer I had two
young interns, just college kids, Jennifer Kilgus and Greg
Annis. They were walking down the corridor of the Capitol,
just taking a walk. They decided to stop in to the
majority leader's office just to say they went in there,
hoping maybe they might have the chance to meet Bob Dole.
Not only did he agree to see them with no appointment,
but in the midst of a very busy schedule he spent 15
minutes talking to them, two young interns in his office,
giving them the thrill of their lives. That is the kind of
man Bob Dole is. That is why there were tears in the eyes
of that page when Bob Dole said he was leaving.
Finally, Madam President, as the senior Senator from New
Hampshire, I cannot help but note that somehow Bob Dole
has managed to spend quite a bit of time in New Hampshire
over the past few years. He lost a tough primary in New
Hampshire but went across the Nation with a stunning
series of smashing primary victories as he won the
Republican nomination for President. Gracious in defeat
and gracious in victory.
He has been to New Hampshire just to enjoy its beautiful
lakes and mountains and countrysides. Perhaps, Madam
President, you never know, there might even be a summer
White House in New Hampshire someplace.
Final anecdote. I remember Senator Dole, I believe 2
years ago, saying to me, ``You know, my Elizabeth would
really like to go water-skiing. But we would really not
like to have a crowd around. Could you arrange that so
that we didn't have to have a bunch of people with cameras
so she could relax and enjoy herself?'' And we did. She is
a great water-skier, too.
So, Madam President, I join my colleagues in saying
farewell, but not goodbye, to Bob Dole. The last thing I
said to Senator Bob Dole on the floor of the Senate, as I
shook his hand after his remarks, was, ``I'll see you at
your swearing in for President on the West Front of the
Capitol on January 20, 1997.'' He said, ``I'll be there.''
I said, ``I know you will, Mr. President.'' I have been
proud to serve with Bob Dole in the U.S. Senate. I will be
prouder still next year to fight as a Senator to help
President Bob Dole pass the agenda that he dreams about
for America.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, I will take just a
couple of minutes beyond that which was allocated to me by
the Senator from Nebraska to say that I, too, listened
very intently to Senator Dole's remarks today. I was
touched and moved by them.
I will not go into his record, and I will not go to any
length, but I want to say that Bob Dole is someone whom I
have admired over the years, with whom I have worked very
smoothly. When he said it, he meant it. When he meant it,
he said it. That is the way he operated.
He is part of a generation, of which I also am, and that
is the generation of World War II veterans, a dwindling
group, I regret to say. This year we will see several
leave because, in addition to Senator Bob Dole, Senator
Hatfield, and Senator Heflin will leave, and the group
tightens and shrinks. It is not a very pleasant prospect
to contemplate. But, nevertheless, it is a decided loss to
take away the experience, the knowledge, the reflection of
those who served in World War II at a time when America
was a much different place, at a time when the values were
established by tightly knit families, by those who worried
about the loss of a loved one or the injury of a family
member in the war. It was a huge war with somewhere around
14, 15 million people from our country in uniform. It
touched every family in America. There was not a family
that did not have close contact with that war.
We were also the generation that benefited enormously--
enormously--from an educational program called the GI bill
that was afforded to people like me and many others who
serve here, where it changed our lives. The military
experience was one thing. I served in World War II, not
under the same level of danger that Senator Dole or
Senator Inouye served, but people in my unit were killed.
It changed our lives because of the experience of the war,
the fear, the danger, the detachment from family. When I
enlisted in World War II, my father was already on his
death bed, a man of just 43 years of age. And a family of
four became a family of two virtually overnight.
But the experience of serving my country, the
opportunity to do so, the opportunity to get an education,
is something that ought to be firmly implanted in
everybody's mind in this place and in this country, where
an education can change one's life, as it did, I know for
so many of my colleagues. Certainly, it did for me.
Without giving a personal biography, that is not my
intent, just to say that we will miss Bob Dole. We will
miss his experience and we will miss his wisdom. I wish
him well--not quite as well as the Senator from New
Hampshire, but that is in terms of the upcoming
Presidential election--I wish him, personally, well and I
wish him and his family many good years of enjoyment and
good health.
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, I will not keep us long in
the closing hours of the U.S. Senate in what will
certainly be recognized and reported as a historic day.
Madam President, this evening I want to add to my
earlier remarks two thoughts that I think are appropriate
as many of our colleagues have come to the floor today to
express their sadness, their reminiscent thoughts, and in
some instances our joy that Bob Dole is now free to lead
our party, my party, the Republican Party, in his quest
for the Presidency.
Over the last 2 years I have had the privilege of
developing a unique relationship with leader Bob Dole. I
chair the steering committee here in the Senate, better
known as the conservatives, or a group of conservatives,
and there have been many occasions when I have been
instructed by that group to go sit down with our leader
and express our concern over a given issue.
It has been over the course of that time that I have
gotten to know Bob Dole for the person that so many have
spoken to today: a man whose leadership, and his concern
about our country and this institution, the Senate, was
always foremost. He did so in style and dignity. Bob Dole
is one of those people who could tell you no with as much
sincerity as he could tell you yes; that he would take
your issue and carry it forward, or that he did not
believe what you were discussing with him was appropriate
at the time and that sometime in the future it might fit.
That was the kind of person who I have grown to know and
respect in my first term here in the U.S. Senate.
Another issue that Bob Dole has been more than fair to
this Senator on is the issue of my leadership on the
balanced budget amendment. I had started that effort in
the House in the 1980's, but it was some years after Bob
Dole had already presented the idea here in the U.S.
Senate. I, along with the Presiding Officer at this
moment, had felt the importance of this issue and had
worked hard to make it a national issue.
When I arrived here in the Senate in 1990 as the
citizens of Idaho chose me as one of their U.S. Senators,
Bob Dole was very quick to say, ``Larry, that is your
issue, and we want you to lead.'' As our committee
meetings went forward, or as there were press conferences,
or as there were other gatherings in behalf of a balanced
budget amendment, Bob Dole attended them religiously. But
with his seniority and with his prestige, he was always
willing to step back and say to people like myself, or
Orrin Hatch, or others, or Paul Simon, ``This is your
issue. You lead with it. You carry it.''
When we convened the historic 104th session, as Bob Dole
become the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, he was very
quick to say to me and others, ``This is an issue that
will be one of our lead issues this year, and I want you,
Larry Craig, or Orrin Hatch, or Paul Simon, to lead me.''
What I am saying is that in all of the opportunities
that Bob Dole had to be in the forefront, there were many
occasions when he was very willing to step back and let
others lead, and I think that is the sign of a leader. I
think that is the expression of the confidence that he had
in himself, but at the same time the willingness to share
that with all of us as he saw the importance of broadening
our base and carrying these issues forward.
I, along with every Senator in this body, will miss Bob
Dole as our majority leader.
But I say that I am excited about the future. And I am
excited about the opportunity someday, as I believe I will
have that opportunity, to say to Bob Dole, ``Mr.
President, it is my pleasure to serve you.''
ORDER FOR PRINTING A SENATE DOCUMENT
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent
that the tributes to Senator Dole be printed as a Senate
document.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Wednesday, June 12, 1996.
Mr. KYL. Bob Dole's statement upon announcing he would
give up his Senate seat to run for the Presidency--that he
is ``just a man''--packs a lot in a simple string of
words, as is his habit. This phrase captures the modesty,
the simplicity, and above all the straightforwardness and
honesty of the Senator from Kansas. Men like Bob Dole
achieve great things because they go at them directly,
with no ifs, ands, or buts asking a lot of themselves and
taking responsibility for the bottom line.
Senator Dole's more than 35 years of service to the
Congress of the United States have been filled with great
accomplishments because he never let up, he brought people
of different views together to hammer out legislation, and
he was an honest broker trusted by everyone. My father,
Congressman John Kyl of Iowa, served with then-Congressman
Dole in the House of Representatives in the 1960's and
knew him to be a man of leadership and utter integrity. As
Congressman Dole, and later Senator Dole, learned his job
as a legislator, he never lost that sense of being ``just
a man'' from Russell, KS. He is not one to be dazzled by
the bright lights, the pomp, and the power of Washington.
He came armed with the simple virtues of his Kansas
constituents, and those same virtues are evident in him
today. He remains the embodiment of the heartland of
America--a place much maligned by sophisticates, perhaps,
but a place that still has the moral strengths that we
Americans define ourselves by: dedication to duty, plain
but honest speech, and an awareness that limited
government requires of office holders that they never take
their power for granted. When Bob Dole says that he is
grateful to have served his fellow citizens, those are not
empty words. We believe him.
In his parting statement today, he hold us that ``there
are some issues that transcend politics . . . and result
in legislation that makes a real and lasting difference.''
Whether it is a matter of supporting civil rights,
doggedly backing our military troops in an unpopular
conflict in Indochina during the 1960's and 1970's, or
ensuring access to public places for disabled Americans in
the 1990's, he has often put aside partisanship and laid
it on the line for the things he believes in. His
statesmanship, his ability to come to closure for the sake
of the common good, is well known to those of us who have
worked with him inside this institution. But perhaps few
outside of the Congress are aware of it. If everyone could
know him as we do, they would see a man with an
extraordinary capacity to see beyond the heated conflicts
of the moment, to keep the big picture in mind, and to
reach a consensus that yields practical results. If
everyone knew him as well as his colleagues do, they would
see that Bob Dole has everything it takes to be President
of this country.
Of the Senate he now says, on the day of his departure,
``It is a place that I have loved.'' Again, no rhetorical
flourishes, just simple words of emotion, and all the more
powerful for being unadorned. He reached the pinnacle of
leadership among Senate Republicans, and for all too short
a time has been leader of the Chamber itself. But he has
walked away, and in characteristic style. Bob Dole is at
the peak of his powers. But he moves on, ready to take on
the biggest challenge in a life full of challenges. He has
demonstrated--and in a remarkably dramatic way--that he is
not one to rest on his laurels; instead, he is the kind of
man who does honor to every contest he enters.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute
to Senator Robert J. Dole of Russell, KS for his 35 years
of service in the U.S. Congress. Tuesday was a sad day for
the U.S. Senate, for we lost one of our great leaders. It
was also a sad day for me personally, for I lost a trusted
colleague and a valued friend in the Senate. As the
Republican leader in the Senate for 11 years, Senator Dole
has left his fingerprints on every piece of legislation
that has passed the Congress. His legacy will be
remembered forever as one of vast legislative achievement.
I got my first glimpse of Senator Dole's legislative
abilities when I came to Congress in 1975. In the wake of
Watergate, and the massive congressional turnover that
ensued, I was secured the position of ranking member of
the House Agriculture Subcommittee with jurisdiction over
the dairy industry. As a member of the Senate Agriculture
Committee, Senator Dole and I worked closely together on
many issues. I remember well the bonds we formed as
conferees together on farm bills and working together to
pass legislation for food stamps and child nutrition.
Later, as I gained seniority on the House Education and
Labor Committee, we worked together again on disability
policy. Senator Dole's commitment and determination to the
passage of legislation ensuring that all Americans,
regardless of physical disability, had equal opportunity
was inspirational.
In 1989 when I became a member of the U.S. Senate, I had
the privilege of seeing Senator Dole's leadership
abilities first-hand everyday. I have watched with
amazement his ability to pull legislative initiatives out
of the fire, and prevail on issues from civil rights to
Social Security reform. In Vermont there's a saying, ``You
can't get there from here.'' Well, Senator Dole proved
that adage wrong time and time again as he has moved
legislation through the Senate.
In an institution where you are only as good as your
word, Senator Dole prospered. His ability to build
coalitions and form consensus on some of this Nation's
most pressing issues is a testament to his integrity and
character. In a world that has become ever more crude and
impertinent, Senator Dole has defined ``the word''
civility.
Tuesday was a bittersweet day, for although I'm sad
Senator Dole has left us in the Senate, I know he'll be
close by as he seeks higher aspirations. I only hope that
he knows that this is one Senator who feels that the U.S.
Senate will never be the same without him.
Monday, June 24, 1996.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, in my 22 years here in the
Senate, I have had a chance to witness many historic
events in this Chamber. When I leave the Senate, I hope to
write a book about some of these.
One of the truly historic events was a speech given by
our former majority leader, the senior Senator from
Kansas, Senator Dole. I think, Mr. President, that there
will be historians who read the Record of that event; but
in reading the Record they will read only the words. They
will not really see the event. I would like to add, for
those historians who may read that, that at the time
Senator Dole gave his speech, most of the Republicans and
most of the Democrats were on the floor.
As the Presiding Officer knows, when Senators speak,
even though we may all be on the floor, oftentimes we do
not listen. This was an exception. Every single Senator on
the floor listened, and listened carefully. They heard a
speech that was vintage Bob Dole--plain to the point, with
flashes of the humor that we know so well. Even when he
was corrected by the then distinguished Presiding Officer,
the President pro tempore, when the President pro tempore
spoke of his around-the-clock filibuster, Senator Dole ad
libbed. ``And that is why you are not often invited to be
an after dinner speaker.''
There is far more than just humor in that there is real
affection from Senators of both parties--affection for a
man who earned it. He earned it as one of the finest
Senators I have had a chance to serve with. I have been
here with great majority leaders, such as Senator
Mansfield, Senator Byrd, Senator Baker, Senator Mitchell
and, of course, Senator Dole. I was thinking how good it
was to be in a Senate led by Senator Dole on the
Republican side and Senator Daschle on the Democratic
side. It is not just his leadership, but his role as a
U.S. Senator that earned him respect and affection from
both sides of the aisle.
I began serving on the same committee with Bob Dole when
I came here as a junior member of the Agriculture
Committee. I watched how he worked with Hubert Humphrey
and George McGovern, as well as key members on the
Republican side, on nutrition matters--school lunch,
school breakfast, and food stamps. After Senator McGovern
and Senator Humphrey were gone, it fell on me to pick up
our side of the aisle on that.
Throughout the years, there were a number of Dole-Leahy
and Leahy-Dole amendments on nutrition that passed. I have
worked with him on major farm bills. This last one was the
Dole-Leahy-Lugar farm bill in the Senate.
When Senator Dole was ready to leave the Senate, I went
to see him, and I spoke to him and told him that it had
been a privilege to work with him and that there were an
awful lot of people who were fed--hungry Americans--
because of legislation we were able to work on together.
It certainly was not just me, by any means. I think of
another giant in the Senate, Pat Moynihan, who stood in
the well of the Senate, with Senators milling around, and
had a conversation with Senator Dole. It was in the early
1980's when we thought the reform of Social Security was
dead. Senator Moynihan said to Senator Dole, ``Let us try
one more time.'' And because the two of them worked first
on what was best for the country--not necessarily what was
best for each other's political future or the future of
the parties--and they worked in a nonpartisan fashion,
they saved Social Security. It required two Senators of
that stature, with respect on both sides of the aisle, to
do it, and Senators who were willing to put everything
else aside.
So much will be written during this year, and each of
our parties will support our nominee for President. No
matter which was the Presidential election comes out, the
country should understand that it benefited by Senator
Dole being in the Senate. I say this as a Member of the
other party. I hope that all Senators, Republicans and
Democrats, will realize that the Senate itself is bigger
than any one of us. We owe a duty not just to our
political fortunes, but to the U.S. Senate and to help be
the conscience of this great Nation. We have to work
together, first and foremost, for what is best for the
Nation, not each other.
I salute the good Senator, my good friend, Senator Bob
Dole, and I will miss him here in the Senate.
Proceedings in the House
Tuesday, June 11, 1996.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, today is the day of the ``great
escape.'' The presumptive Republican Presidential nominee,
Robert Dole, is leaving the U.S. Senate after 35 years of
service on Capitol Hill.
As a loyal Democrat, let me first salute Mr. Dole. His
service to his country, both in World War II and since,
has been exemplary. He has been a legislative leader, one
that is virtually unparalleled in terms of his own party's
leadership, and he has been at the table when many of the
most important legislative achievements of the last
several generations have been enacted, and I salute him
for that.
But I certainly do understand why he wants to escape
from the 104th Congress, the Congress which the gentleman
from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] called his ``revolution.''
Take a look at what Mr. Dole is leaving behind as he
leaves Washington, DC. First, the failure of this 104th
Republican Congress to enact meaningful health insurance
reform. Families that I speak to across the State of
Illinois and around the country are justifiably concerned
about the availability and cost of health insurance. There
is a bipartisan bill, the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, that is
languishing now between the House and the Senate waiting
for enactment. Mr. Dole will be leaving Washington without
the enactment of this important health insurance reform
legislation to help working families.
Second, Mr. Dole is leaving town without a minimum-wage
increase. That is something that is long overdue.
Fortunately, 30 or 40 Republicans broke from Speaker
Gingrich here in the House of Representatives and joined
the Democrats in passing minimum-wage increase legislation
just a few weeks ago, but Mr. Dole will be leaving town
without this bill being enacted into law.
He came into Chicago a few weeks ago and took off his
tie, and put on a sports coat and said, ``I'm just a plain
individual out here running for President, just one of the
people.'' I hope he gets a chance in that capacity to meet
some minimum-wage workers, and I hope they get a chance to
ask Mr. Dole why he left town without helping them and
their families cope with the increasing cost of raising
their families and providing for a sound future.
He will be leaving town without a balanced budget, and
that is something which could have been achieved with
bipartisan cooperation.
Mr. Dole will be leaving Washington without this 104th
Congress having acted to expand access to educational
opportunity. Instead, the Gingrich-Dole agenda cut back on
college student loans for kids from working families. I do
not understand that. I would not be standing here today if
it were not for a college student loan through the Federal
Government. My story has been repeated millions of times
over in the United States: kids from working families who
could not afford college tuition turn to the Government
for a helping hand. Instead of providing that hand, the
Gingrich-Dole Congress has basically cut off educational
opportunity for so many kids, not only at the college
level but also at the lower levels.
There has been no real welfare reform when there should
have been. We ought to be able to agree that this welfare
system can be reformed meaningfully, that we can, in fact,
have provisions that are tough on work but not tough on
kids, and unfortunately the Gingrich-Dole proposal was not
one that really would reform welfare and help people come
off of welfare and become taxpayers.
There are no tax cuts for working families that Mr. Dole
can point to from the 104th Congress. The Gingrich-Dole
Republicans have wanted to make tax cuts for the wealthy,
to cut Medicare to come up with money to give to wealthy
individuals.
But what the President has proposed is much more
sensible: Let us give working families a helping hand to
pay for the college education of their kids. Now, that is
something that families all over America can identify
with. People, when they have a new baby in the family, go
over and greet the new baby and congratulate the new
parents, and after a few minutes inevitably the
conversation turns to, well, we better start saving some
money for this little boy or this little girl and their
college education.
President Clinton has a proposal to give working
families a helping hand, a tax deduction or a tax credit
to pay for college education expenses. Mr. Gingrich and
Mr. Dole will hear nothing of this, and, as a consequence,
Mr. Dole will leave Washington without having done
anything in the 104th Congress to help expand that
opportunity.
There have been no improvements in pension security. A
lot of workers across America are paying into pension
funds wondering if the time comes when they retire that
the money will be there. The gentleman from Georgia
[Gingrich] has provided in his own bill opportunities for
corporations to raid these pension funds. The people that
I speak to, the workers I speak to, want security in those
pension funds. It is a shame that Mr. Dole is leaving
Washington without the 104th Congress having addressed
that.
And, finally, no improvements in environmental
protection. In fact, the Republican budget that Mr.
Gingrich and Mr. Dole worked on would cut the number of
Superfund sites that will be eradicated in this country.
It is understandable that Mr. Dole is leaving
Washington. Certainly we can understand why a presidential
candidate would want to leave the scene of this political
accident known as the 104th Congress.
Wednesday, June 12, 1996.
Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday Senate majority
leader Robert J. Dole became a private citizen. He left us
in Congress a legacy of integrity, honesty and character.
Character is something that you develop when no one is
around, as Senator Dole did in his service to his country
during World War II and the 39 months that followed as he
struggled to regain his ability to walk. Honesty is
something that he has provided to the American public even
when it was unpopular. Integrity is something Senator Dole
has undergone with three decades of public scrutiny and
three presidential campaigns. He has worked hard
throughout that time to do the right thing.
Mr. Speaker, we will miss Senator Dole on the Hill, but
we will welcome him with open arms as he moves into 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, as I stood on the
floor of the other body watching my friend Bob Dole say
farewell, I was impressed, as always, by his remarks--
which were delivered with his trademark sincerity and
self-depreciating humor. But I was just as impressed with
the response he got from the crowd, which ran the gamut
from Senators and House Members to capitol tour guides,
pages, and Senate staff.
It was clear to me that everyone present, regardless of
party affiliation, age or importance, held this man in
high regard. There was a palpable sense of affection and
respect in that room--the kind of affection and respect
that is only given to someone who has earned it over the
years.
I would venture to say that although most Americans know
about Bob Dole's leadership; his record of service; his
keen intellect, and his commitment to making a difference
for America, many of them do not know what the crowd in
the Senate Chamber knew--that Bob Dole is a man with
tremendous heart, and that he has served the American
people, and the institution of the Senate for many years
with everything he had to give.
Bob is known around here as one of the kindest, most
generous people in Washington--the man who knows everyone
in the Capitol, from the plumbers and the carpenters to
the Senators and the reporters--and treats everyone the
same. He is known as a leader of great skill, vision, and
rock-solid integrity, and he is known as a man with heart.
It was Bob's heart that led him to serve our Nation
during war, and that gave him the strength to recover from
injuries that would have killed many men.
It is his heart that makes him someone who is
consistently rated as a favorite by Capitol employees, and
who has gone out of his way time and again to help me
since I came to Washington. It is his heartfelt belief in
the American ideals of hard work, individual
responsibility and helping others that has led him to work
night and day to make a difference for this Nation.
Bob Dole is a proven leader and a true American hero. He
has the character, the courage, the compassion--and the
heart--to lead this Nation into the next century, and I
join with all his other friends, and colleagues in wishing
him well as he departs Capitol Hill to move on to his next
challenge.
ARTICLES AND EDITORIALS
[From the Buffalo News, May 18, 1996]
Bob Dole's Leadership in the Senate Was One of Contrasts;
and Consensus
(By Elaine S. Povich)
In 1983, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole played a
pivotal role in bailing out the Social Security system.
But in a bold budget-cutting move 2 years later, the
Kansas Republican pressured the Senate to vote for a
reduction in the Social Security cost-of-living raise--
only to see then-President Reagan and the right wing of
his own party abandon him and contribute to the loss of
his Senate majority.
In 1981, Dole engineered Reagan's tax cut, but he spent
the next several years passing tax-increase bills, with
acronyms like TEFRA and DEFRA, trying to make up the
revenue that was lost.
Dole was instrumental in bringing together unlikely
coalitions to pass bills like the Americans With
Disabilities Act and to secure aid to the Nicaraguan
Contras. His 27-year Senate career, while notable for its
achievements, is a study in such contradictions, capped
off by his decision to leave at a time when the body is in
disarray and desperate for the kind of leadership Dole
provided so well in the past.
The current Republican effort to roll back the 1993
gasoline tax and the Democratic effort to increase the
minimum wage are in limbo, the budget is not passed and
health care legislation is mired in controversy.
Even the race to succeed him is up in the air. Majority
Whip Trent Lott (R-MS), is poised to move up to the top
job but could face challenges from fellow Mississippian
Thad Cochran as well as Senator Don Nickles (R-OK), or
possibly Pete Domenici (R-NM).
Nonetheless, Dole will be remembered in the Senate for
using strong-arm tactics when necessary or patiently
outlasting rivals to shepherd controversial legislation.
He almost always looked lively and awake, even during
legislative sessions that lasted all night.
``I think Bob Dole will go down in the history of the
Senate alongside the modern greats such as Lyndon Johnson
and Robert Taft,'' said Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), who has
been a rival of Dole both in this year's Presidential
campaign and in the Senate. ``He is a great leader and a
great legislator. ``Dole is a consensus builder, and
that's the basic glue that holds the Senate together,''
said Gramm, who earlier in this year's Presidential
campaign had criticized Dole for putting consensus over
conviction.
Even his Democratic rivals respected his skill.
After the Super Tuesday primaries in March when Dole had
all but clinched the Republican nomination and returned to
Senate business, Minority Leader Thomas Daschle (D-SD),
told reporters, ``Look at this week; Bob Dole came back
and things got done.'' That week, the Congress struggled
out of a budget stalemate and passed several other pieces
of legislation.
Wednesday, West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who like
Dole has served as both majority and minority leader,
called his colleague ``a tireless workhorse of a
legislator.'' And Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, who heads
the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said that while
he disagrees with Dole ``on many of the major issues, I
still find it easy to admire and respect the man and what
he has done for the Nation.''
When Dole made a bad decision, even a whopper, he
usually dismissed it with a quip and went on to the next
thing. As part of a 1982 tax-increase bill, Dole supported
automatic tax withholding of 10 percent of interest and
dividends. The outcry that followed implementation of that
legislation was so strong that Congress repealed it the
next year.
``We made a little mistake,'' Dole commented wryly to
reporters at the time.
According to Senators, it was Dole who first realized
how to put together a Republican coalition to stop
President Clinton's health care overhaul plan 2 years ago.
Ideological rivals such as Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-
MA), respect him in the old-style way that allows them to
be congenial after hours. But there's no question that
recent Democratic efforts to stymie legislation led to
Dole's increasing frustration and his inability to use the
Senate as a platform from which to run for President.
Earlier in his career, working with Reagan, Dole was
able to gain approval of the aid to the Contras, something
Reagan wanted. But Dole also passed through the Senate
sanctions against the government of South Africa in the
1980s--something the Senate wanted but Reagan did not.
And while he seems to be able to mold his positions on
many issues in extraordinary deal-cutting ability, he has
a couple issues that are heartfelt, including helping the
disabled and aiding agricultural interests.
Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who became a
close Dole adviser after Gramm dropped out of the race,
said in an interview Wednesday that Dole had another key
quality--his ``dedication to the office of President of
the United States.''
McCain also noted that Dole had the deep respect of both
sides of the aisle.
``If there was a secret ballot for President among the
Members of the Senate,'' McCain said, ``the vote would be
100 to zero.''
a
[From the Plain Dealer, May 21, 1996]
That Was the Real Bob Dole
(By Senator Mike DeWine)
The Bob Dole I know is the person the country saw when
he bid farewell to a 35-year career in the U.S. Senate to
run for President.
In politics, one's image quite often differs from one's
true qualities, and that certainly is the case with Bob
Dole. I watched his earlier press conferences and read the
stories in the newspapers about him and realized something
was missing. That something was the real Bob Dole, the
individual, the leader, the war hero, the consensus
builder and the man of enormous compassion.
Listening to his farewell speech, I saw those qualities
on public display when he used concise words to carry a
larger message: that he has not just made up his mind to
run for President but he intends to win. Bob Dole is a man
of few words, but he shows tremendous character and
leadership in his actions.
Upon joining the Senate a little more than a year ago, I
became a Dole watcher because of my fascination with how
he got things done. I've seen him preside over four
meetings at the same time without losing sight of the big
picture. He did not get bogged down in petty details, as
some critics have claimed, but rather was able to do just
the opposite by understanding what needed to be done.
As an example of his leadership ability, he pulled
together a broad coalition to reach a consensus on welfare
reform that passed the Senate by a whopping 87 votes
(though unfortunately it didn't get past the President's
desk). But Dole was able to deal with the governors, no
easy task, and the Senate, equally difficult, and put
together a fair and balanced welfare reform measure. He
was able to accomplish this amazing feat because he never
lost sight of the need to reform a system that has long
failed the people it was intended to help.
During his farewell speech, the majority leader showed
what was so evident to those who have worked with him--he
can make the tough and right decision. What few people
recognize is that the Senate leader has fewer tools to
control the Senate than the Speaker has in the House. The
Senate leader rules by consensus of 100 of the biggest
egos in the world.
I've been to more than one meeting where a Senator
complained that he or she had not been consulted on an
issue. The Senator's ego was bruised. Dole would answer
those complaints by saying, ``If you don't want me to be
the leader, then I won't be the leader. But someone has to
make the decision.''
My admiration for Bob Dole goes beyond his ability as
the majority leader. It is personal, too. He has the
insight of someone who suffered an enormous and unexpected
tragedy. He was a star athlete who went off to war and
came back with crippling injuries. This is not campaign
hype; if anything, he would rather downplay what he
struggles with every day since he was blown apart in World
War II.
We all expect in life to lose our parents, even a
spouse, but there are defining tragedies that go beyond
the normal course of events. I've thought about this since
suffering the loss of my daughter, Becky. I, too, am
reticent to talk about such a deep and personal tragedy
but I cannot help but admire the way Dole has worked
through his own suffering. He understands daily pain, and
I take great comfort from seeing this in him.
He understands that life is not fair. He has learned to
understand himself through dealing with pain. These are
not bad qualities to have in a President. The President
who comes to mind, who reminds me the most of Bob Dole, is
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who also faced physical disability
with silent courage. Like Roosevelt, Bob Dole's identity--
and his understanding of life--were forged by pain.
Because the room was so crowded last Wednesday, I could
not see the expression on Bob Dole's face during his
speech, but I could hear the emotion in his voice. He has
the two seemingly opposite qualities of toughness and
compassion. That was true last week. He had to be tough to
leave the Senate; most people do not leave voluntarily
after spending a lifetime to get there. But his more
emotional side was shown too. His voice quivered during
his announcement, not an easy public display for him, and
he was even more emotional when he broke up during an
earlier private meeting with us.
As difficult as this decision was for him, I believe Bob
Dole will find it liberating to leave the Senate. I recall
my decision to make a second run for the Senate after
losing the first time. I realized that if I lost this
second bid, my political career would be over. I thought,
``If I lose this race, then what happens?'' The same is
now true for Bob Dole, who said he has ``nowhere to go but
the White House or home.''
More than ever, I am convinced he will go to the White
House. He is convinced that he will win or he would not
have made the decision to leave the Senate. It was not a
question of whether he could run for President and lead
the Senate at the same time. What Bob Dole needed to fix
in his own mind was that his time as majority leader had
passed and the time had come to be President. Once he made
the mental leap from Senator to President, it was time to
act.
This is the real Bob Dole. He looked presidential as he
bid us goodbye. I will always remember his demeanor and
courage during his farewell to the Senate.
a
[From the State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL), May
24, 1996]
As Member of Congress, Bob Dole Has Had Few Equals
(By Robert W. Merry)
The stunning nature of Bob Dole's Senate exit and the
political ramifications of his remarkable decision served
to obscure an important element of the Dole story last
week: the man's legislative brilliance.
Whatever the outcome of the Kansas Republican's
Presidential quest, his Senatorial record now stands as a
life's work, complete unto itself. And it rises to a level
of greatness with few equals in our era.
Not since Robert A. Taft of Ohio has the Congress
produced a Republican legislator of Dole's skill, finesse
and force. Among Senators in the postwar era, one could
argue, Dole stands in a select circle that includes only
himself, Taft and Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas.
Others might add Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen and
Montana Democrat Mike Mansfield.
Either way, Dole is destined to bask in the soft glow of
congressional history.
The Taft analogy seems most apt as the nation
contemplates the Dole legacy.
Like Taft, Dole toiled for most of his leadership days
in the minority, yet left a large stamp on multitudinous
pieces of legislation. Like Taft, Dole sometimes revealed
himself as a man of slashing partisanship, yet tossed
party impulses aside when it came time to divide up the
pie. Like Taft, Dole stood aloof from his colleagues, yet
seemed devoid of pettiness.
And like Taft, Dole loved the Senate, yet found it too
small for the hungers of ambition that gnawed within.
Thrice did each man seek his party's Presidential
nomination. Taft never got it; Dole finally did.
There is another parallel. Both Taft and Dole
demonstrated their legislative acumen as committee
chairmen--Taft at Labor and Public Welfare, Dole at
Finance.
Dole's early work as Finance Committee chairman is
illustrative. He took over in January 1981 as Ronald
Reagan ascended to the White House, and the first order of
business was the new President's tax-cut measure. Dole's
initial approach was to reveal no discernible approach.
He said little. Nobody knew where he stood or where he
intended to go. It drove administration officials crazy.
That was precisely what Dole wanted, for he was caught
between the President and his own troops. Reagan wanted a
``clean bill'' that included only two bold initiatives,
for individuals and businesses. But members of Congress
were clamoring for a host of favored tax provisions, and
Dole had to respond to those desires.
Through weeks of mumbling punctuated by perfectly timed
maneuvers, public and private, Dole sent two signals to
the White House: If they wanted a bill, they would have to
negotiate only with him; and they would have to
compromise. In the spring, when Dole finally unveiled his
compromise plan, it quickly became the basis for the
Reagan approach. And when the plan finally cleared
Congress in August, Reagan got the credit; but the man
with the greatest impact on the final product was Dole.
Dole dominated the legislative maneuvering that produced
the big 1982 tax-increase bill, the 1982 Voting Rights Act
extension, the 1983 Social Security overhaul and a 1984
effort to produce a deficit-reduction ``down payment.''
Those successes led to his 1985 election as the Senate's
Republican leader.
Though his victory was a narrow one, Dole moved quickly
to inject some discipline into GOP ranks and bring a sense
of purpose to the chamber.
Dole likes to call himself a conservative, but he really
isn't one. His views and political passions are eclectic
and don't fit into any coherent public philosophy. Dole is
motivated first and foremost by the thrill of the
legislative game, the challenge of turning bills into
laws, the complex and delicate task of piecing together
coalitions for action.
He dislikes true believers and ideologues, for they
stand athwart his purposes. Soaring rhetoric leaves him
cold, for it so often gets in the way of legislating.
And yet soaring rhetoric is what fuels a Presidential
campaign and gives it coherence. It's what turns the
curious into the committed and draws the committed to the
cause.
We'll see now whether Bob Dole, unfettered from his
beloved Senate, can muster the tools of Presidential
politics and mount a serious challenge to President
Clinton. We may even get a chance to see whether his
particular mix of political skills and impulses can guide
a Presidency to success.
a
[From Time Magazine, May 27, 1996]
The Hard Way
(By Richard Stengel)
dole springs a surprise--he wants to be president so much
he's leaving his beloved senate to do so
It was time to go and he knew it. Not just because he
was faltering in the polls (although that played no small
part), not only because he was getting trampled in the
battle of Pennsylvania Avenue (a skirmish in which he
seemed to shrink rather than grow), but because every
morning when Bob Dole walked into the well of his beloved
Senate, he could lose himself in the mechanics of
legislation, forget for a while that he had a greater task
remaining before him than cobbling together a Republican
majority for a cloture vote.
Bob Dole had to quit as both majority leader and Senator
in order to make the Presidential race real to himself.
Only by surrendering something he loved could he prove to
himself--and to the voters and to Beltway know-it-alls--
that there was something he valued even more. Only by
giving up everything could he show he was willing to risk
everything. As the song goes, now he had nothing left to
lose.
In a low-ceiling room in the Hart Senate Office Building
that was as dreary as his speech was soaring, Bob Dole,
his prairie voice thick with emotion, said, ``I will seek
the Presidency with nothing to fall back on but the
judgment of the people and nowhere to go but the White
House or home.'' In front of his Senate colleagues, with
whom he is far more comfortable trading quips about
subcommittee chairmen, he sounded positively Reaganesque.
While his colleagues looked on in sadness, Dole announced
that he would resign on or before June 11, ``and I will
then stand before you without office or authority, a
private citizen, a Kansan, an American, just a man.'' He
said he would do it his way, the hard way. ``For little
has come to me except in the hard way, which is good
because we have a hard task ahead of us.''
Official Washington was caught off guard by the
announcement, not only because few had thought the crusty
majority leader would give up the perquisites of office
but also because even fewer had believed that Dole had
such a bold stroke in him. They were surprised that Bob
Dole could surprise them. The announcement came just as
various Republican muckamucks around town were talking
about doing something radical, but none counseled anything
quite as radical as what Dole himself concocted. In the
past when Dole campaigns flagged, he fired staff members.
This time he fired himself. Noted former Senate aide
Lawrence O'Donnell: ``Psychologically, Dole could never
take walking out on the Senate floor as a mere Senator. He
had it in him to resign but not to take a demotion.''
In the latest TIME/CNN poll, conducted in the 48 hours
after Dole's speech, the soon-to-be-ex-Senator's
favorability rating jumped from 43 percent to 51 percent.
But while a majority of Americans approved of Dole's
action, more than three-quarters of registered voters said
it would not affect how they would vote in November. Yes,
they cotton to the old campaigner a little more now, but
still not enough to vote for him. Bill Clinton held a
formidable 22 percent lead over Senator Dole, a margin
that suggests Dole was not exaggerating when he said he
had a hard task ahead.
Dole's reconfiguration of that task began about 4 weeks
ago while he was refurbishing his tan at his Florida
retreat. It was there he resolved that he needed to shake
things up dramatically, perhaps make a clean break with
the Senate. When he returned to Washington, he discussed
in a vague way the pros and cons of such a move with
campaign chief Scott Reed. Then on April 23, the day of a
desultory telephone conference call to the G.O.P.'s ``Team
100'' fund raisers, Dole sat in the sun outside his office
with novelist and Wall Street Journal contributor Mark
Helprin, whose writings on Dole had made an impression on
the Senator. Helprin broached the idea of Dole's quitting
everything--and realized that Dole was a step ahead of
him. ``When I raised it,'' Helprin recalls, ``he was
looking out over the Mall. His eye seemed to be fixed on a
vector between the Washington Monument and the
Smithsonian.'' As though talking to himself, Dole said,
``If I'm going to run for President, I'm going to have to
run for President.''
The following day Dole conferred with Reed in his Senate
office and without preamble said he was going to resign.
From the majority leadership? Reed asked. No, the whole
shooting match, Dole replied. Reed recognized the
``transformational'' power of such a move and encouraged
Dole to go with his own instinct. As a candidate
unencumbered by office, he could follow his own version of
triangulation, distancing himself from Newt and attacking
Beltway Bill.
That same day Helprin was meeting with John Buckley, the
new communications adviser, at Union Station, when Buckley
got a message for Helprin to phone Dole. Helprin called
from a pay phone, and Dole asked him to take a shot at
writing a resignation statement. For the next few weeks
the two talked every couple of days, with Helprin faxing
Dole versions of the speech. Helprin came up with the
allusion to Antaeus, the giant in Greek mythology whose
strength was replenished when he touched ground. Dole
liked that. But there was much he didn't like. They went
over the speech word by word at least a dozen times.
Editor Dole, Helprin says, had ``the compression of age.''
But matters slowed after that. One brake on the strategy
was Elizabeth Dole. At the outset she was concerned that
her husband would be diminished without the mantle of
majority leader and that he would be forsaking the
limelight of the Senate for the uncertainties of private
citizenship. But she was coaxed onto the bandwagon.
By early May, however, party leaders were losing
patience with Dole, who seemed to be getting trapped in a
legislative spider web of the Democrats' making. Internal
Republican polls showed independents tilting dangerously
Democratic (only 28 percent of registered independents
said they backed Dole in a recent TIME/CNN poll). Even
voters who were disappointed with Clinton were not moving
to Dole but shifting to undecided. In a series of private
meetings and at various dinners, Republican National
Committee chairman Haley Barbour declared that Dole had to
focus on the Presidential campaign ``to the exclusion of
all else,'' a phrase he repeated so often it became a
mantra.
On May 4, Dole took Barbour aside and told him he was
going to resign both jobs. Barbour was as relieved as he
was astounded. Reed pushed Dole to make the announcement
on May 7, but Senate business intervened. Instead, May 15
was chosen. Dole, Reed and Helprin all agreed that the
speech should be short and poignant. Dole discussed with
them whether to include a section contrasting himself with
Clinton, but then demurred. Although he was resigning, he
had come to praise, not to bury.
The morning after the speech, Dole opened the Senate
(old habits die hard), then lit out for the territory--
first stop, Chicago. He boarded the plane in his Senate
uniform, dark suit, starched white shirt, sober tie, and
then--Honey, get me wardrobe!--emerged in Chicago in
khakis and open-neck shirt. ``Quick-change artist,'' Dole
quipped. Clothes make the new man. It was Bob Dole,
Unplugged and Untied.
In Chicago, Dole gave a reprise of his ``what I did for
love'' speech (choking up at the same points) in front of
an audience of 500. But it was not just an elegy; he also
attacked Bill Clinton as ``the champion of the Great
Society status quo'' and defended the 104th Congress--``We
kept our promises. He vetoed them.'' The event was one of
the last pure Dole campaign events paid for with campaign
funds. Dole is down to his last $200,000, and from here on
out, he will go almost exclusively to State and local fund
raisers so that his travel tab can be picked up by those
groups. Dole will piggyback on the R.N.C. wherever he can
and worry about spending violations when the campaign is
over.
Bill Clinton hadn't believed Dole was resigning until he
heard it himself from Dole by phone. The official White
House response was muted, gracious; Clinton advisers
treated it as a bittersweet retirement party for a
distinguished elder statesman. Behind the scenes, however,
they cast it as an act of desperation by the loser in the
battle for Pennsylvania Avenue. ``It affects our plans not
a whit,'' says senior adviser George Stephanopoulos. They
know Dole will get a bump in the polls and a push from the
press. ``The press will be determined to give Dole this
moment to tighten up the race,'' press secretary Mike
McCurry says slyly, ``because they're so pathetically
bored right now.''
Voters don't cast ballots because of a single speech--or
a change in wardrobe--but a speech can make people sit up
and take notice, give a guy another chance. That's what
Dole's speech accomplished, at least with fellow
Republicans and Washington pundits who were already
planning their post-November career moves. But when voters
give Dole another look, they must see more than a quick-
change artist. Dole's defining moment will instantly
become a nonevent if he does not live up to his rhetoric.
``Once we had a 73-year-old majority leader with no
message. It won't work if in a month we just have a 73-
year-old ex-majority leader with no message,'' says
Republican strategist Bill Kristol. His message cannot be:
I've quit the job I really love, so give me a better one.
Dole's transformation represents the third ``new'' Bob
Dole of this campaign year. After New Hampshire there was
Battlin' Bob Dole fighting for the soul of the Republican
Party. Of late there has been Bob Dole, a Doer not a
Talker, and now we have Bob Dole, Just a Guy Without a
Tie. But Bob Dole, Citizen, may be the real thing,
suggests Dole biographer Richard Ben Cramer, author of
What It Takes. ``His resignation,'' Cramer says, ``puts
him in touch with the younger Bob Dole, the Dole of the
Russell High basketball team who would go and pat
everybody on the backside when they were losing in the
fourth quarter, the never-give-up guy.''
It will take more than just the doffing of a tie to make
voters see Bob Dole, Kansan, instead of Bob Dole, Capitol
Kingpin. But there is consolation if they don't. Now that
he has, as he put it so eloquently, left ``behind all the
trappings of power, all comfort and all security,'' he can
ascend to what Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter
called the highest office in a democracy, above even that
of the Presidency: citizen.
a
[From U.S. News & World Report, May 27, 1996]
Reinventing Bob Dole
(By Jerelyn Eddings; Steven V. Roberts, Gloria Borger,
Kenneth T. Walsh, Bruce B. Auster, David Bowermaster,
Linda Kulman)
the senate leader takes off his tie, turns his back on
congress and bets it all on his campaign
For one brief moment, the Nation's Capital was stunned
into uncharacteristic silence. After 35 years on Capitol
Hill and a long career as the ultimate insider, Senate
Majority Leader Bob Dole cast off Washington, took off his
tie and set out to remake his image and restart his
stalled Presidential campaign. Known for his mordant wit
and taciturn style, Dole had kept his own counsel for at
least a month, conferring only with his wife and campaign
manager, and had waited until the last minute to tell even
his closest friends in Congress of his decision to leave
the Senate. At the end, they crowded in around him, solemn
and teary eyed, obscuring the view of Dole's beloved
Capitol much as they had obscured the message he had been
trying to deliver to America. Surrounded by his allies and
rivals, Dole stood alone. Henceforth, he said, he was no
longer a man of Congress but a private citizen ``without
office or authority'' seeking the highest job in the land.
Dole's big gamble was described as brilliant by friends
and desperate by foes, but it was at once
uncharacteristically bold and quintessentially Dole. He
had listened to advice, assessed the situation, made his
own decision in his own time and then done what he decided
he had to do in order to reach his goal.
That goal, of course, is the White House, but Dole's
immediate aim was to breathe new life into a campaign that
was coming under increasing criticism even from within the
Republican Party. His bold stroke did that, at least
temporarily: It silenced his critics, energized his
supporters, caught the opposition off guard, won the
attention of an unfocused Nation and severed Dole's
connection to the Congress that had been his home and was
supposed to be his launching pad but instead had become a
ball and chain.
``It was like taking a 100-pound weight off his back,''
says former Senator Warren Rudman, a Dole adviser. With
Republicans bickering and Democrats throwing daily
obstacles in his path, Dole had to escape in order to have
any chance to reverse the polls and the campaign momentum
in time to catch and overtake President Clinton's agile
reelection team. ``It was like an NBA team down 20 points
as they approach the end of the first half,'' says
congressional expert Norman Ornstein of the American
Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think
tank. ``They have to do something dramatic to close the
gap to 10 points so they can come out in the second half
and still have a chance to win.''
Dole's announcement was clearly dramatic, but his
sacrifice, though real, was less immense than it seemed.
He had told friends that if he didn't win the White House
this year he would not seek reelection at the end of his
term in 1998, when he would be 75 years old. ``He had
already made up his mind that in the best of times, he had
only 2 years left,'' said Senator Robert Bennett of Utah.
``Now I guess he's made up his mind that if he doesn't win
the Presidency, what value is there in hanging on those
last 2 years?''
Dole must distinguish himself from the President on two
fronts: personal and political. Although both men started
out in American backwaters, Dole's up-from-the-Dust Bowl
life story, punctuated by a German machine gun that took
his right arm and nearly his life in Italy, contrasts
sharply with the President's march through Georgetown,
Oxford and Yale Law School, punctuated by efforts to avoid
the Vietnam War draft. But Clinton is a Nineties kind of
guy, comfortable showing his emotions and adept at
exposing his humanity. Dole is a Forties kind of guy,
embarrassed by public displays of emotion and given to
talking about himself, awkwardly, in the third person.
Still, during his brief resignation speech last week, the
new Dole's passing reference to his wartime sacrifice was
more eloquent than previous attempts by his campaign staff
to showcase his human and heroic side.
a
[From the Star Tribune, May 30, 1996]
The Life and Times of Bob J. Dole; His Story Is Well Worth
Telling, Says One Who Knows It Well
(By David Dahl)
To hear biographer Richard Ben Cramer tell it, we here
in Washington have gotten Bob Dole all wrong. This author
who has studied him for more than a decade says that, at
the core, Dole is not the Washington insider, the snarling
partisan or the worldly pol that are staples of his
profile.
Rather, Cramer makes the very argument circulating among
many of Dole's own advisers--that this guy has a
compelling story to tell, one that has given his life in
Washington reason beyond just a lust for power.
It is a story, says Cramer, with a foundation in
Russell, Kansas, where the burdens of debt led a young Bob
Dole's neighbors to commit suicide, where dust storms were
so thick they caused pneumonia and where a basketball star
with dreams of becoming a doctor left for the war and came
back crippled.
``He knows what hardship is, he knows what debt is, he
knows what it can do to people,'' says Cramer, author of a
brief biography of Dole and an epic tale of the 1988
campaign called ``What it Takes.''
Naive as it may sound to Washington's Dole-watchers,
Cramer goes so far as to say that Dole has a soft,
vulnerable center. Dole, he says, doesn't hate the
government--it saved his life after his devastating war
injury--yet he's disgusted when its excesses do more
damage than good.
``If he tells that story and lets people know why the
one overriding thread of steel that has run through his
political career has been the budget and debt, people will
understand. They'll know why he is doing it. He's not
doing it because it's a hot-button issue in some poll.''
the conventional view
Cramer's observations run hard against the conventional
wisdom in Washington: Dole is a soulless legislative
mechanic who can't speak to the common folk nor adjust
himself to the high-energy campaigning that will be
required of him in the coming months.
Yet what gives Cramer standing is that he brings a
biographer's eye to his analysis. His point is that the
most successful politicians are the ones who have honestly
chosen issues that have roots in their own backgrounds. He
calls these successful candidacies ``the sums of a long
life's doing.''
leaving the senate
While America watched Oprah, Dole watched the Senate--
and it shows. Dole often falls into a staccato of
parliamentary jargon, snapshots of issues and inside jokes
that must be very difficult to decode back in Russell.
So deeply ingrained is the Washington portion of Dole's
life that even his biographer says he was shocked when the
news came that the Senator was leaving the place where he
had served for 35 years. Cramer initially thought the news
wires had made a mistake.
One of the reasons Dole left the Senate was that the
polls--the boy from Russell reads 'em, too--showed few
voters knew his story and instead saw him as another
inside-the-beltway politician.
The Dole who has slowly emerged in the days since shows
flashes of what Cramer is talking about, but he is not a
natural. Cramer points out that Dole comes from a
generation where you simply didn't talk openly about your
personal life, much less brazenly try to turn it into an
asset.
Cramer, a 45-year-old Maryland resident who was brought
up as a Democrat, argues that his own contemporaries are
seeing the World War II generation in a better light these
days. Cramer calls it a ``generation of certainties,''
when Dole had no choice but to survive the depression,
fight a war and build the modern economy.
One of the great challenges for Dole in the coming weeks
is whether he can take what Cramer calls the ``great
American story'' and turn it into a message for the
future.
``It is a story that he has to extend to our future as
well as our past and so far he's learned only to tell the
story about the past and not to carry it forth,'' Cramer
says. ``When he does, I think he will be a formidable
candidate and I think Clinton may be in trouble.''
a
[From the Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1996]
Dole's Large Legacy Buried in Fine Print; Congress: His
Skills As A Legislator Are Likely To Be Lost on Future
Generations
(By Richard T. Cooper)
He came to Congress during the same cold, snowy January
that John F. Kennedy came to the White House. So long ago
that Jimmy Carter was still a peanut farmer, Ronald Reagan
was nominally a Democrat--still giving speeches for
General Electric--and George Bush was just another Texas
oilman.
There had been no civil rights revolution, no Great
Society, no Vietnam War. Federal Government outlays
totaled a mere $92 billion annually, about what it spends
every 2 weeks now, and the budget showed a $300-million
surplus.
Thirty-five years later, as Bob Dole prepares to retire
as majority leader and senior Senator from Kansas,
historians can record that he played a part in almost
every significant Washington decision made during an era
of profound change for the Government and the country. As
Congressman, Senator and party leader, Dole had a hand in
every battle over taxes and the budget, Medicare and
welfare, defense and foreign policy, peace and war.
Ironically, however, unless his current bid for the
White House succeeds, Dole's place in history may be
cloaked in shadows: well-regarded by specialists in
Congressional leadership but little remembered by the
wider audience of future generations. He may rank no
higher than a Joe Robinson or a James G. Blaine--earlier
masters of the legislative game who forged the compromises
and moved the ball forward but created no lasting
monuments.
``It is significant that there is no major piece of
legislation known as the Dole Act,'' said Rutgers
University political scientist Ross Baker. ``It tells you
what kind of leader he's been. His mark can be found on so
much, but his influence was extensive, not intensive. He
became a kind of legislative virtuoso, a master of the
process, not a visionary or a high-concept man.''
Said Ron Peters, a specialist in congressional history
at the Carl Albert Center of the University of Oklahoma:
``Dole's going to be remembered by historians who write
about the Congress. He's going to be very well regarded as
a legislator and as a majority leader, as a Republican
leader. He's going to go down among the best.''
But on the larger canvas, he acknowledged, ``it's when
you rise to the Presidential level that you get
remembered.''
20,000-plus votes
Dole's legislative record by now is immense. As he once
told a group of New Hampshire voters: ``You take a look at
my record. You'll probably find some votes you don't like.
I've voted 11,000 times. There's some I don't like.'' That
was in 1987; by now the number of votes Dole has cast in
Congress probably exceeds 20,000.
Three strands form the rope of the legislative career
that Dole plans to bring to a close Tuesday:
First, he was an intensely partisan battler, reflecting
both his temperament and the status of the GOP in Congress
for much of his career.
As a junior Member of Congress during the '60s, when
Congressional Republicans appeared likely to be a
permanent minority, lambasting the opposition pleased
Dole's overwhelmingly Republican constituents back home
and offered an avenue for advancement within his party
nationally. And that partisan bent has remained.
``You don't elect nonpartisan leaders,'' he said in an
interview with The Times last year.
Second, despite the sometimes cutting intensity of his
partisanship, Dole became an increasingly savvy player of
the inside game on Capitol Hill. This element in Dole's
record blossomed and flourished during the long period of
divided Government in the 1970s and 1980s, when, except
for the 4 years of Jimmy Carter's Presidency, neither
Democrats nor Republicans ever commanded both Congress and
the White House.
``I think I've learned over the years,'' he said. ``We
do have our debates and we do get mad and we do scream at
each other, but then we have to go ahead and do our
work.''
Third, in establishing his positions on major policy
issues, he has followed the evolutionary path of
traditional Republicans, instinctively opposing liberal
innovations the first time around but gradually accepting
them within some bounds as time wore on.
Thus Dole, who is 72, opposed the creation of Medicare,
Medicaid and almost all the other liberal social programs
of the Kennedy-Johnson period; but years later he blunted
the slashing attacks on those programs by radical
ideologies in his own party.
In keeping with traditional conservative economic
principles, he also was the prime mover behind the massive
1982 tax increase, the biggest ever relative to the size
of the economy, which ended the Reagan administration's
romance with supply-side economics.
pro-civil rights act
To be sure, Dole has sometimes been among the vanguard.
As a young Congressman, he voted for the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; he was also a
co-sponsor of the legislation making the Reverend Martin
Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. Repeatedly,
Dole has argued that the GOP should do more to open its
ranks to minorities.
Dole also played a crucial role in expanding food stamps
and other Federal nutrition programs for the poor during
the mid-1970s--programs that, of course, also benefited
farmers from places like Kansas who grew the food. As
thoroughgoing a liberal Democrat as former South Dakota
Senator George S. McGovern, the prime mover on such
legislation, still speaks admiringly of Dole's steadfast
help in lining up Senate majorities to support greater
Government effort.
And Dole took a leading role in passage of Federal
legislation for the disabled. He supported the Americans
with Disabilities Act in 1990 even though many business
people and others considered its provisions costly and
intrusive.
One chapter in that legislative battle offers a
fascinating glimpse of the apparent pull and tug inside
Dole: a seeming ambivalence over where to position himself
politically and personally on sensitive policy issues,
especially those on which society's attitudes changed
significantly over the course of his long life.
During the struggle over the Americans with Disabilities
Act, which broadly prohibits discrimination against the
disabled in the workplace and elsewhere, Senator Jesse
Helms (R-NC) offered an amendment permitting employers to
bar people who tested positive for HIV from food-handling
jobs.
Dole initially supported the controversial amendment.
When groups representing the disabled expressed shock that
a Senator who had lost the use of his right arm in World
War II should take such a position, he snapped: ``They
don't own me. Just because you have a handicap doesn't
mean you have to be for every screwball thing.''
Later Dole reversed himself and helped kill the
provision, saying: ``Public ignorance has never been a
valid excuse for discrimination.''
republican fund-raiser
From the beginning of his career in Washington, Dole
made it clear that he did not intend to be an anonymous
backbencher. He was elected President of his freshman
class and served 4 terms in the House, from 1961 through
1968.
While in the House, Dole began traveling all over the
country to help fellow Republicans campaign or raise
money. The ceaseless campaigning contributed to the demise
of his first marriage, to Phyllis Holden, a nurse he had
met while recuperating from his devastating war wounds.
But it also built a network of contacts and obligations
that would prove invaluable in Congress and help finance
his bids for the GOP Presidential nomination in 1980 and
1988 as well as in 1996.
In 1968, encouraged by GOP Presidential candidate
Richard Nixon, he sought and won the Senate seat vacated
by retiring Republican Senator Frank Carlson.
As something of a Nixon protege, Dole defended the
administration's policies in Vietnam, excoriating antiwar
Democrats and Republicans alike. He remained loyal to
Nixon during Watergate, though a bruising turn as
Republican National Chairman during the 1972 election had
left him with no illusions about the imperious, stop-at-
nothing character of the Nixon White House staff.
On most bread-and-butter issues, Dole was a down-the-
line Midwestern Republican, supporting programs that
benefited his predominantly rural constituents even if
that meant voting for Government subsidies. But his
devotion to reducing the deficit did once lead him to
offer to accept cutbacks in farm programs if other
Senators would swallow reductions in programs dear to
their hearts.
The proposal added materially to Dole's difficulties in
winning reelection to the Senate, without making any
noticeable difference in the size of the deficit, but it
was an early indication of how seriously he took the
deficit issue.
He won appointment to the Senate Finance Committee in
1973 and plunged into what are among the most sensitive
and far-reaching decisions made by any government: the
writing and rewriting of tax laws. Probably nowhere else
in Government does so much money hang on the smallest
change of word or phrase; nowhere else is the lobbying
more intricate or intense.
And Dole, though in the minority until the Reagan
landslide of 1980, became a player.
Critics point out that on more than one occasion, he
proposed or supported obscure bits of legislation designed
to benefit important businesses or individuals--including
Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., an agribusiness giant, and the
winemaking Gallo family.
Such narrowly focused policymaking has a long history in
America, of course, and opinions differ on whether it is
all bad. At least so far as current evidence is concerned,
the most that can probably be said about Dole is that he
played the game as he found it.
On larger issues, much the same is true: He was a loyal
Republican soldier most of the time, fought for partisan
advantage where he could and, at the end of the day, often
looked across the aisle for compromise.
Dole notes proudly that he helped bail out the Social
Security system in the early 1980s, though it meant
working closely with then-House Speaker Thomas P. ``Tip''
O'Neill Jr. (D-MA) and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-
NY) to find a bipartisan solution.
``He's a guy that sort of adapts himself to
circumstances, but in a principled way,'' the University
of Oklahoma's Peters said. ``He's a guy who figures out
how to respond in the circumstances that surround him.''
Probably nothing illustrates Dole's melding of
principles and pragmatism more than his handling of the
1982 tax legislation.
As Finance Committee chairman, he had loyally helped
pass the massive tax-reduction program that was the
hallmark of Reagan's first year in the White House.
In theory, the huge cuts in corporate and personal tax
rates were to stimulate such an economic acceleration that
Washington would get more revenue, not less. In fact,
Federal revenue sagged and expenditures soared as the
country slipped into the recession of 1982-83, and the
deficit began to scale the heights.
Supply-siders still insist that their strategy was not
given a fair and thorough test. To Dole and other
traditional Senate Republicans, however, the situation was
alarming--a threat both to the country and to the GOP.
Democrats, who controlled the House, refused to take the
lead on raising taxes. Why should they rescue a Republican
President from his own folly, especially when he was sure
to attack them for it?
Dole and other Senate Republicans, including Budget
Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, stepped
forward. They not only had to satisfy Republicans and
Democrats and swarms of powerful lobbyists, they had to
contend with a White House that was basically
unsympathetic to the whole idea.
With Reagan adamant that his basic program of cutting
tax rates go forward, Dole took the lead in searching for
other ways to raise more money. Initially hoping to do it
with a small number of high-yield provisions, he found
that approach politically impractical.
Instead, he and others patiently rounded up votes for a
huge bundle of relatively inconspicuous changes and
loophole closings that eventually added up to $98.3
billion over 3 years, the largest revenue-enhancement
package in U.S. history.
It took every bit of his legislative cunning to keep the
bill on track. One provision required restaurant owners to
take steps to help the Government collect more taxes on
waiters' tips. Restaurant owners lobbied furiously against
it and, shortly before the Senate's final 4:30 a.m. vote
on the package, an amendment slipped through deleting the
provision.
Dole quickly countered by pushing through an amendment
allowing businesses to claim tax deductions on only half
the cost of business lunches--the ``1\1/2\ martini
lunch,'' it was called. As Dole had expected, the
restaurant industry was so horrified at that prospect that
it readily agreed to restore the tips provision.
The eventual success of the Tax Equity and Fiscal
Responsibility Act may rank as the crowning achievement of
Dole's legislative career. ``The real locus of
responsibility, the real grown-ups in all that, were
Domenici and Dole and the leaders of the Republican
Senate,'' Peters said.
``I think it was at that period of time . . . that Dole
began to establish himself not just as a real player, a
guy who could move legislation and broker compromise and
all that, but beyond that as sort of a responsible person,
a person who was willing to make hard choices; and I think
that reputation then carried forward when he became
majority leader.''
Emblematic of his success, Dole succeeded Howard H.
Baker Jr. as Republican leader in the Senate in 1985, a
step upward that was also a step deeper into the
overshadowing forest of the legislative process.
As a result, Dole, like 19th century Republican leader
Blaine before him, is in danger of being remembered by
most people more for what he failed to do than for what he
did.
Blaine sought and failed to win the Republican
Presidential nomination in 1876 and 1880. When he finally
captured the nomination in 1884, he lost the general
election to Democrat Grover Cleveland.
His popular epitaph is a derisive campaign chant that
referred to his brush with a railroad bribery scandal:
``Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine. Continental liar from
the state of Maine.''
Only scholars recall that Blaine served as Secretary of
State under three Presidents, helped found the modern-day
Republican Party and, as a highly partisan speaker of the
House from 1869 to 1875, substantially strengthened its
institutional leadership.
``The great parliamentarians tend not to be
remembered,'' said professor Baker. ``Their fate,
unfortunately, tends to be submerged.''
a
[From the Washington Times, June 11, 1996]
Bob Dole, GOP-Builder
(By James P. Lucier Jr.)
Long ago there was a time when Harry Truman could call
the Republicans a ``me too'' party and win a Presidential
election largely on the basis of this taunt. But now it is
the Democrats who have been relegated to ``me too''status,
and the Republicans who are poised to gain control of the
White House in addition to their steady hold on both
Houses of Congress, two-thirds of all governorships, and a
majority of seats in state legislatures across the Nation.
Clearly, something has changed. And as Senate Majority
Leader Robert Dole leaves the Senate today to campaign for
the Presidency as Citizen Dole, it is he above all others
who deserves the credit for this historic transformation.
The 1950s party of Midwestern farmers and the ``Main
Street'' business interests of small town America has
grown vastly larger, more powerful and more complex as the
``Leave Us Alone'' coalition of the 1990s--a broadly
inclusive alliance of all those opposed to higher taxes
and intrusive government with a positive vision of growth,
prosperity, community institutions and private initiative.
The 1990s Republican coalition is now arguably the
natural, permanent governing coalition of the United
States.
Conservatives should welcome and urgently strive for Mr.
Dole's election to the presidency as the next logical step
in a political career that parallels the growth of the
modern conservative movement and the institutional GOP.
With each step forward by Mr. Dole, the movement and party
have advanced as well. The power and sophistication of
today's conservative movement and Republican clout at the
ballot box owe much to Mr. Dole's leadership along the
way.
In 1960, Bob Dole was elected to Congress as a freshman
classmate of Ohio Republican John Ashbrook, a co-founder
of the American Conservative Union. Where Mr. Ashbrook
chose to work on ideas, Mr. Dole chose to work on
institutions, particularly those of the GOP--but he chose
to build party institutions by working with the ideas of
John Ashbrook and others. In the same year, Barry
Goldwater called for ``a choice, not an echo'' in
Republican politics. By 1964, Phyllis Schlafly had turned
Mr. Goldwater's slogan into a best-selling, book-length
manifesto, Mr. Goldwater was a candidate for President,
and Mr. Dole was among the first and most committed
Republican elected officials who took to the road
campaigning for the Arizona Senator.
Representative Dole became Senator Dole in the 1968
election that swept Richard Nixon to power. Then from 1971
to 1973, Mr. Dole served as Chairman of the Republican
National Committee, laying the groundwork for the 1972
Nixon landslide that confirmed the GOP as the Nation's
Presidential Party and which first turned the South and
West into Republican strongholds at the Presidential
level. Also in 1972, Republican control of governorships
and State legislatures was near an all-time high, not to
be surpassed for 20 years after the devastating setback of
1974.
Renewal came in the late 1970s as the pro-life and pro-
family movements, religious conservatives and anti-tax
activists began to organize vocal constituencies. Ronald
Reagan was elected in 1980, and Mr. Dole was the Senate
Finance Committee Chairman who secured passage of Mr.
Reagan's tax cuts in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of
1981. On the one hand, Mr. Dole worked tirelessly to
advance Republican candidates. Yet on the other, he
increasingly took on the role of advancing Republican and
conservative ideas through legislation.
For instance, in 1981, Mr. Dole founded his path-
breaking political action committee, Campaign America,
which quickly moved to fund candidates at the State as
well as Federal levels. Campaign America strongly
supported such candidates as George Allen and Mike Farris
for Governor and Lieutenant Governor in Virginia in 1993.
In 1994, his was the first PAC to support Ollie North in
his race for the Senate in Virginia and was coincidentally
second only to the Teamsters Union PAC in total
contributions. But whereas the Teamsters supported
incumbents, Mr. Dole helped bring new voices into the GOP.
More significantly, though, beginning as Senate majority
leader in 1985, continuing as Republican Leader from 1987
to 1994, and as majority leader again from 1994 to today,
Mr. Dole played a critical formative role as integrator
and architect of the emerging ``Leave Us Alone''
Coalition. During the Bush and Clinton administrations, as
taxes and regulation slowly took their toll on the
economic prospects of ordinary citizens, group after group
with distinct identities emerged from what had been the
Republican and ``Reagan Democrat'' coalitions of the
1980s. Among them were home schoolers, term-limits
supporters, gun owners, property rights advocates and
newly radicalized, anti-government small business owners,
a great and increasing proportion of whom were women.
Significantly, as each new element of the coalition came
to the fore and began to articulate a policy vision, Mr.
Dole helped give the vision concrete expression in
legislative language that 80 percent to 90 percent of all
Republicans would routinely support as a matter of course
when whenever it came up in the future.
Confounding all predictions, Mr. Dole successfully
passed tax cuts, regulatory relief, a balanced budget, a
ban on unfunded mandates, and most other Contract with
America pledges through the Senate. What Bill Gates and
Microsoft did for the IBM personal computer, Mr. Dole did
for Republican policies: he created a vast library of
tested, debated, drafted, and previously passed
legislation that could be enacted like a ready-to-go
software application as soon as a Republican President was
there to throw the switch.
Mr. Dole's work as majority leader is done--complete and
triumphant. He has spelled out his vision for America's
future in far more detail than Ronald Reagan ever did--and
what's more, he has the bills ready to go and already
endorsed by the party at large. Winning the White House is
the one thing left to do.
a
[From The Hill, June 12, 1996]
Bob Dole's Last Day in the Senate
(By Jamie Stiehm)
At 6:30 Monday night, the senior Senator from Kansas
turned off the lights and shut the Senate for the night,
pushing the button that rang the closing bells.
``Mr. President, it's the last time I will close the
Senate,'' said Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS), to a
chamber that was empty of other Senators save for the
Presiding Senator, James Inhofe (R-OK). In his
characteristic shorthand, the Kansan called his 28-year
Senate career ``a good ride.'' He crisply summed up the
approach he has applied to politics as he described a
possible compromise on the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill: ``Not
everything they wanted. Not everything we wanted. That's
the way it works.''
A Sergeant-at-Arms employee held the door for Dole as he
left the darkened chamber and walked into the early
evening sunshine, a sensation Dole described as ``kind of
a shock.'' Earlier in the day he enjoyed a homemade ice
cream party with his staff and pages in his Capitol
office, the same room where British soldiers set fire to
the Capitol during the War of 1812. When Dole found out
that only Republican pages were present, he sent them to
fetch their Democratic fellows.
Meanwhile, in Dole's office, phones rang with good
wishes from VIPs. ``There's not a person I haven't heard
from yet,'' said Press Aide Jeremy Wallison. Clarkson
Hine, Dole's dapper press secretary, had a rare clothing
mishap when he discovered he left his evening tuxedo shirt
at home, while his deputy, Joyce Campbell, looked as if
she were ready to go to the Oscars.
Then off the majority leader went to a black-tie gala at
the Washington Convention Center, where the tables were
set for a steak dinner for 4,000 Republicans. He greeted
House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), whom Dole said, ``made
the revolution work.'' In a speech that stressed his
``Just a Man'' the theme from his resignation speech in
May, Dole referred to his father, a lifelong Democrat, as
someone who ``wore overalls every day and was proud of
it.'' He went on to say that the biggest disappointment of
his career was not passing the balanced budget
constitutional amendment. In giving thanks to those who
came, he added, ``even those who didn't pay.''
Dole concluded by conjuring up a vision of himself as
taking the Presidential oath of office at noon next
January 20, even saying the words, ``so help me God.''
Then the entertainment started, with Representative
Sonny Bono (R-CA), singing ``The Beat Goes On,'' which
even got Gingrich and a staffer dancing.
Dole briefly looked back to the moment of closing the
chamber earlier, saying he wanted to keep the Senate doors
open all night: ``It is a place that I have loved.''
On his last morning in the Senate, he went to his Hart
Building office to say good-bye to his staff. But on his
way into the Capitol subway, he couldn't resist the urge
to stump for a few more votes.
``Hi, how are you doing?'' Dole asked as he paused for a
photo with Jackie Orr from Clearwater, FL, and her three
daughters. When they told the majority leader that they
had problems getting tickets to the gallery to hear his
upcoming farewell address, Dole said, ``If you go over to
S-230 and talk to them, they'll get you a pass.''
``This is the most exciting thing,'' the elder Orr said,
``I think I'm going to cry.''
In the Hart Building office, Dole paused for a moment to
make a telephone call to Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Howard
Greene. ``Everything coming along here fine?'' he asked,
adding, ``Well, it won't be long now.'' Then, pausing to
look at the political souvenirs collected over a career in
the Senate, Dole said, ``I don't know how you're going to
get rid of all this stuff.''
At noon Tuesday, on his way to the Senate chamber with
Gingrich, Dole was asked, ``When did you decide what you
are going to say?''
``Oh, about a minute ago,'' Dole quipped over his
shoulder as he passed through the doors to a rare standing
ovation from his fellow Senators as his wife Elizabeth
watched from a packed balcony and top aide Sheila Burke
sat by his side.
The first order of business was a resolution declaring
that the balcony Dole uses and calls ``The Beach'' will
henceforth be named ``The Robert J. Dole balcony.
In a speech that combined lightning-like moments of wit
with graceful remembrances and tributes, Dole noted that
political differences are healthy. Looking at the other 99
Senators, he said, ``I've never seen a healthier group in
my life.''
With Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), sitting in the
chair, Dole asked him how long he had held the floor
filibuster record. ``That's why you're seldom asked to be
an after-dinner speaker.'' He singled out Senator Robert
Byrd (D-WV), as a Senate giant and recalled playing bridge
with Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), when both were army
lieutenants hospitalized with war wounds in Battle Creek,
MI.
For a man who uses words sparingly, Dole evoked the
country as a ``torch that lights the world.'' In a phrase
that he uses often, he concluded, ``That's what America is
all about.'' Finally, said the man from Kansas, ``I think
my season in the Senate is about to come to an end,'' his
voice breaking before he made his last exit off a floor
flooded with lights, applause and affection.
Even if he does become President, he will always be
something else too. ``That's my baby,'' said a Capitol
policewoman.
``That's my baby.''
a
[From the Washington Post, June 12, 1996]
Dole Bids Farewell to Senate; Bipartisan Tributes Fill
Emotional Final Day
(By Helen Dewar)
Robert J. Dole yesterday bade a loving farewell to the
Senate, struggling to keep his emotions in check as he
concluded a ``great ride'' of 35 years on Capitol Hill to
devote himself fully to his uphill bid for the Presidency.
Rising to speak for the last time as the longest-serving
Republican leader in Senate history, Dole shared
reminiscences that transcended partisan differences,
stressing values of civility and compromise that marked
his 11 years as the party's leader in the Senate.
All in all, despite ``a few bumps along the way,'' he
said, ``it's been a great ride.''
In his recollections, he spoke fondly of Democrats as
well as Republicans--from Hubert H. Humphrey and George S.
McGovern to the current Democratic leader, Thomas A.
Daschle (D-SD), in an old-fashioned kind of senatorial
collegiality that stands in contrast with the already
bitter tone of his campaign against President Clinton.
The accomplishments he cited with particular pride--
expanding nutrition programs, bailing out the Social
Security system, extending civil rights protections to the
disabled--were those he achieved in concert with
Democrats. They were issues that appeal to moderates of
both parties rather than the polarizing issues he has
stressed so far in the campaign.
``We were Democrats and Republicans'' working across
party lines for a common solution, he said, suggesting a
similar approach for dealing with the Medicare program's
solvency problems.
After a morning filled with tributes from both sides of
the partisan aisle, Dole strode into the Senate chamber
shortly after noon, bringing his colleagues to their feet
in unison as they broke into loud and sustained applause.
His wife, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, and daughter, Robin,
watched from the public galleries, along with hundreds of
other well-wishers. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA),
came across the Capitol, taking his place among Senate
aides in the rear of the chamber. Former Senator Howard M.
Metzenbaum (D-OH), with whom Dole tangled on numerous
occasions, joined a small group of longtime colleagues who
came out of retirement to say their goodbyes.
Senators--Democratic and Republican alike--sat in
hushed, almost reverential attention as Dole began to
speak, getting only a few words into his remarks before
his emotions caught up with him and he had to pause to
collect himself. Sheila Burke, his longtime chief of
staff, sat at his side, weeping. Several colleagues also
appeared to be struggling with their emotions.
As he concluded his 37-minute address, his voice broke
again. ``The Bible tells us, `To everything there is a
season,' and I think my season in the Senate is about to
come to an end,'' he told his colleagues. ``But the new
season before me makes this moment far less the closing of
one chapter than the opening of another.''
Then the Senate and its galleries erupted in another
long standing ovation in buoyant violation of Senate rules
banning demonstrations in the chamber, which no one cared
to enforce.
Just over an hour later, Dole's resignation became
effective and, as a former Senator exercising his
visitation rights, he returned to the floor to join
Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-KS), in swearing in his
successor, Sheila Frahm, the former Lieutenant Governor of
Kansas. Frahm brings the number of women in the Senate to
nine, a new record.
By 3:30 p.m., after hosting a reception for Frahm, Dole
descended the steps from the Senate chamber, accompanied
by his wife and daughter. They were greeted by more well-
wishers before being whisked away by car to the Dole
campaign headquarters eight blocks from the Capitol.
Just before his speech, the Senate voted by unanimous
consent--a rarity in the partisan climate that has seized
the chamber in recent months--to name the balcony outside
the GOP leader's office in honor of Dole. Dole used it so
often to enjoy the sun and to wilt his colleagues during
haggling over legislation that it became known as ``Dole
beach.''
Dole accepted the tribute in his traditional style,
suggesting it should have a sign on it.
``Will it be in big letters or neon?'' he asked. ``I
know it can't have any political advertising on it, but
just having the name out there in lights the next few
months might be helpful,'' he said. He did get a sign, but
it was a discreetly painted wood sign on the inside of the
balcony door.
Earlier Dole had opened the Senate in a deceptively
routine fashion, winning unanimous approval for about 30
nominations to a variety of Federal posts. As he did in
his first speech to the Senate 27 years ago, Dole who
bears the scars of wounds from World War II, spoke on
behalf of programs for the disabled. Then he introduced
two bills dealing with some of the unfinished business of
his tenure, calling for blue-ribbon commissions to propose
ways to keep Medicare from going broke and to recommend
reforms in congressional campaign financing laws.
Dole's successor as majority leader will be chosen today
by Senate Republicans, and Majority Whip Trent Lott (R-
MS), is the strong favorite to win the post. Lott's only
rival is Republican Conference Chairman Thad Cochran (R-
MS).
While many of the tributes to Dole sounded like campaign
speeches, stressing his commitment to causes from women's
health issues to the environment, others were more
personal.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ), noted that while he was a
prisoner of war in North Vietnam, Dole wore a POW-MIA
bracelet bearing his name and opposed cutting off funds
for the war. ``I never thanked him before, I do so now,''
McCain said. ``We fought in different wars. We kept the
same faith.''
Kassebaum said Dole rose to big challenges but also was
drawn to small ones, noting his efforts to assure that
every Kansas county had a tornado warning siren.
But few were more eloquent in their tributes than a
Democrat, Bill Bradley (D-NJ). ``Bob Dole is a good man
and an extraordinary legislator,'' Bradley said.
``Although he is personally shy, he knows how to build a
political consensus, use power, make things happen. He
keeps his word, which is an essential ingredient to
building trust. . . . He listens well. . . . He never
burns bridges.''
Daschle noted that he became Democratic leader 18 months
ago at a time when relations between the parties ``could
not have been worse.'' But because of Dole's ``civility,
pragmatism . . . and self-effacing humor,'' they would up
as friends, Daschle said.
In his speech, Dole urged that the Senate leadership
continue to work together and warned his colleagues
against seeking ``total victory,'' quoting President
Ronald Reagan as saying that ``90 percent of what I want''
can be a ``pretty good deal.''
He also returned his colleagues' tributes, noting how he
once had to consult former Democratic leader Robert C.
Byrd (D-WV), the Senate's rules expert, on ``how to defeat
him on an issue.'' It ``wasn't easy,'' but Byrd told him
what he needed to know, Dole recalled.
As for the Senate itself, he said, ``It's what America
is about. We come from different States and different
backgrounds, different opportunities, different challenges
in our lives. And, yes, the institution has its
imperfections. . . . We're still a work in progress.''
a
[From the Hartford Courant, June 12, 1996]
Bob Dole--He Keeps His Word
(Editorial)
You don't have to agree with Bob Dole, or even like him,
to respect him.
The man who served as the Republican leader in the U.S.
Senate longer than anyone else in history formally
resigned Tuesday to campaign full time for President.
Republicans gave him a grand send-off, which was
predictable. But Democrats, from Edward Kennedy of
Massachusetts to Tom Daschle of South Dakota, were
effusive in their praise.
President Clinton was no less statesmanlike. ``Even
though I am about to begin a rather vigorous campaign with
Senator Dole,'' he told a college audience in California,
``I would like to ask all of you, including those of you
who are my supporters, to just take a moment and wish him
well. I think we ought to give him a hand.''
This was a grand moment in politics, for civility
doesn't often dominate public discourse in the age of
negative campaigning.
Indeed, Americans of all political stripes ought to give
Mr. Dole a hand for his 45 years of public service that
began with his election to the Kansas House in 1951. He
has been in Congress for 35 years, since 1968 as a
Senator.
Friends and critics agree that what distinguished Mr.
Dole was his integrity. ``He keeps his word,'' many of his
colleagues said in reminiscing about the World War II hero
from Russell, Kansas, who knew when to fight and when to
conciliate. To him, compromise was not synonymous with
copout but a requisite to the functioning of democratic
government.
Mr. Dole has been a model of the tough and principled
conservative who wouldn't be intimidated by the right-wing
warriors.
Some have complained about his dour persona and caustic
ways. But no one would deny that Mr. Dole is as no-
nonsense and trustworthy a leader as they come. He earned
his place as majority leader in 1985 and again in 1995
through hard work and strong leadership.
Whether or not Mr. Dole makes it to the White House, he
will be remembered as one of the most enduring and
successful politicians of the past three decades.
[From the Chicago Tribune, June 12, 1996]
Bob Dole's Farewell
(Editorial)
Once in a great while the piercing partisanship of
modern American politics takes a brief hiatus, and we're
reminded that the people entrusted with the stewardship of
this country appreciate their solemn responsibility.
Such a moment happened Tuesday when Bob Dole bid
farewell to the U.S. Senate with as touching an address as
one will ever hear.
Dole, who choked back tears even before he finished his
first sentence, reminded us that the Senate is the fulcrum
of inspirational and heartfelt debate, the gathering place
of all the States and their peoples in spirit of
furthering the cause of a great Nation.
``The American people are looking at us, and they want
us to tell the truth,'' Dole said. ``It doesn't mean we
have to agree, doesn't mean we can't have different
motivations.''
Dole offered credit to Republicans and Democrats for the
accomplishments of his 27 years in the Senate,
accomplishments such as protecting the economic security
of the elderly, feeding the hungry and assisting the
handicapped. ``No first-class democracy can treat its
people like second-class citizens,'' he said. He paid
homage to his own party's leaders, but he also spoke in
tribute to Democrats, friends, such as George McGovern,
Hubert Humphrey and Robert Byrd.
It's sad that such public utterances of bipartisan
friendship and comity seem to come only in eulogies and
farewell speeches. When they are offered so infrequently,
they are easily lost and forgotten in the everyday
pettiness of politics.
On Tuesday, Congress basked in the gentle humor and warm
words of Bob Dole upon his departure. On Wednesday, those
who remain will in all likelihood pick up with the dreary
business of their political search-and-destroy missions.
This is an election year, after all.
Yet, they might take a lasting message from Dole's
address. If they want to restore the people's trust in
government and leaders, they will have to preach the same
message as Bob Dole, right now, every day. They will have
to preach a message of respect for the nation's
institutions and of tolerance and friendship for those who
hold a different political viewpoint. They will have to
acknowledge that those with whom they disagree
nevertheless share their motivation, to do what they
believe is best for their country.
``You think of all these people who have come and gone,
and all the new bright stars that are here today on both
sides of the aisle, and one thing you know for certain,
it's a great institution,'' Dole said.
Yes, it is. Would that those in whom its care is
entrusted, by their words and deeds, reminded us of that
more often.
a
[From the Washington Post, June 12, 1996]
Dole's Parting Reflections Leave Image of the Core Values
of His Career
(By Dan Balz)
Memory is revealing as much as it is selective, and in
his farewell address to the Senate yesterday, Robert J.
Dole sketched a portrait of himself and his career that
was far from the revolutionary fervor of the new
Republican Party.
Dole's valedictory speech was shorn of partisan
rhetoric, as befit the moment. But it also was largely
shorn of conservative ideology. He recalled helping to
save Social Security, not his work in passing Ronald
Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. He spoke of his support for food
stamps and nutrition programs, not money spent on defense.
He remembered all the wheelchairs at the White House when
then-President George Bush signed the Americans with
Disabilities Act, not the more contemporary battles to
shrink the government, pare back Federal regulation and
reduce Washington's reach.
This was hardly a speech Dole's Presidential campaign
would have written, for his resignation from the Senate
represents to his political advisers a moment of
liberation that will allow him to define his ideological
differences with President Clinton. Perhaps that will come
in the days ahead, but for one last moment, not as
candidate Dole but as a life-long legislator, Dole reveled
in and recalled the moments of bipartisanship, friendship
and accomplishment that, in the past at least, made the
Senate into a club.
Dole is nothing if not a role-player. When the times or
the situation have required it, he has played the angry
partisan with such relish that the image remains grafted
to his persona no matter how much he smiles. To win his
party's nomination this year, Dole felt obliged to embrace
a conservatism that never quite suited him--and that still
pinches like a too-tight collar. Politics requires such
adjustments, and Dole, the most professional of
politicians, willingly makes them. From this day forward,
he will play the role of Republican Presidential nominee
with the same kind of determination. No quarter asked or
given.
But afforded one last opportunity to address his
colleagues, one moment to set a tone for his departure to
civilian life and the campaign trail ahead, he was witty,
self-deprecating, nostalgic and centrist in his
conservatism. One young Republican who watched the speech
on television said it brought tears to his eyes. It was,
he said, like a great-uncle spinning wonderful stories of
times and people past.
Dole's recollections of old battles and beloved
colleagues may contribute to the perception among some
voters that he is a figure from and of the past. Many of
those he recalled are little known to today's generations,
except perhaps by the buildings that bear their names. But
in Dole's scrapbook, they evoke what he thinks is best
about an institution that has fallen into public disfavor.
This was Dole the legislator, and it revealed some of
his core values. In the stories he told, he emerged as a
politician who reveled in solving problems, who believed
in the power of government to help the needy, who
admired--and worked comfortably with--many of the most
liberal Senators in the chamber.
His rendering of the past was hardly comprehensive,
those he singled out for mention represent a fraction of
those who could have made the honor roll. But it was
striking how many Democrats were on his mind yesterday,
and the warmth with which he described them. He called
Hubert H. Humphrey ``my friend'' and George S. McGovern
``a gentleman.'' He remembered being at the signing
ceremony for the disabilities act with Senators Edward M.
Kennedy (D-MA), and Tom Harkin (D-IA). The man who chaired
the Senate Finance Committee before becoming Republican
leader recalled his role in managing the bill that made
the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday into a
national holiday.
Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour
issued a statement yesterday afternoon praising Dole on
the end of his long legislative career. It read: ``Bob
Dole led the fight in the Senate for a balanced budget
amendment, the fight for lower taxes and higher incomes,
the fight for replacing welfare with work, the fight for
tougher anti-crime measures and the fight for putting an
end to wasteful Washington spending.''
That was not quite how Dole chose to remember his
career. He mentioned the balanced budget amendment in
passing, but his real message was not focused on GOP
talking points for the campaign ahead. Instead it was on
the camaraderie of the legislative life and the civility
required to get things done; it was on keeping your word
and trusting your colleagues. ``None of us has a perfect
solution,'' he told his colleagues. ``But there's got to
be some solution of where we can come together.''
Dole's farewell may not translate into compelling
campaign rhetoric. He has struggled all year to make the
transition. But yesterday's address may tell the voters as
much about the Dole who seeks the White House as all the
other speeches he will give.
a
[From the Washington Times, June 12, 1996]
Bob Dole's Farewell
(By Sean Piccoli and Laurie Kellman)
dole leaves legacy as a doer; senate leader never wavered
from honesty and integrity, admirers say
In a chamber full of movers and shakers, Bob Dole was a
mover.
Like the gifted athlete he was in high school, the
Senate majority leader spent his adult life in politics
perfecting the art of forward motion, reaching goals he
set for himself, his party and his Congress--time and
again, on bill after bill--over a steady course of 35
years.
Known to colleagues as a skilled maneuverer, a savvy
parliamentarian, a consensus-builder, the Kansas
Republican carved out a reputation in Congress not for
visionary thinking or eloquence, or partisan saber-
rattling, but for getting things done--as promised.
And that is fine by him.
``Probably as important as legislation is the fact that
you've kept your word to yourself and your colleagues,''
Mr. Dole, 72, said in an interview last week. ``It's
keeping your word. Plus what you do for your
constituents.''
He ended his congressional career yesterday and will now
campaign full time for the one goal that has twice eluded
him: the White House. He leaves a body of work whose
impact on policy and national life has been felt for years
and will now be left for historians and congressional
scholars to debate.
Admirers say honesty and integrity have been bywords for
Mr. Dole. Those qualities are often compromised in
Congress, and few lawmakers hold to them for as long as
Mr. Dole has. After all, 52 percent of America was born,
according to the latest census, after Mr. Dole was elected
to the House in 1960. Along the way, he cast 12,781
votes--11,496 of them in the Senate, to which he was
elected in 1968.
``His word of honor was as good as gold,'' President
Bush once said in an interview.
He was, to many, a source of quiet strength in the
Senate.
``He could manage consensus without brute force or
partisan disintegration, and it's just an incredible gift
he displayed over time,'' said former Senator David
Durenburger, Minnesota Republican. ``I've been in the
middle of one hell of a lot of situations where Bob had to
find a consensus that represented a good part of the
caucus though it didn't represent the right or the left.''
Few dispute his skill at getting bills passed.
``He was a very effective legislation partner,'' said
retired Senator George S. McGovern, South Dakota Democrat.
``I think any Senator who was there during the '70s
remembers his work. . . . I guess the overall legacy he
has is respect from members on both sides of the aisle as
a legislative craftsman.''
But others thought these talents were too often
misplaced.
``He could unravel the knot that often tied the Senate
up better than most,'' said former Senator Malcolm Wallop,
Wyoming Republican. ``He was not what I would have called
a strategist. Bob was a practical sort of politician, and
often as not, was interested in getting a result more than
he was in the form and structure of the result.''
The willingness to cut non-partisan deals ``used to
drive some of his conservative compatriots nuts,'' Mr.
Wallop said, ``because the thing that often distinguished
us from the Democrats was lost in the result.''
``But there's this to say: The Senate worked under Bob
Dole,'' he added. ``Some of us just wished it worked a
different way.''
The desire for consensus over conservative principle
also troubles some current Republican Senators, who said
privately last week they will bid good riddance to the era
of the Great Compromiser.
So it is no surprise, perhaps, that some of the warmest
testimonials come from across the aisle.
``He was a superb Senator,'' said retired Senator
William Proxmire, Wisconsin Democrat, now at the Library
of Congress. . . . ``I think he's had a remarkably
productive and enviable life.''
``Usually it takes a perspective to really appreciate
it,'' Mr. Proxmire added, ``but I think as time goes on,
he will be looked at as someone of very great stature and
one of our best Senators. And I say that as one who voted
enthusiastically for Clinton.''
Mr. Dole started his climb through Congress in 1961, 16
years after suffering combat wounds in World War II that
nearly killed him and cost him the use of his right arm.
As Kansas' 1st District Congressman, he cast his first
vote on January 3, 1961, for Charles A. Halleck, Indiana
Republican, who lost the speakership to Representative Sam
Rayburn, Texas Democrat.
Eight years later, Mr. Dole made his first speech in the
Senate, urging the private sector and the Government to
contribute more money and research for the disabled.
In the 1970s, working with Mr. McGovern, he oversaw the
dramatic growth of farm-subsidy and nutrition programs.
``Almost anything we wanted, we got through the
Congress,'' Mr. McGovern recalled.
The new Republican Congress overhauled much of that
farm-subsidy regime to put it on a path toward a less
costly, and more market-driven system.
As majority leader, Mr. Dole marshaled forces for the
passage of President Reagan's historic 1981 tax cut, which
unleashed record economic growth. Because Congress was
unwilling to control entitlement spending, the Federal
deficit grew rapidly as well, saddling the nation with an
additional $3 trillion in debt during the Reagan and Bush
years.
Mr. Dole was a trusted adviser to Presidents Reagan and
Bush even though he lost campaigns against both for the
party's presidential nomination.
``I had my battles with Senator Dole 8 years ago,'' said
Mr. Bush, recalling a televised interview during the 1988
Presidential Campaign in which Mr. Dole told his opponent
to ``stop lying about my record.''
``But out of this once-adversarial relationship came
respect and, most important to me, a true and genuine
friendship,'' Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Dole arrived in Congress before television and talk
radio had become the pervasive presence they are today.
Like many of the politicians of his era, Mr. Dole's
demeanor and speaking style have not always translated
well on television. And he agrees with many in his
generation that television coverage of Congress via C-SPAN
has been a mixed blessing.
``It has set the stage for some demagoguery,'' Mr. Dole
said. ``But I think the American people have been able to
learn more about how Congress works.''
Mr. Dole's legacy may be complicated by his long, close
association with a political system that many Americans
have lost confidence in because they view it as
ineffective, intrusive and, possibly, corrupt.
Mr. Dole acknowledged last week that trying to run the
Senate and carry out his Presidential Campaign was a major
mistake.
``Probably was,'' Mr. Dole said. ``I think it worked all
right in the primary season. But Clinton's been on a bit
of a roll here. Things got pretty feisty.''
``It was an impossible situation,'' said former
President Gerald R. Ford, who visited him at the Capitol
last week. The two ran together in 1976 and narrowly lost
to Jimmy Carter.
``This was not a pleasant place to be [during the
campaign],'' said lobbyist Tom Korologos, one of Mr.
Dole's closest friends. ``The night he decided he was
going to resign, he slept like a baby.''
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has
vowed to reintroduce himself to voters as something more
than the Nation's legislative strategist and walking piece
of American history.
``To concentrate upon the campaign, giving all and
risking all, I must leave Congress that I have loved and
which I have been honored to serve,'' Mr. Dole said in the
speech announcing his resignation.
His departure signals another kind of transition in the
Senate, where agenda-setting power shifts from the
traditional clique of senior lawmakers to a younger
generation less enamored of the traditions of compromise
and comity.
Senate Republicans are expected to elect Majority Whip
Trent Lott, 55, as majority leader tomorrow. Senator Don
Nickles, 48, of Oklahoma, will replace Mr. Lott as whip.
Kansas Lt. Governor Sheila Frahm, 51, was sworn in
yesterday as Mr. Dole's successor.
And, just as he promised, Mr. Dole yesterday fulfilled
his promise to campaign as ``an ordinary Kansan, just a
man.''
He strolled down the marble stairs of the Capitol and
headed for the American heartland to complete the final
and most important journey of his political life.
dole's legacy
Bob Dole resigned after 8 years in the House and 27 in
the Senate, with a record 11 years as Senate GOP leader.
His stances over the years:
civil rights
1964: Voted for the Civil Rights Act, which banned
discrimination in voting, employment and housing.
1979 and 1982: Voted to block implementation and
enforcement of court-ordered busing as a means of
desegregating public schools.
1982: Authored an amendment to the 1965 Voting Rights
Act that led to the 25-year extension of the law
guaranteeing minority voting rights.
1983: Voted to create a Federal Martin Luther King
holiday.
1985: Voted to impose sanctions on South Africa for its
system of apartheid. The following year, however, he
supported President Reagan's veto of the sanctions.
entitlements
1965: Voted against the creation of Medicare, the health
care program for the elderly.
1977: Helped defeat a requirement that recipients pay
for a portion of their food stamps.
1983: Senator Pat Moynihan, New York Democratic,
spearheaded a presidential commission's $165 billion
bailout of Social Security.
1995: Voted to cut Federal support for Medicaid by $163
billion over 7 years and eliminate the guarantee of
coverage.
1996: Voted to show the growth of Medicare spending by
$270 billion over 7 years.
foreign policy
1964: Voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
authorizing U.S. retaliation against North Vietnam.
Consistently supported the military action.
1985 and 1986: Voted for $114 million in aid to the
Nicaraguan Contras rebels.
1991: Supported President Bush's Operation Desert Storm.
social programs
1988: Voted against the Family and Medical Leave Act,
requiring most employers to provide unpaid, job-protected
leave for workers who need to care for newborn children or
ailing family members.
taxes
1981: Voted for Mr. Reagan's tax-cut package, including
a 22 percent reduction in income taxes over 3 years.
1982: Led deficit hawks in passing the Tax Equity and
Fiscal Responsibility Act, which raised taxes on
cigarettes, travel and telephone calls.
1993: Voted against President Clinton's deficit package
and its 5 year, $241 billion tax increase.
a
[From the Washington Times, June 12, 1996]
Dole Bids Farewell to Capitol Hill; After 35 Years,
Candidate Enters A `New Season'
(By Laurie Kellman)
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole yesterday traded his
``great ride'' in Congress for the bumps of the
Presidential campaign trail, saying his resignation was
not the end of an era, but the dawn of his life as
citizen-politician.
``The Bible tells us to everything there is a season,
and I think my season in the Senate is about to come to an
end,'' Mr. Dole said.
``But the new season before me makes this moment far
less the closing of one chapter than the opening of
another,'' he finished. ``Like everybody here, I am an
optimist. I believe our best tomorrows are yet to be
lived.''
The 40-minute speech was the centerpiece of the final
day of Mr. Dole's 35 years in Congress. He resigned as the
longest-serving Republican leader in Senate history.
Today, Mr. Dole begins his life as a full-time
Presidential candidate with a whirlwind three-day tour of
7 States in the Midwest and South.
But on his last day in the Senate, where he served for
27 years, Mr. Dole took his time. He followed a quick
morning haircut with identical resignation letters to Vice
President Al Gore, the President of the Senate, and Kansas
Governor Bill Graves.
``I hereby resign my office as a United States Senator
from Kansas effective June 11, 1996 at 2 p.m. eastern
daylight time. Sincerely, Bob Dole.''
Mr. Dole then introduced his last bills, measures to
reauthorize Federal funding for educating the disabled and
to establish bipartisan commissions on campaign finance
and Medicare reform.
The final farewell began. Senators of both parties
delivered plaudits from the floor, where they hailed Mr.
Dole as a man of his word who had evolved from a staunch
partisan to a conscientious conciliator.
Senator Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who challenged
Mr. Dole for the party's Presidential nomination,
described the departing majority leader as ``the greatest
legislator of his era.''
Soon after Mr. Dole's retirement became official, Kansas
Lt. Governor Sheila Frahm was sworn in to take his place.
And just as attention turned to today's election for
Republican leader, a close ally of Mr. Dole's advised the
top contender, Majority Whip Trent Lott of Mississippi, to
be good to his word.
``Anybody following him better know they better be
honest,'' said Senator Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico
Republican. ``They better tell the Senate the truth,
because he knew no other way.''
Senator Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat,
described Mr. Dole's departure as the passing of an era.
``Bob Dole: Well done,'' he said.
Mr. Dole took the floor for the last time and cracked
jokes about the Senate resolution to immortalize with his
name the balcony outside his second-floor Capitol office,
where he cut many a legislative deal and worked on his
ever-present suntan.
Mr. Dole then turned to the speech that drew a standing-
room-only crowd to the floor and the galleries above. He
uttered only nine words--``Well, I want to thank all of my
colleagues''--before choking up and pressing his
forefinger to his lips to suppress the swelling wave of
emotion.
His wife, Elizabeth, clutched a tissue as she watched
from the balcony. Sitting immediately to his left, Chief
of Staff Sheila Burke openly wept. She offered him a
tissue at one point, but he declined.
Calling himself and the Nation ``a work in progress,''
Mr. Dole proudly proclaimed himself a bipartisan leader
who worked well with Democrats, regardless of their
differences.
And he spoke about what he believes is his final legacy
to the Senate, ``a great institution.''
``The American people are looking at us and they want us
to tell the truth,'' he said. ``We can lead and we can
mislead. But whatever we do, we will be held
responsible.''
And he defended his willingness over the years to
compromise with Democrats in pursuit of the Republican
agenda. In an apparent reference to the hard-charging
Republican freshmen of the House, Mr. Dole said that there
is nothing dishonorable about compromise and that without
it Congress cannot function.
``Ronald Reagan said once, `If I can get 90 percent of
what I want, I'd call that a pretty good deal,' '' Mr.
Dole said. ``Some people never understand that. Take the
90, then work on the 10.''
His colleagues gave him a 13-minute standing ovation,
and the new era began. Reporters peppered Mrs. Frahm with
questions. Other pressing issues immediately took
precedence with other Senators. Senator John McCain,
Arizona Republican, for example, urged the new majority
leader to bring the missile defense bill to the floor.
Surrounded by Senators and his family, Mr. Dole left his
office about 2:30 p.m.
``Here we go! This is it,'' Mr. Dole told reporters as
he walked out for the last time.
As thousands of supporters cheered, Mr. Dole descended
the Senate's 46 steps and touched ground before a waiting
car. He gave a thumbs-up to Miss Burke, who held her
daughter in her arms and returned the gesture.
At that moment, his sunshine-filled Senate suite was
silent and empty, except for a maid who cleared soda cans
and cookies from a reception table. Mr. Dole's own office
looked much the same as it had before his resignation.
Portraits of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Pocahontas hung on
either side of his desk. Only a painting of Abraham
Lincoln reading to his son Tad had been removed.
On Mr. Dole's desk remained a stack of news clippings
and summaries, including what appeared to be a large
farewell card, the front of which read:
``To Citizen Bob Dole: With gratitude for your many
years of service to your country.''
a
[From the Tulsa World, June 13, 1996]
Public Servant Dole
(Editorial)
For a brief shining moment Tuesday, Americans got a look
at their government at its very best. Robert Dole, lately
of the U.S. Senate, delivered a statesmanlike farewell
speech to the body he has served for 27 years and his
colleagues on both sides of the aisle responded with
respect and affection.
It was one of those increasingly rare times when members
of the most important deliberative body in the world
behaved with civility and respect for each other.
Dole of course is the Republican party's soon-to-be
nominee for President of the United States. He is leaving
the Senate to devote full time to his campaign, but he
never even mentioned the campaign in his remarks to the
Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle co-sponsored a
resolution naming a balcony outside the majority leader's
office after him and offered comments that were almost as
laudatory of Dole as those of GOP Senators.
Even in a Congress in which partisanship is sharper and
more petty than most, Bob Dole of Kansas is loved and
respected. His fairness and courtesy to everyone he deals
with is legendary.
He was a consummate legislator, always working to
accommodate all sides while still moving legislation
forward. He has served the country in this role for more
than 45 years, first as a member of the Kansas
Legislature, then as a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives and since 1969 as a Senator.
He has served two hitches as majority leader and was
minority leader for 8 years when his party was out of
power. He served in those positions at the pleasure of his
fellow Republicans, holding the loyalty of a changing
membership for more than a dozen years.
Oddly enough, Dole's long and distinguished legislative
career is out of favor with many in his own party. He is,
after all, a ``career politician,'' having been on
government payrolls for about a half century. It can be
proved that he believes in ``compromise,'' also a dirty
word in some GOP circles.
It perhaps violates the non-partisan spirit of Dole's
resignation day to point out that if the term limits
pushed by his party had been in effect, the country would
never have had the full benefit of the services of Bob
Dole.
Dole's personal traits of intelligence, dedication, hard
work and respect for the views of others combined to make
him one of the best legislators in history and that in
turn is the best reason to elect him to the Presidency.
To boot, he is old and wise. Yet he is running far
behind in the polls.
Go figure.
a
[From the Commercial Appeal (Memphis), June 13, 1996]
Dole Departs
(Editorial)
It hasn't been much noted, and it may seem a relatively
small thing, but it strikes us as something important
about Bob Dole that, in the hothouse of the U.S. Senate he
has now left, he never used profanity.
Several of his colleagues spoke of the fact to reporters
in assessing a leader who seldom lost his temper even in
intense negotiations and whose instincts were for
conciliation and moderation in fashioning public policies.
Those seeking fierce ideological passion from the
presumptive Republican candidate for President will be
disappointed. As his 35-year record in Congress
demonstrates, he is a man of self-restraint and balanced
views. He is conservative in the nonpolitical sense of
respecting tradition and the values of propriety and
loyalty.
Of his own loyalties, three stand out.
One is for deficit reduction. He understands that there
will come a day of reckoning on borrowing money for
excessive spending, and he doesn't believe today's
children should pay the high cost of their parents'
recklessness.
Another loyalty is for the Senate itself. He is not one
of those who scorns a body that has such importance for
the future of his country.
Still one more loyalty is for his political party. He
deeply believes that it is only through the party system
that the noblest political ends are accomplished. And he
is committed to the search for common interests and the
compromises that make legislative success possible.
In his farewell speech Tuesday as he left the Senate to
campaign for the Presidency, Dole said the central lesson
he learned in his long Senate career was the importance of
trustworthiness. He was most proud of the fact, he said,
that ``Bob Dole kept his word.''
Whether all of this--and more, of course--will be enough
to get Bob Dole elected President remains to be decided in
November. He has a long way to go to catch the public's
fancy--and President Clinton's lead.
But this much, at least, can be said: Dole served well
as the Senate's majority leader and in other capacities,
and no expletive ever had to be deleted from records of
his own words or descriptions of his behavior.
a
[From the Daily News (New York), June 13, 1996]
Bob Dole Charts Wise Course
(Editorial)
Yesterday was Bob Dole's first day as a private citizen.
A day that saw the right wing of the Republican Party
recoiling in horror at Dole's big-tent views on abortion.
Not a bad beginning for Citizen Dole.
He marched into full-time campaigning after Tuesday's
emotion-packed speech before his Senate colleagues. For 35
distinguished years, Dole worked the corridors of power on
Capitol Hill. For the last 11 years, he was the power as
the longest serving chief of Senate Republicans. The
respect, and a fair amount of affection, displayed on both
sides of the aisle are a testament to his skills and
personal decency.
Those same traits have been on public display over the
last few weeks. During the primary season, Dole had little
tolerance for gun control, affirmative action and
abortion. Now, with the nomination secured, he is tacking
to the middle on many issues.
An exercise in pure political calculus? No doubt. A bid
to lure Colin Powell to his ticket? Perhaps.
Either way, the results in Tuesday's GOP Senate primary
in Virginia illustrate the wisdom. For despite the fact
that the Christian Coalition and Iran-Contra scammer
Oliver North supported conservative Jim Miller, the
moderate incumbent, Senator John Warner, won in a
landslide. If the right wing can't win a primary in
Virginia, its threats are idle.
But Dole's shift toward the middle is most welcome for
another, less cynical, reason: It offers a realistic
formula for governing should he win the White House.
Especially on abortion, perhaps the most divisive issue in
America.
Though he says he supports the GOP platform's call for
an amendment outlawing abortion, Dole has shaken the
rafters with his urging for a ``declaration of
tolerance.'' And he wants a no-wiggle-room statement that
``ought to be right up there where people can see it.''
Would that all Republicans and Democrats were so
tolerant. Neither group can make that claim.
Dole's ``declaration,'' said Gary Bauer of the
conservative Family Research Council, is ``politically
dumb.'' Presidential wannabe Pat Buchanan squawked that it
was ``morally absurd.''
Dole gave as good as he got. ``We can't agree on every
issue in this party, and we ought to respect the views of
others,'' he shot back at Bauer. ``I mean, this a moral
issue.''
Clearly, Dole's liberation from the Senate has not
dulled time-honed instincts for moderation. And for
respect on matters of conscience. Those traits will serve
him well not only in unifying his party, but in trying to
appeal to the best in all Americans, whatever their
labels.
a
[From the Washington Post, June 13, 1996]
Good Citizen Dole
(By Mary McGrory)
Yes, I applauded when the retiring Senator Bob Dole
saluted the press--after fair warning we'd probably fall
out of our seats at what he was about to say. No, none of
my colleagues did. Was I unprofessional? Probably. My
editor suggests I should be fired, but that's what editors
always say. Perhaps I should try to explain.
I was delighted to hear Dole's kind words because I know
he had to come a long way to say them. I am glad whenever
any Republican says anything nice about us, because it is
well-known that they think we are a bunch of two-faced
radicals who exist to misrepresent them and distort their
views. I can still hear their primal, hair-raising roar
when Dwight Eisenhower fired on ``sensation-seeking
columnists and commentators.''
When I first knew Bob Dole, he was the nastiest man in
Washington, Richard Nixon's snarling surrogate, standing
in the deserted chamber at day's end, raging against Teddy
Kennedy and other critics of the Vietnam War. In the 1976
debate with Fritz Mondale, he frightened little children
with his baleful references to ``Democrat wars.''
Why wouldn't I clap when I heard him say, handsomely, to
the press gallery in farewell, ``I know that what you do
off this floor is as vital to American democracy as
anything we do on it, and we have to keep that in mind.''
You don't necessarily have to be going to vote for him
for President to cheer him on at such a moment. He didn't
have to say he doesn't always agree with us, we all know
that; he let us know in various ways. Like he stopped
speaking to me for a while last fall for no reason he
cared to state--we never had an interview so there was no
way of finding out. Just as mysteriously, he lifted the
interdict and resumed joshing with me about Antrim, the
town I love in New Hampshire which never votes for him.
I met another Bob Dole in 1982, courtesy of, of all
people, the liberals' liberal, Joseph L. Rauh Jr. It was
the dawn of the Reagan administration and the Gipper was
genially messing with civil rights. He had proposed a
preposterous condition for establishing violation of
voting rights: ``Registrars' intent'' to deprive the
applicant of his rights would have to be proven. Dole
didn't say much, as I remember it; he just went to work to
foil the President. He organized the Judiciary Committee,
he rallied moderate members. The next thing the White
House knew, it was surrounded, outgunned, outmanned.
Attorney William French Smith ran up the white flag. I
always thought it was sad that Dole belonged to a party
which would not let him brag about his finest hour.
It was all Dole, Joe told me. ``He put in things we
didn't dare propose. He would ask `Is it the right thing?'
If we said yes, he would say, `Well, let's put it in.' ''
I wrote several admiring, unbelieving pieces about this
civil libertarian I had never seen before. Dole once
muttered to me, with his shy, sly grin, ``Could you take
it easy?''
It was that Dole who spoke at his Senate farewell, in
that plain, unadorned, rambling, almost inarticulate
language that had nothing like the raptures of his
ghostwritten resignation announcement. This one he wrote
himself. Afterward, people argued about it. Had he
finally, unmistakably revealed ``the real Bob Dole,'' the
mensch who is loved by his Senate colleagues and honored
for the solid gold of his word? Some thought the
ordinariness of the prose and the resolute avoidance of
grand themes was unbecoming in a Presidential candidate,
an opportunity lost. Some thought the sight of Dole
telling of the good things he accomplished with good men,
a surprising number of them Democrats, showed a majority
leader the country could learn to love as they do. Others
thought the minimalist expression gave the affair all the
intrinsic drama of the retirement of the head Elk from his
lodge.
For Senate-lovers, it was a festival of lore and
laughter about an institution that evokes mostly scorn
elsewhere. For Republicans, it may have been an odd hit
parade, with any number of personalities they have
laboriously demonized over the years being affectionately
recalled: George McGovern, ``a gentleman''; Hubert
Humphrey, ``we didn't have a problem at all.'' Teddy
Kennedy and Tom Harkin and he went to a White House
ceremony together. For those to whom Phil Hart is a name
on a building, Dole brought the saintly Senator back to
life as a young man in a military hospital, who ``from
morning to night . . . spent his time running errands''
for the other patients or getting baseball tickets.
He had a text to which he fitfully referred. And he had
a message, although it was obliquely conveyed in that
rather glancing, cryptic phrasing he favors. It was to his
fellow Republicans, the stomping, club-swinging militants:
Be nice.
I do not apologize for clapping.
a
[From the Omaha World-Herald, June 15, 1996]
Dole Deserving of Laudatory Comments
(Editorial)
The gracious and generous manner in which Bob Dole said
farewell to the Senate may have puzzled people who have
bought into the rhetoric of commentators who paint Dole as
an extreme right-winger.
But it should have surprised no one. Dole was the
longest-serving Republican leader in Senate history. He
didn't hold onto the job so long through fear,
intimidation or back-room conniving. He was a consensus-
builder and a persuader.
The esteem in which he is held by his colleagues of both
political parties was apparent in what was said about him.
Despite ``a few bumps along the way,'' he told fellow
Senators, ``it's been a great ride.'' He reminisced about
friends and friendly opponents such as George McGovern and
Senator Tom Daschle, the current Democratic Party leader
in the Senate. He told an affectionate story about Hubert
Humphrey and the Minnesota Democrat's sometimes long
speeches. He recalled his relationships with former
Senators Phil Hart of Michigan, Russell Long of Louisiana
and Mike Mansfield of Montana. All were Democrats.
Daschle spoke of Dole's ``civility, pragmatism and self-
effacing humor,'' saying that he and the Republican had
wound up as friends.
Democrat Bill Bradley of New Jersey spoke eloquently of
Dole's abilities as Senate leader, saying: ``Although
(Dole) is personally shy, he knows how to build a
political consensus, use power, make things happen. He
keeps his word, which is an essential ingredient to
building trust. He listens well. He never burns bridges.''
Dole listed for his fellow Senators some of the
accomplishments of his 35-year career that he looked back
on with pride. Expanding child nutrition programs.
Establishing the food stamp program. Bailing out the
Social Security system. Extending civil rights protection
to the disabled with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Establishing Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday.
Maintaining a strong national defense. Supporting the war
in Vietnam. Hardly the record of a conservative ideologue.
Nebraska Senator J. James Exon said it well with his
farewell to Dole. ``If we have to have a Republican
President,'' he said, ``I hope it's you.'' It says much of
Dole that he has clearly earned the respect of his
colleagues.
a
[From the Sunday Gazette Mail, June 16, 1996]
Dole Did It His Way--The Hard Way
(By William Safire)
My informal job title in the Nixon administration was
Rejected Counsel. That's because, as a speech writer, I
would occasionally put my head into the Oval Office to
say: ``Mr. President--Do the popular thing! Take the easy
way!'' Nixon would ritualistically throw me out of the
office, allowing me to submit a speech draft that would
truthfully report: ``Some of my aides have suggested that
I do the popular thing, that I should take the easy way.
But I have rejected such counsel.''
This happy memory came to mind as I listened to Bob
Dole's eloquent announcement of his departure from the
Senate to devote all his time to his Presidential
campaign. In that talk, he referred briefly to his
difficult travail as a wounded veteran in relearning to
walk: ``I trust in the hard way, for little has come to me
except in the hard way, which is good because we have a
hard task ahead.''
Later he recalled times of discouragement: ``I have been
there before, I have done it the hard way and I will do it
the hard way once again.''
I reached Dole after the speech to ask who wrote it. He
was at first reluctant to say because he didn't want the
anonymous volunteer to get in trouble with his employer,
but when I explained that it would only help the writer's
career, and that people now understand that public figures
get professional writing help, the Senator replied that
drafts had come from Mark Helprin, a novelist who
contributes op-ed pieces to The Wall Street Journal.
Well, then--as a longtime derogator of ``the easy
way''--what can I contribute to the rhetorical origin of
Dole's the hard way? As the New Deal was rooted in card
playing, the hard way is derived from rolling dice. In
Damon Runyon's 1931 book, ``Guys and Dolls,'' a character
familiar with the world of gambling is quoted: ``
`Charley,' he says, `do you make it the hard way?' '' In
shooting craps, the hard way means ``the most difficult
way'': narrowing the ability to make an even-numbered
point by requiring the two dice to come up with a pair of
equal numbers totaling the point. What makes it ``harder''
is that the odds of achieving the point that limited way
are higher. By extension, the phrase to learn the hard way
means ``through bitter experience,'' and to come up the
hard way means ``primarily by one's own efforts.''
In an interview with Newsweek, Helprin recalled Dole's
words when making the decision to leave the Senate: ``If
I'm going to run for President, then I'm going to have to
run for president.''
This ``if-then'' construction has long been used in the
expression of determination and grit. Said the 19th-
century political economist William Graham Sumner: ``If
you ever live in a country run by a committee, be on the
committee.'' Said Napoleon Bonaparte to a hesitant
general: ``If you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna.''
a
[From the Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1996]
For Dole, Road to Politics Began At Kansas Courthouse;
GOP: His Days as County Attorney in '50s Paved Way to
Congress. The Ex-Senator Still Resonates Themes of that
Era
(By Richard A. Serrano)
These were good days, and on good days Bob Dole took the
steps two and three at a time. His office was on the
northwest corner of the third floor of the Russell County
Courthouse. Sometimes life was so good he whistled up the
stairs.
The county back then was tall in wheat and rich in oil.
In the town of Russell, there were two movie houses on
brick-paved Main Street, two newspapers, a drive-in
theater and a combination bowling alley-pool hall. No
longer just a wind-blown, flat-iron settlement of Old
World immigrants, the community was at the peak of its day
when Dole took office in 1953 as the new county attorney.
Traditionally, the job went to graduates just out of
Kansas law schools. They would serve the short 2-year
term, then move quickly into private practice around town.
In 1953, there wasn't a block on Main Street that didn't
boast a law firm.
But Dole had other plans. For 8 years he trekked up and
down those stairs, representing the people of Russell
County in the building's single courtroom, hashing out
legal problems in his tiny office with the wood paneling,
the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and the glass-brick
windows.
Dole was county attorney during the time Bill Clinton
was in grade school; the same period Dwight D. Eisenhower
served in the White House. When the decade ended, Dole
emerged a U.S. Congressman. He moved to Washington; his
Russell years were over.
Forty-six years later he is running for President,
running against Clinton with a campaign that resonates
Eisenhower themes of American spirit, 1950s-style progress
and small-town do-goodism.
His critics contend that he is lost in a time warp,
trapped in an era whose values cannot be pasted onto the
complicated and ever-changing global world of today.
But he persists. At campaign stops, his speeches often
travel back to his baptismal days as a lowly civil
servant, frequently praising a time when people looked to
friends and neighbors, rather than a distant bureaucracy,
to solve social problems.
It was his first taste of government service, his first
chance to press the public flesh. It marked his entry into
politics. It laid the groundwork for Bob Dole the public
man.
In Russell in the 1950s, Dole often sat alone in his
courthouse office, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes and sorting
through his community's travails without the help of big
Government programs or the hassles of red tape.
When half a dozen children were taken from their parents
because of neglect, he helped local families adopt them.
When his grandparents fell on hard times, he helped
process their welfare benefits.
Whenever a lovers' quarrel would erupt between the
endlessly bickering couple who owned Red's Chicken House
out on South Fossil Road, Dole would be called on to make
the peace. Everyone knew Judge Benedict P. Cruise was a
staunch Catholic and did not grant divorces. So Dole was
endlessly playing the role of conciliator for the battling
pair.
He won 4 consecutive terms. He dined with the Rotary
Club and the VFW crowd, and he kissed babies. He shook the
hands of farmers, and he seldom missed a chance to beam
for photographers with the annual county rodeo queen.
Every month, it seemed, another barbershop quartet hit
town. Barbershop quartets were a big draw back then. They
drew voters. And that drew Bob Dole.
He was in his 30s, a man on the go when small-town
America could still be fashionable. He wore dark blue
suits, even in the humid-dipped months of July and August.
This was before air conditioning, and still he never
loosened his tie or shed his jacket.
He prosecuted town drunks and nighttime brawlers and,
occasionally, rapists and thieves. While many of his cases
were plea-bargained, when Dole did take a case to the
courtroom, he often as not left the chamber victorious. He
wasn't swank and he didn't swagger, but he won.
People recall that he worked tirelessly--he walked home
for lunch and then returned to work, and then walked home
for dinner and returned again. The light in his office
often burned past midnight, past the time the sound of the
Union Pacific train was heard rumbling by Russell's giant
grain elevator as it headed for Denver or Kansas City or
other places east and west he longed to experience.
He also was feeling the kick of gut-level politics. In
1957, at the behest of the powerful Kansas petroleum
industry, he went to the State Supreme Court in Topeka and
persuaded the high court to strike down a new severance
tax that would have cost the oil and gas men millions of
dollars.
The oil companies responded with campaign money and
support that ultimately helped parlay this nondescript
county functionary into Kansas' 6th District Congressional
Representative and started him on the path to becoming a
Washington power broker.
He touched many lives in such a small town. How do they
remember this complex man of the Plains?
To his courthouse secretary, Juania June Ball, he was a
workaholic.
``Always long, hard hours all night long,'' she said.
``I had a Dictaphone, and he was talking and I was typing,
and you'd lose track of the time until you heard the train
go by. He'd say, `Well, there goes the 2 o'clock train. I
guess we better go home.' ''
To retired Sheriff Harry Morgenstern, Dole was someone
who quickly learned the politician's gift of dealing with
the voting public, and how to know them so they won't
forget you.
``He was so damn popular,'' Morgenstern said. ``He knew
everybody. He'd call everybody by name. There wasn't a
stranger to him.''
To Norbert Dreiling, an attorney who became active in
the Democratic Party, Dole always was more politician than
lawyer.
``He wasn't regarded as a poor lawyer, but he wasn't
regarded as a good lawyer either,'' Dreiling said. ``He
was using that office to move up the ladder. Kansas was
heavily Republican when he came up, and he had everything
he needed to pack the house. He was a mean warrior when it
came to politics. He was out to win.''
As for Dole himself, he attempted to get at the essence
of what it was like to be county attorney when he wrote in
his autobiography:
``Politics at the grass-roots level is almost always
personal. The smaller the town, the fewer the secrets and
the greater the importance placed on personal connections.
To many voters, the chief function for the county attorney
was springing their friends nabbed on traffic charges.''
For most of his life, he had been surrounded by Russell
friends and Russell neighbors. He was born here, the first
son of the man who ran the butter and egg creamery on Main
Street. At Russell High School, the girls voted him the
``ideal boy.''
Dole quietly had dreamed of being a surgeon. But his
wounds in a closing battle of World War II cut those hopes
short. He spent the next few years in rehabilitation, in
and out of hospitals, adopting a stick-to-it determination
that someday he would be whole again. He earned a law
degree in 1952, and not soon afterward stood up at a
community meeting 9 miles out of town. He fought back his
shyness and uttered seven words: ``I want to be your
county attorney.''
The next day he purchased a blue suit on credit at
Banker's Mercantile, then stepped out on Main Street and
began passing out fliers.
He ran against Dean Ostrum, a Phi Beta Kappa who was the
scion of a prominent local attorney. Ostrum was destined
for great things; he would move to the East Coast and
become a leading counsel for American Telephone &
Telegraph. But first he would lose to Bob Dole.
By all accounts, Ostrum was the better lawyer. But Dole
had one thing Ostrum did not--a Purple Heart.
``He never made a big thing about it, but you knew it,''
said John Woelk, a lawyer and a Democrat in his 70s who
still practices law in Russell. ``He had the handicap for
all of us to see. You were immediately aware of it because
he shook your hand with his left.''
Politics, Dole would later write, ``knocking on a
stranger's door, looking him in the eye and asking for his
vote, was a way to overcome my disability without denying
it.''
He beat Ostrum by less than 200 votes in the GOP
primary, then won the general election by more than 2,000.
The job paid $248 a month, less than what the county
janitor made. But there were perks, foremost being that
the county attorney was allowed to maintain a private
practice on the side, complete with use of a free phone
and desk.
``He was doing two jobs, really,'' said his first wife,
Phyllis. ``But I didn't pay that much attention to his
work. Bob did what he wanted to do.''
Old-timers remember that county business was slow in the
1950s, and Dole spent much of his time on his private
practice or doing what he liked more: Politicking. His
pals down at Dawson's soda fountain tell a story that
gives a feel of the time.
One day, according to owner Bub Dawson, Dole stopped by
and mentioned that he had a ``case.'' Dawson rounded up a
group of fellows. ``Hey, Bob's got a case,'' he told them.
Everybody thought Dole had a case of beer. But no, this
time he had a real case.
Most of it was run-of-the-mill stuff. Drunk driving.
Loitering. Carrying a switchblade knife. A murder file
never crossed his desk. There were a couple of incidents
of gang rape, and a fatal hit-and-run by a youth in a
stolen Pontiac. Dole also convicted a traveling carnival
worker who kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old girl.
``He also had that rather sarcastic wit,'' remembered
Marvin Thompson, another young attorney then. ``He could
use it to great effect sometimes. . . . But he wasn't
going to blow a jury apart with his oratory either.''
Dole occasionally took on the oil interests. Farmers
often complained that the wells caused saltwater poisoning
of their fields, and like county attorneys throughout this
region known as the nation's breadbasket, Dole would
defend the farmer.
But Dole found himself allied with the oil companies in
1957 when he filed a challenge to Kansas' new 1 percent
severance tax on production. He took it to the State
Supreme Court and won--the tax was struck down because of
a technicality he found in the law's title.
``Probably my biggest day in court,'' Dole would say
later.
``After that,'' said Dick Driscoll, a Russell lawyer and
Democrat, ``he suddenly had a lot of support from the oil
industry. He helped oil, and oil helped him.''
With money, backing and newly won prestige, the Dole
name was becoming known outside Russell. In 1960, he filed
as a candidate for Congress. His years as county attorney,
he said, his years in local politics had stood him well.
Little, in fact, had gotten by him. Even his campaign
rallies for Congress were jazzed up with performances by a
group of female harmony singers called the ``Dolls for
Dole.''
All those trips to listen to the barbershop quartets had
paid off.
a
[From the Christian Science Monitor, June 17, 1996]
Dole Braves a Storm
(Editorial)
Bob Dole bid an emotional farewell last week to the US
Senate. He weathered many storms there, but his was
usually a sure hand at the tiller.
Now he steps into a craft, his Presidential campaign,
with much trickier steering, and which is currently tossed
by a gale of Mr. Dole's own making.
But there's method in the candidate's willingness to
roil the waters after he supposedly smoothed them last
week by announcing he favored inclusion of a tolerance
statement in the GOP convention platform. Though intended
to moderate the party's unequivocal call for a
constitutional amendment to ban abortion, the statement
was to be innocuously placed in the platform's preamble
rather than its text--or so Dole aides and party right-
wingers thought.
Their candidate has now made it clear that the tolerance
wording should be placed more prominently, preferably
right in the abortion plank. That, alas, is heresy to
ardent pro-lifers such as Patrick Buchanan. To them, it
implies a retreat from the party's stated intolerance of
abortion.
To many other Republicans, however, it's an indication
that their man has the courage to brave the right wing's
fury on a matter of principle. The principle, says Dole,
is a respect for those with differing points of view, even
when you strongly disagree.
If people have trouble with that, the candidate said
with senatorial finality, ``that's fine with me.'' It will
take continued courage to stick by that stand and risk
another Buchanan-stirred tempest at the convention this
August.
But the stand for tolerance is likely to do Dole more
good than harm. First, it strikes a chord for moderation
that will ring true for most voters and might open the way
for a moderate vice-presidential candidate. Second, voters
have their eye out for someone with the moral fiber to
take a position because it's right, regardless of the
political fallout. That's the character issue in a
nutshell.
a
[From the Montgomery Advertiser, June 18, 1996]
Dole Really Witty, Warm Under Mask
(By Edwin Yoder)
WASHINGTON--Two good things happened to the Republican
Party June 11. But whether its elders will draw the right
conclusions about them is another question.
In the U.S. Senate chamber, there was a cordial daylong
celebration of the career of the retiring Republican
majority leader, Bob Dole, his party's nominee-apparent
for the Presidency.
From both parties there flowed warm appreciations of
Dole's record as a consummate Senate insider. Dole
reciprocated in a remarkably generous speech that almost
gave away one of Washington's better-kept secrets--namely,
that the grim, unsmiling Dole produced by his media
managers is a campaign-year Halloween mask. Behind that
mask lie qualities admired by those who know him best,
whatever their views.
What are those qualities? Wit, warmth and commitment, a
nonpartisan temperament fully capable of savoring American
political variety and dedicated--at least in private--to
the forbearance that distinguishes civilized politics from
the cockpit. And, beyond that, a satisfaction in
legislative achievements that have little to do with the
slimy, fifth-rate ``wedge issues'' that pass for political
argument today.
a
[From the Dallas Morning News, June 18, 1996]
Midwest Values and Civility Guide Dole
(By William McKenzie)
Maybe Bob Dole didn't stay too long in Washington, after
all. The habits and manners of the Midwest still seem to
shape Kansas' leading son, even after 36 years on Capitol
Hill.
Midwesterners, for example, often speak plainly. Think
back to the language of Harry Truman, Robert Taft, Abraham
Lincoln, Alf Landon and William Allen White, the legendary
Emporia (Kansas) Gazette editor. Their assessments were
straightforward, sometimes blunt.
Mr. Dole's candor shouldn't be confused with eloquence.
His sentences often don't complete themselves.
Still, the simple manner in which he departed the Senate
last week stands out, perhaps as Bob Dole at his best. His
remarks reveal a man shaped by the Midwest's dominant
practicality.
Surviving brutal winters and hot summers in small farm
towns forces people to work together, to search for ways
to keep their communities intact.
Main Street produces a different sort of political
figure than, say, Eastern intellectuals like William
Buckley and Steve Forbes.
Their political vocabulary, used to score sharp
philosophical points, was shaped by the prep-school, salon
environment in which they were raised.
Last week, however, Mr. Dole spoke movingly about how
he, Daniel Inouye and Philip Hart routinely played cards
as young men in a Battle Creek, Michigan, veterans
hospital. The three young soldiers all were seriously
wounded in World War II.
Coincidentally, however, they later served together as
Senators. And, yes, Mr. Inouye and the late Mr. Hart were
Democrats. But what ultimate difference did party
allegiance make after war tore apart their three bodies?
That Mr. Dole also left the Senate praising the
character of Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern, two
liberal Democrats, speaks to how much Capitol Hill has
changed. Leading legislators once could disagree and still
like one another.
Today, too many Republican and Democratic leaders throw
darts at each other in public while also disdaining the
opponent in private. An abundance of White House aides,
legislators and their staffers are on an almost idolatrous
philosophical mission, sometimes prohibiting themselves
from genuinely liking those who disagree with them. Or
from understanding that principle and compromise aren't
antagonists.
The new Washington makes Mr. Dole's skill in crafting
broad alliances appear almost anachronistic. He proudly
told ABC's Peter Jennings last week that he once worked
with Democrats and Republicans in sponsoring the Martin
Luther King Jr. holiday bill, creating the Americans with
Disabilities Act, giving Social Security an extension in
1983 and launching the Federal nutrition program for
pregnant women and their children.
The majority leader also said he hoped colleagues would
remember him for being fair. Tough? Partisan? Demanding?
Yes . . those things, too, Mr. Dole said. But most of
all, he wanted to be remembered for fairness. He was
pleased that Democratic Senator Carol Moseley Braun, an
African-American, told him that he always dealt fairly
with her.
The Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib notes that Kansas
editor McDill ``Huck'' Boyd influenced Mr. Dole in his
early political years. A Republican, Mr. Boyd recruited
Mr. Dole to run for Congress in 1960 and urged him always
to maintain an inclusive Republicanism.
Mr. Dole once recalled how Mr. Boyd wanted to break down
barriers and bring in more people. The Kansas editor
reminded him, Don't get too far out, don't get too strung
out, don't get too harsh. That Midwestern sensibility
evidently rubbed off.
Mr. Boyd's Midwest lives on in Bob Dole's civic
Republicanism, too. He isn't driven by philosophical
causes, even though deficit reduction is a passion.
Instead, the Kansan approaches politics like a Chamber of
Commerce leader. Build up America. Spend prudently. Be
fair. Use government when necessary, but don't become
hooked on it.
Of course, Mr. Dole occasionally strays from his native
Republicanism. He can lash out on campaign trails, playing
the divide-'em-up game.
But he shouldn't move too far from his original
influences.
Editor White, also a devout Republican, wrote, ``Times
are made more or less by leadership, but there is the
other half of the equation, which is that times develop
leaders.'' Bob Dole's early times and place are worth
honoring.
a
[From the Indianapolis News, June 19, 1996]
Senator Dole vs. Citizen Dole
(Editorial, Dan Coats)
Last week, Senator Bob Dole became Citizen Dole. He has
every right to be proud of that hard, courageous decision.
The U.S. Senate has every reason to be sorry for it.
Bob Dole leaves a legacy of lasting influence. He led
the Congress to historic accomplishments, including the
rescue of Social Security and the first balanced budget in
a generation. He led the Republican Party, 2 years ago, to
historic victory. Now he has accepted one more chance to
lead.
This is the common thread that runs through an uncommon
life: leadership. He has provided a definition of the
term.
As a Senator, Bob Dole mastered the art of consensus. He
knew when a breakthrough depended on one well-placed word.
He knew how to cool tempers and emphasize agreement. He
knew how to turn the chaos of Senate procedure into
tangible achievements. These are rare and important
qualities.
Yet this is only half of the story. I have seen another
side of Bob Dole's leadership. He once put it this way:
``I believe there is a place for honest negotiation in
politics. It is an essential part of democracy. Every
political movement, and every public official, however,
must locate a place where compromise ends--a core of
conviction where we keep our conscience. There comes a
time when even practical leaders must refuse to bend or
yield.''
For Bob Dole that core of conviction is basic, permanent
and solid: safe streets, strong families, military
strength, fiscal responsibility and a decent public
culture. These commitments are rooted in the soil of the
Midwest, in the lessons of a small town and in his own
experiences of suffering and service. Bob Dole understands
the secret strength of America because he embodies it.
His politics are balanced, but deeply held. He knows
that Americans value freedom and responsibility, but still
must care for one another in times of crisis and need. He
understands the fears at the edge of poverty because he
felt them in his youth. He knows the price of liberty
because he paid it himself in combat. In the Senate, we
have come to depend on this core of conviction, based on
the lessons of a life.
In his legislative career, Bob Dole has displayed both
elements of true leadership: consensus and conscience. He
is an example to all of us who work with him and respect
him. Leaving the security of the Senate is just another
example of the moral courage we have come to know.
The poet T.S. Eliot wrote, ``In my end is my
beginning.'' Bob Dole's distinguished legislative career
has ended. It is, however, the beginning of a new mission.
That mission takes him beyond the Senate, and we regret
it. But I am convinced it will take him to the White
House. Citizen Dole has only begun his service to this
Nation.