The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Senate section on pages S4497-S4506 on March 27, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I know there are a group of us who wish to speak about Senator Moynihan. I think that would be the next order of business, and so I will proceed.
Let me say that yesterday all of us were caused great sorrow when we heard the terrible news that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a giant among us, had passed from our midst. While the sadness is still there, today I rise to pay tribute to Pat Moynihan and to the extraordinary life that he led.
It can rarely be said about someone that they changed the world and made it a better place just with their ideas. Senator Moynihan was such an individual. He was a font of ideas. He was not afraid to utter them and he uttered them in such a way that people listened, paid attention, and changed the way they lived for the better.
Pat Moynihan was a friend to me, a mentor. I first met him when I attended his course at Harvard while I was a student and he was a professor. Throughout the many years, he extended me so many kindnesses I can't even count them. But beyond the personal--and every one of us has our personal stories about Pat--is what he did for all of us. He was known in the Senate as a unique individual, as a person of ideas in a body that, frankly, has always needed more of them. He was the kind of Senator that the Founding Fathers, as they look down on this body, would look at and smile and say: That's the kind of person we wanted to serve in the Senate.
I think the Washington Post editorial said it very well today. It said:
He pursued with distinction enough careers for half a dozen men of lesser talents and imagination--politician, Presidential adviser, diplomat, author, professor and public intellectual.
As someone who is barely managing to pursue only one of those many careers, I can't help but observe that, as you look around, there are no more Pat Moynihans in part because of the man--Pat Moynihan's vision, erudition, intellect, dazzling wit, and moral conviction were second to none--and in part because of the times. Pat Moynihan was one of the preeminent public intellectuals in a time when such figures and their ideas could command the Nation's attention in a way that I fear is now all but gone from American life. I hope and pray that is not true.
But we mourn his passing. We mourn the passing of his time from the national stage and from this beloved institution that he loved so well and served so well in for 24 years, the Senate.
In the coming days, many will pay tribute to Pat Moynihan's leadership and vision on so many ideas where his mark on policy and his mark on individuals are well known. There are children born in this country and in foreign countries whose lives are better, who will live better lives because Pat Moynihan lived and worked on this Earth.
His leadership in Social Security, in welfare reform, in poverty, in tax policy, in trade, in education, in immigration, in foreign policy, and most recently in government secrecy--any one of those would have been enough to be a capstone of an ordinary Senator's career. But Pat did them all.
Adam Clymer of the New York Times chronicled Pat's career and life movingly and brilliantly today. I ask unanimous consent his piece be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Daniel Patrick Moynihan Is Dead; Senator From Academia Was 76
(By Adam Clymer)
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Harvard professor and four-term United States senator from New York who brought a scholar's eye for data to politics and a politician's sense of the real world to academia, died yesterday at Washington, D.C. He was 76.
The cause, a spokesman for the family said, was complications of a ruptured appendix, which was removed on March 11 at the hospital, where he remained.
Mr. Moynihan was always more a man of ideas than of legislation or partisan combat. Yet he was enough of a politician to win re-election easily--and enough of a maverick with close Republican friends to be an occasional irritant to his Democratic party leaders. Before the Senate, his political home from 1977 to 2001, he served two Democratic presidents and two Republicans, finishing his career in the executive branch as President Richard M. Nixon's ambassador to India and President Gerald R. Ford's ambassador to the United Nations.
For more than 40 years, in and out of government, he became known for being among the first to identify new problems and propose novel, if not easy, solutions, most famously in auto safety and mass transportation; urban decay and the corrosive effects of racism; and the preservation and development of architecturally distinctive federal buildings.
He was a man known for the grand gesture as well as the bon mot, and his style sometimes got more attention than his prescience, displayed notably in 1980 when he labeled the Soviet Union ``in decline.'' Among his last great causes were strengthening Social Security and attacking government secrecy.
In the halls of academe and the corridors of power, he was known for seizing ideas and connections before others noticed. In 1963, for example, he was the co-author of
``Beyond the Melting Pot,'' which shattered the idea that ethnic identities inevitably wear off in the United States. Then, on the day that November when President Kennedy was shot in Dallas, he told every official he could find that the federal government must take custody of Lee Harvey Oswald to keep him alive to learn about the killing. No one listened.
Friends also observed the intense sense of history he connected to immediate events. Bob Packwood, the former Republican senator from Oregon, recalled his Democratic friend's response in 1993 when a reporter on the White House lawn asked what he thought of the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement to share the West Bank. ``Well, I think it's the end of World War I,'' he said, alluding to the mandates that proposed Middle Eastern boundaries in 1920.
Erudite, opinionated and favoring, in season, tweed or seersucker, Mr. Moynihan conveyed an academic personality through a chirpy manner of speech, with occasional pauses between syllables. More than most senators, he could get colleagues to listen to his speeches, though not necessarily to follow his recommendations. He had a knack for the striking phrase, but unease at the controversy it often caused. When other senators used August recesses to travel or raise money for re-election, he spent most of them in an 1854 schoolhouse on his farm in Pindars Corners in Delaware County, about 65 miles west of Albany. He was writing books, 9 as a senator, 18 in all.
Mr. Moynihan was less an original researcher than a bold, often brilliant synthesizer whose works compelled furious debate and further research. In 1965, his foremost work,
``The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,'' identified the breakup of black families as a major impediment to black advancement. Though savaged by many liberal academics at the time, it is now generally regarded as ``an important and prophetic document,'' in the words of Prof. William Julius Wilson of Harvard.
Five years later, his memo to President Nixon on race relations caused another uproar. Citing the raw feelings provoked by the battles of the civil rights era, Mr. Moynihan suggested a period of rhetorical calm--``benign neglect'' he called it--a proposal widely misinterpreted as a call to abandon federal programs to improve the lives of black families.
Nonetheless, he could also be an effective legislator. In his first term he teamed with Jacob K. Javits, his Republican colleague, to pass legislation guaranteeing $2 billion worth of New York City obligations at a time when the city faced bankruptcy. In a brief turn leading the Environment and Public Works Committee in 1991 and 1992 he successfully pushed to shift highway financing toward mass transit--and get New York $5 billion in retroactive reimbursement for building the New York State Thruway before the federal government began the Interstate Highway System.
Although Mr. Moynihan's junior colleague for 18 years, Alfonse M. D'Amato, became known as Senator Pothole for his pork-barrel efforts of New York, Mr. Moynihan held his own in that department.
monument of bricks and marble
Long before he came to the Senate, and until he left, he was building a monument of bricks and marble by making Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue, a dingy street where he came to work for President John F. Kennedy in 1961, into the grand avenue that George Washington foresaw for the boulevard that connects the Capitol and the White House. Nearly 40 years of his effort filled the avenue with new buildings on its north side, including the apartment houses where he lived, restored buildings on the south, and cafes and a sense of life all along.
Wherever he went, Mr. Moynihan explored interesting buildings and worked to preserve architectural distinction, from converting the main post office in Manhattan into the new Pennsylvania Station, to the Customs House at Battery Park and all around Washington. Last year, over lunch and a martini at Washington's Hotel Monaco, an 1842 Robert Mills building that was once the city's main post office, he recalled how he had helped rescue it from decline into a shooting gallery for drugs.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan was born in Tulsa, Okla., on March 16, 1927, the son of an itinerant, hard-drinking newspaperman who moved the family to New York later that year to take a job writing advertising copy. They lived comfortably in the city and suburbs until 1937 when his father, John Moynihan, left the family and left it in poverty.
Mr. Moynihan's childhood has been pseudo-glamorized by references to an upbringing in Hell's Kitchen, which in fact he encountered after his mother bought a bar there when he was 20. But there was enough hardship and instability in his early life so that when he later wrote of ``social pathology,'' he knew what he was talking about.
Mr. Moynihan's mother, Margaret Moynihan, moved the family, including a brother, Michael, and a sister, Ellen, into a succession of Manhattan apartments, and Pat shined shoes in Times Square. In 1943 he graduated first in his class at Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. He also graduated to work as a stevedore at Piers 48 and 49 on West 11th Street.
He went to City College for a year, enlisted in the Navy, and was trained as an officer at Middlebury College and at Tufts University. Discharged the next spring, he went to work that summer tending bar for his mother, then got his B.A. at Tufts in 1948 and an M.A. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts in 1949.
In 1950 he went to the London School of Economics on a Fulbright Scholarship, and he lived well on it, the G.I. bill and later a job at an Air Force base. He started wearing a bowler hat. He had a tailor and a bootmaker and traveled widely, including a visit to Moynihan cousins in County Kerry, Ireland.
Work on his dissertation did not consume him. In ``Pat,'' his 1979 biography, Doug Schoen described a 1952 visit by two former Middlebury colleagues: ``Impressed at first with his elaborate file cabinet full of index cards, they found that most of the cards were recipes for drinks rather than notes on the International Labor Organization.''
Mr. Moynihan came home in 1953 and went to work in the mayoral campaign of Robert F. Wagner. He went on to write speeches for W. Averell Harriman's successful campaign for governor in 1954, joined his administration in Albany and rose to become his chief aide. It was there he learned about traffic safety, which he described in a 1959 article in The Reporter as a public health problem requiring federal action to make automobile design safer.
a semi-modest proposal
Another former campaign worker who came to Albany was Elizabeth Brennan. Her desk and his were in the same room, and they grew friendly. Rather suddenly in early 1955, when they had never dated, Mr. Moynihan did not formally propose but simply told her he was going to marry her.
They married in May 1955, and she often said she married him because he was the funniest man she ever met.
His wife survives him, as do their three children: Timothy, Maura and John, and two grandchildren.
While he was an enthusiastic supporter of John F. Kennedy, work at Syracuse University on a book about the Harriman administration and his Ph.D. kept his role in the campaign sporadic. But Liz Brennan Moynihan organized the campaign efforts in the Syracuse area.
His Ph.D. in international relations finally complete, he left Syracuse in 1961 for Washington and the Labor Department, rising to assistant secretary. One early research assignment on office space for the scattered department gave him an opportunity to assert guiding architectural principles that have endured and produced striking courthouses: that federal buildings ``must provide visual testimony to the dignity, enterprise, vigor and stability of the American government.'' That same report enabled him to raise the Pennsylvania Avenue issue, and he was at work on development plans on Nov. 22, 1963, when the word came that the president had been shot in Dallas.
Beyond his failed efforts to protect Mr. Oswald, Mr. Moynihan marked that grim assassination weekend with a widely remembered remark about the death of the president he barely knew but idolized and eagerly followed.
On Sunday, Nov. 24, he said in a television interview: ``I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess we thought we had a little more time.'' He added softly, ``So did he.''
His first book, written jointly with Nathan Glazer, had come out earlier that year. ``Beyond the Melting Pot'' looked at the different ethnic groups of New York City and scoffed at ``the notion that the intense and unprecedented mixture of ethnic and religious groups in American life was soon to blend into a homogeneous end product.'' Ethnicity persisted, they argued.
That concept won praise from the era's leading historian of immigration, Harvard's Oscar Handlin, who called it a ``point of departure'' in studies of immigrants. But in a foretaste of academic criticism in years to come, he said their methodology was sometimes ``flimsy.''
``The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,'' a paper he wrote at the Labor Department early in 1965, argued that despite the Johnson administrations's success in passing civil rights, laws, statutes could not ensure equality after three centuries of deprivation. He said the disintegration of black families had reached a point of ``social pathology.'' He wrote: ``The principal challenge of the next phase of the Negro revolution is to make certain that equality of results will now follow. If we do not, there will be no social peace in the United States for generations.''
He cited black unemployment, welfare and illegitimacy rates. His emphasis on families headed by women led him to be accused of blaming the victims for their predicament, but in fact he wrote clearly, ``It was by destroying the Negro family under slavery that white America broke the will of the Negro people.'' Now, he wrote, the federal government must adopt policies especially in education and employment,
``designed to have the effect, directly or indirectly, of enhancing the stability and resources of the Negro American family.''
He left the administration in 1965 as liberals denounced his paper, and then ran for president of the New York City Council. He lost badly in the Democratic primary, but went on to Wesleyan University and, in 1966, to Harvard as director of the Joint Center for Urban Studies and a tenured professor in the Graduate School of Education.
He spoke out against disorder, in urban slums and on select campuses. Speaking to Americans for Democratic Action in 1967, he made it clear he though liberal pieties would not solve black problems.
And in a passage that came to the eye of the Republican presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon, he said liberals must ``see more clearly that their essential interest is in the stability of the social order'' and ``make alliances with conservatives who share that concern.'' When Nixon was elected, Mr. Moynihan made his alliance. He joined the White House staff as assistant to the president for urban affairs.
That startled his friends, and his wife refused to move to Washington. Mr. Moynihan, who never developed, even after Watergate, the searing contempt for Mr. Nixon that animated so many contemporary Democrats, explained that when the president of the United States asks, a good citizen agrees to help. Another biographer, Godfrey Hodgson, says that while Mr. Moynihan never stopped thinking of himself as a liberal Democrat, he shared the president's resentment of orthodox liberalism.
While his advice to the president to end the war in Vietnam stayed private, there were two ideas for which his time in the Nixon White House was known.
In 1970 he wrote to the president on race relations, arguing that the issue had been rubbed raw by ``hysterics, paranoids and boodlers'' on all sides. Now, he wrote, race relations could profit from a period of ``benign neglect'' in which rhetoric, at least, was toned down. In a return of the reaction to his paper on the Negro family, when this paper was leaked it was treated as if Mr. Moynihan wanted to neglect blacks.
He may have invited that interpretation by his quaintly glib language, but in fact Mr. Moynihan was pushing an idea that might have been of vast help to poor blacks, and whites. That other idea for which he was known, the Family Assistance Plan, sought to provide guaranteed income to the unemployed and supplements to the working poor, and together to stop fathers from leaving home so their families could qualify for welfare. The president made a speech for the program, sent it to Capitol Hill and let it die.
Afterward, though he remained on good terms with Mr. Nixon, Mr. Moynihan went back to Harvard in 1970. Resentment over his White House service chilled his welcome back in Cambridge. His interests shifted to foreign affairs--perhaps because the charges of racism left him no audience for domestic policy, and made him welcome an appointment as ambassador to India, where he negotiated a deal to end India's huge food aid debt to the United States. He returned to Harvard to protect his tenure in 1975, but moved that year to the United Nations as United States ambassador.
There he answered the United States' third world critics bluntly, often contemptuously.
In his brief tenure he called Idi Amin, the president of Uganda, a ``racist murderer,'' and denounced the General Assembly for passing a resolution equating Zionism with racism: ``the abomination of anti-Semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction.'' After eight months of struggles with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who wanted a less confrontational approach, he resigned in February 1976.
That made him available for a run for the Democratic nomination for the Senate, and he edged out the very liberal Representative Bella Abzug in the primary before winning the general election easily over the incumbent, James L. Buckley, the Republican-Conservative candidate. With his wife in charge of each campaign, he won three landslide re-elections.
He set one high goal--a seat on the Finance Committee as a freshman--and reached it, along with a seat on the Intelligence Committee. Early in office he joined Gov. Hugh L. Carey, Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts in a St. Patrick's Day appeal to Irish-Americans to stop sending money to arm the Irish Republican Army, whom he privately described as ``a bunch of murderous thugs.''
Every year he produced an analysis of federal taxes and federal aid, known as ``the fisc,'' which showed that New York was getting regularly shortchanged by Washington. He worked to reduce that imbalance, both through Medicaid funding on the finance Committee and public works on the Environment and Public Works Committee.
And his colleagues always knew he was around. Every day of the 2,454-day captivity of Terry Anderson, the Associated Press reporter captured by 1985 by the Hezbollah in Lebanon, he would go to the Senate floor to remind his colleagues, in a sentence, just how many days it had been.
Quarreled With White House
After loyally serving four presidents, he quarreled with those in the White House while he was in the Senate. When he arrived in 1977, he found President Carter too soft in dealing with the Soviet Union and indifferent to its evil nature.
But he quickly came to believe that the Soviet Union was crumbling. In Newsweek in 1979 he focused on its ethnic tensions. In January 1980, he told the Senate: ``The Soviet Union is a seriously troubled, even sick society. The indices of economic stagnation and even decline are extraordinary. The indices of social disorder--social pathology is not too strong a term--are even more so.'' He added. ``The defining event of the decade might well be the breakup of the Soviet empire.''
It was against that changed perception that he was sharply critical of vast increases in military spending, which, combined with the Reagan tax cuts, produced deficits that he charged were intended to starve domestic spending. He called a 1983 Reagan proposal for cutting Social Security benefits a
``breach of faith'' with the elderly, and worked out a rescue package that kept the program solvent for at least a decade into the 21st century.
He also scorned the 1983 invasion of Grenada, the 1984 mining of harbors in Nicaragua and the 1989 invasion of Panama as violations of international law, and voted against authorizing President George H. W. Bush to make war against Iraq. It was not enough, he wrote in his book ``On the Law of Nations'' in 1990, for the United States to be strong enough to get away with such actions. The American legacy of international legal norms of state behavior, he wrote, is ``a legacy not to be frittered away.''
But probably his worst relations with a president came when Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton sought passage of national health insurance.
Certainly, the failure of health care legislation was not primarily Mr. Moynihan's responsibility, but he had become chairman of the Finance Committee in 1993, and health care fell within its jurisdiction. He said the administration should take on welfare reform legislation first, and carped on television about their health plan, quickly fixing on the role of teaching hospitals as the biggest issue in health care. But otherwise he waited for Mr. Packwood and Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican leader, to propose a compromise. Mr. Dole had decided all-out opposition was the better course for his party, and they never did.
Mr. Moynihan's career in the Senate was marked not by legislative milestones but by ideas. Even so, Senator Kennedy, the legislative lion, once described him in 1993 as an exemplar ``of what the Founding Fathers thought the Senate would be about,'' because of the New Yorker's breadth of interests, ``having read history, and thought about it, and being opinionated.''
Mr. SCHUMER. As a fellow New Yorker, I am going to speak of Pat Moynihan as a builder. He was known as a thinker, but we forget he was also a builder, a builder of bricks and mortar, somebody who taught us in New York and the country to think grandly of public works once again. Those who knew Moynihan best say that is where his heart truly lay.
The week after I won election for the Senate, Pat Moynihan called me into his office. He told me he would announce he wasn't going to run again. He said: I am going to bequeath to you a gift. I am going to recommend that my staffer Polly Trottenberg work for you. Well I took his advice and hired her to be my Legislative Director and she has been with me ever since. He did many nice things for me. That was certainly one of them.
Because she worked so long and well for him, I asked Polly today what Pat Moynihan had regarded as his greatest accomplishment and she said something that surprised me. But when you think about it, it should not be surprising. It was how he reclaimed Pennsylvania Avenue in this city and made it big and grand and beautiful again and how he lived out the rest of his days there with his wonderful wife Liz.
Pat Moynihan not only taught us to think grandly about public works on the national scale, he also taught us to cherish our cities, to make them lively and beautiful, and none so more than his two beloved cities, New York and Washington.
His groundbreaking work on Federal transportation policy remains without equal. Pat Moynihan is the father of ISTEA, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, the most important piece of transportation legislation since President Eisenhower's Federal Highway Act of 1956.
Pat Moynihan, as a social scientist, urban planner, and old-fashioned New York politician, helped change the course of American transportation, weaning us from our highways-only approach that had destroyed so many urban neighbors.
Instead, ISTEA encouraged so many communities to invest in other modes, such as transit, rail, and even bipeds. I ride a bike every Saturday around New York. It is another small way I thank Pat Moynihan.
He provided citizens with far greater say in what types of projects would be built in their communities. ISTEA was especially important to New York. It enabled the State to restore some of our most important but neglected public works, such as the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge as well as dream new dreams like I-86 across the southern tier, and the Second Avenue subway.
His passion and dedication to public architecture is well known and dates from his days as a young aide to President Kennedy who, right before his death, tasked Moynihan with restoring Pennsylvania Avenue here in Washington. Moynihan succeeded brilliantly in his task, with the final piece of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, unveiled a few years ago and instantly hailed as one of the best new buildings to grace the Capital.
Of course, Senator Moynihan was also a leading force for architecture in New York. He was responsible for building a beautiful Federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, which we were proud to name after him. Completed in 1994, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse embodies the same spirit as his previous architectural endeavors, an extraordinary work of art inside and outside.
He was responsible for the restoration of the spectacular Beaux-Arts Customs House at Bowling Green and for recognizing what a treasure we have in Governors Island.
He is beloved in Buffalo, at the other end of our State, for reawakening the city's appreciation for its architectural heritage, which includes Frank Lloyd Wright houses and the Prudential Building, one of the best known early skyscrapers by the architect Louis H. Sullivan, a building which Moynihan helped restore and then chose as his Buffalo office.
Moynihan has also spurred a powerful and passionate popular movement, which is gaining strength as he leaves us, in Buffalo to build a new signature Peace Bridge over the Niagara River.
His last project--one that I regret he didn't live to see completed--
was his beloved Pennsylvania Station. In 1963, Pat Moynihan was one a group of prescient New Yorkers who protested the tragic razing of our city's spectacular Penn Station--a glorious public building designed by the Nation's premier architectural firm of the time, McKim, Mead & White.
It was Pat Moynihan who recognized years ago that across the street from what is now a sad basement terminal that functions--barely--as New York City's train station, sits the James A. Farley Post Office Building, built by the same architects in much the same grand design as the old Penn Station. Pat Moynihan recognized that since the very same railroad tracks that run under the current Penn Station also run beneath the Farley Building, we could use the Farley Building to once again create a train station worthy of our grand city.
He then did the impossible: He persuaded New York City, New York State, the U.S. Postal Service, the U.S. Department of Transportation, Amtrak, congressional appropriators, and President Clinton himself, to commit to making this project succeed. And I can tell you, I don't think President Clinton even knew what hit him.
Herbert Muschamp, the noted New York Times architecture critic, praised the new Penn Station design, which brilliantly fuses the classical elements of the Farley Building with a dramatic, light-filled concourse, when he wrote:
In an era better known for the decrepitude of its infrastructure than for inspiring new visions of the city's future, the plan comes as proof that New York can still undertake major public works. This is the most important transportation project undertaken in New York City in several generations.
We have Pat Moynihan to thank for that and so many other things.
The epitaph given to Sir Christopher Wren, designer of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, is an equally fitting epitaph for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: ``Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice''--``If you would see this man's monument, look around.''
And not only look at the buildings, look at people, look at highways, look at Government projects and programs--all of which Pat Moynihan had a tremendous effect on.
I join with every New Yorker and every American in mourning Pat Moynihan's passing but celebrating his extraordinary life, his extraordinary career, celebrating the extraordinary man himself.
I give my heartfelt condolences to his family--Liz and Timothy and Maura and John and his grandchilden, Michael Patrick and Zora--and count myself among the many others who will miss him dearly.
Mr. President, I will end with a prayer. It is my hope, it is my prayer, that God grant us a few more Pat Moynihans in this Senate, in this country, in this world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I join my colleague in expressing our sense of loss at the passing of a man whom we knew, we admired, we respected, we enjoyed.
Yesterday, we lost more than ``The Gentleman from New York.'' We lost one of the great minds of America's 20th century. He devoted more than 50 years of his life to public service in order to build a better world. For Senator Moynihan, his service to his country and to the State he loved was more than his career. It was his calling.
For 24 years, New Yorkers had the benefit of his intellect and his dedication on the floor of this Senate. Whenever he headed to the Senate floor to speak, he kept the people of New York close to his heart. And he came armed with three signature items: his horn-rim glasses, a bow tie, and a great idea.
No one believed more in the power of restoration than Senator Moynihan: Restoration of our cities as economic and cultural centers; restoration of our historic buildings as public places of pride; restoration of the family, when given the proper tools to mend decades of despair; restoration of our Government to better serve its people.
It was Senator Moynihan who helped restore our sense of hope with his ability to look at an abandoned building, a neglected neighborhood, or an empty school, and see not only what it could become but how to make it so.
He could ``see around corners,'' to quote his Irish heritage. I always loved that phrase when applied to Pat Moynihan because it so aptly described his unique ability to foresee how we might address a difficult problem. Time after time, he could see our Nation's next pressing challenge--and its solution-- even when it was decades away from our own national conscience.
His soul was anchored in the New Deal, but it was his ability to enhance the social contract to meet the challenges of the 20th and 21st century that transformed the lives of millions of New Yorkers and Americans.
Whether it was Social Security, Medicare, education, health care, the environment, fighting poverty, or historic preservation, every issue illustrated what Senator Moynihan did best: He used the power of an idea as an engine for change. He was an architect of hope.
It was Senator Moynihan who was able to articulate that poverty in an urban setting was just as isolating and devastating as in a rural setting. This helped launch the war on poverty and the idea that we now know as the earned income tax credit.
It was Senator Moynihan who realized that States such as New York and others across the Northeast contributed more in taxes than we received back from the Federal Government. This prompted what he called the FISC Report, and his fight, which I carry on, to get New York its fair share.
It was Senator Moynihan who looked at our historic places--from Pennsylvania Avenue right here in Washington, DC, to Penn Station in New York City--and saw how saving these great monuments to the past held meaning and purpose for our future.
It was Senator Moynihan, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who helped write the 1993 Budget Act, pass the Economic Act, and the Deficit Reduction Act, that set the foundation for the prosperity of the 1990s, lifted 7 million Americans out of poverty, and sent a clear message that the Federal Government did its best work when it did it responsibly, living within a budget. Unlike what we have just seen here on the floor over the last several days, Senator Moynihan understood that a Government which lived within its means made real choices, not false choices, and then putting it on a credit card for our children to have to pay.
It was Senator Moynihan who, in addition to all of these domestic accomplishments, forged a new era of foreign policy for America with his work as Ambassador to India, and with his eloquence on behalf of the United States, speaking up during a contentious time as Ambassador to the United Nations.
On a personal note, it was Senator Moynihan who welcomed me to his farm in Pindars Corners on a picture-perfect July day in 1999 and offered his support and encouragement, sending me on my way with a gesture of profound kindness that I will never forget.
A few months ago, Senator Moynihan came to see me in my office. It is the office he was in for so many years. He sat with me, and we talked about the issues confronting this Senate. I asked his advice. I told him I wanted to have a chance to talk with him further about so many of the challenges that are facing us. Unfortunately, that was not to be. His illness prevented him from coming back to the Senate and from helping other Senators one last time.
Today, we are all thinking of him and his family. We extend our condolences, and our gratitude for the life he lived, the example he set, and the countless contributions he made.
Senator Moynihan once said, in a very Irish way:
Well, knowledge is sorrow really.
He was right. The knowledge that he no longer walks among us brings sorrow to every New Yorker and American. He grew up in Hell's Kitchen, but he brought a bit of heaven to the Senate. We are grateful for his being amongst us; his looking around those corners, seeing further than any of us could on our own.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wonderful wife Liz, his children, his grandchildren. We wish them strength, and we want them to know that Pat Moynihan was a blessing, a blessing to the Senate, a blessing to New York, and a blessing to America.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me first of all commend both of our colleagues from New York, Senators Schumer and Clinton, for their very eloquent remarks about our former colleague and dear friend, Pat Moynihan. I know not only the Moynihan family but the people of New York and others around this great country who have had the privilege of knowing and spending time with Pat Moynihan deeply appreciate their comments and their words. I join in expressing my deep sense of loss of a towering figure of American life, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom we all know passed away yesterday. My heart certainly goes out to Senator Moynihan's family at this most difficult time, his remarkable wife Liz and their three children, Timothy, Maura, and John, as well as the entire Moynihan family.
All of us, every single American, even those who may never have heard his name or are unaware of his contribution, lost a member of the family in a sense with the death of Pat Moynihan. That is because for more than half a century, Pat Moynihan served the American people as a soldier, a teacher, as an author, an assistant to four American Presidents, an Ambassador to India and the United Nations and, of course, a Member of this Chamber for 24 years, from 1976 to the year 2000.
Pat Moynihan, to those of us who knew him so well, was an intellectual giant who never lost sight of what makes America tick, in its most fundamental way our nation's people and our nation's families. He had a deep appreciation and abiding of America's families as the backbone of our nation's social and economic structure that has provided us with stability and growth and success for more than two centuries.
And he was, of course, an unparalleled leader in pointing out weaknesses in America's families and ways in which we might strengthen them.
Generations of Americans, many of whom will never have known or possibly even have heard of Pat Moynihan, will reap the benefits of this most compassionate and thoughtful leader among leaders.
A true American success story by any calculation, Pat Moynihan rose from the rough neighborhood of New York City's Hell's Kitchen to become one of America's leading intellectuals. He earned a bachelor's degree, two masters degrees, a law degree, and a PhD as well as teaching appointments at Harvard, MIT, and Syracuse University.
Pat Moynihan was much more than simply a man of letters. He, above all else, combined his intellectual capacity with a strong sense of action; of getting things done.
Pat Moynihan brought life to the notion that ideas serve as the engine of democracy. Many of the most thoughtful and progressive legislative programs that have improved the lives of his beloved New York and all around our Nation and across the globe for the past 40 years originated in the brilliant mind of Pat Moynihan. From protecting underprivileged children, to passionately defending the Social Security system, to questioning America's role in the world at pivotal moments in our history, Pat Moynihan's intellectual agility was only matched by his desire to make America a better nation, a fairer nation, and a more successful one.
The description ``renaissance figure'' is too liberally applied to people who don't deserve it, in my view. That is not the case with Pat Moynihan. He truly was a renaissance figure, a person who could breeze easily and expertly from issue to issue. He would expound upon what is needed to improve mass transit systems nationwide one moment, explain what is needed to achieve excellence in our public education system in the next, and finish off with his latest idea to bring majesty to the architecture along Pennsylvania Avenue, all in a very seamless way.
I have heard the remarks of many of our colleagues and others over the last 24 hours in sharing their grief over the loss of our friend. As I have read and heard these remarks, in newspapers and public accounts, it struck me that the words describing Pat Moynihan that are being most repeated over and over again are courageous, compassionate, principled, thoughtful, brilliant, and the like.
Few individuals have been so universally revered by so many here in Washington and across the Nation for their determination to make a difference in helping to steer our Nation in the right direction over a half century. That is because for decades Pat Moynihan embodied the highest ideals and values of our Nation since its founding. This was recognized by Democratic Presidents and Republican ones alike. He served for both of them, and he served well. It was recognized by every one of his Senate colleagues, regardless of party or ideology, who had the great fortune to have worked with him in this Chamber.
Frederick Douglass once said:
The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
For 40 years Pat Moynihan lent those characteristics to the heart of the U.S. Government. Pat Moynihan's death leaves a void in this Chamber, and in this country, that will not soon, if ever, be filled
I would like to think that there will be more Pat Moynihan's coming down the pike, to serve in this Chamber, and in other important capacities nationwide. I would like to think that there will be more individuals with the style, and wit, and substance of Pat Moynihan to help guide our nation through the multitude of complex issues we confront now and into the future.
I would like to think so, but the truth is Pat Moynihan was one of a kind. We will have to make due without him. I only count my blessings that I had a chance to serve with him in the United States Senate, and to have been able to call him a friend.
I conclude my remarks by expressing my deep sense of loss to Liz and the rest of the Moynihan family. This country has lost a remarkable individual, a person who made significant contributions to the health and well-being of this Nation. But to those of us who had the joy of serving with this delightful man from Ireland, we have lost a wonderful friend, someone we will miss with a great sense of loss for the rest of our lives.
I express my gratitude and those of my family to the Moynihan family, the people of New York, and to our colleagues and staffs and others who worked with him during those four decades of public service.
I yield the floor.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today is a very sad day for America and for those of us who served in the United States Senate with one of its most visionary and accomplished members, a great man, a great American, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who died yesterday.
It stretches the mind just to think of all of the important positions that Pat Moynihan held, including Cabinet or sub-Cabinet posts under four Presidents: John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. He served as Ambassador to India in the 1970s and then as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He came to the United States Senate in 1977 already a scholar, author and public official of great distinction and renown. In the 24 years he spent here, he only greatly expanded his enormous reputation and body of work. Pat Moynihan was a Senator's Senator. Over the years, he earned the respect of every Member of the Senate--and we all learned a great deal from him.
Pat Moynihan was a person who showed tremendous vision throughout his life. He showed foresight about the importance of a strong family and about the importance of strong communities in America. He raised the critical importance of these basic values and concerns about the deterioration of these family values, long before others. He showed great foresight about our Constitution. One of the highlights for me in my service in the Senate was joining Senator Moynihan and Senator Robert Byrd in fighting successfully against the line item veto as a violation of our Constitution. And, he showed great foresight about the world and the role of the United States in international affairs. His work at the United Nations and in the Senate, as a former chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and as chairman of the Finance Committee was marked by his perceptive, analytical, and worldly view on trade, foreign policy, and intelligence matters. Long before others, Senator Moynihan was speaking of the economic and ultimately military weaknesses of the Soviet Union and predicting its collapse--at a time when most of the American intelligence community was overestimating its strength.
It is virtually impossible to list all of Pat Moynihan's accomplishments in the U.S. Senate. Among the most lasting, however, will be his efforts on behalf of architectural excellence in the Nation's Capital. He was a crucial force behind the return to greatness of the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor between the U.S. Capitol and the White House, the restoration of Washington's beautiful, elegant, and historic Union Station, and the construction of the Thurgood Marshall Judiciary Building here on Capitol Hill.
And Pat could pack a punch, wielding his sharp sense of humor as a devastating weapon as when, in 1981, when the plastic covering used to protect the workers on the then-new Hart Senate Office Building was removed. No fan of the lack of architectural merit of the Senate's newest office building, he suggested that the plastic be immediately put back. He commented, ``Even in a democracy, there are things it is as well the people do not know about their Government.''
The author or editor of eighteen books, Senator Moynihan was at the forefront of the national debate on issues ranging from welfare reform, to tax policy to international relations. His most recent book, written in 1998, ``Secrecy: The American Experience'' expands on the report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy of which he was the Chairman. This is a fascinating and provocative review of the history of the development of secrecy in the government since World War I and argument for an ``era of openness.''
At home in New York, in a State which is known for its rough and tumble politics, he demonstrated leadership again and again, exercising the power of intellect and the ability to rise above the fray. That has been a wonderful contribution not just to New York but to all of America.
The ``Almanac of American Politics'' once noted ``Daniel Patrick Moynihan [was] the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson.'' Pat made a huge contribution to this body and its reputation. I will never forgot him.
His wife, Liz, his children, grandchildren and the entire Moynihan family are in our hearts and our prayers today. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's memory will continue to serve as an inspiration to us all in the Senate family--as he was in life--to better serve the country that he loved so much.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, so many Senators have spoken so eloquently about the loss of Senator Moynihan; but no one has been listened to in their speeches like they listened to our friend in the bow tie with the staccato delivery. Standing in this Chamber, he would overwhelm with his original thoughts, including overwhelming this Senator who had the good fortune to listen to his ideas for all 24 of his years here.
The saddest part about losing our friend is we lose him when we need him most.
He was the authority on Social Security, just when we need someone to stand up and expose the numbers that these voodoo tax cuts are taking out of the Social Security trust funds. He was the United Nations Ambassador who spoke bluntly, just when we need a guy with an opinion to straighten out those people up in New York. He was the architect who turned Pennsylvania Avenue into a grand boulevard, just when we need someone to figure out how to protect against terrorism and not undo the beauty he brought to this city.
Right to the point: he was from the world of intellect, not from the nonsense poll watchers. This Senator will miss the gregarious big man with the biggest of the big ideas, who nevertheless got things done in this Chamber.
My wife Peatsy joins me in extending our deepest sympathy to his wonderful wife Elizabeth and their family.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, our dear colleague, Pat Moynihan, was a true giant in the Senate, and his loss is deeply felt by all of us who knew him and admired him. He was a brilliant statesman and legislator, and he was also a wonderful friend to all the Kennedys throughout his extraordinary career in the public life of the nation.
Forty-two years ago, President Kennedy enlisted many of the finest minds of his generation to serve in the New Frontier. Among the outstanding young men and women who answered his call was the brilliant young Irishman who became a special assistant to Jack's Secretary of Labor--and then an Assistant Secretary of Labor himself--Daniel Patrick Moynihan. On that snowy Inauguration Day in January 1961, the torch was passed to that new generation of Americans, and Pat Moynihan helped to hold it high in all the years that followed.
Pat leaves an outstanding legacy of extraordinary public service and brilliant intellectual achievement that all of us are proud of, and that President Kennedy would have been proud of, too.
Throughout his remarkable career, Pat was on the front lines on the great social, political, and cultural challenges of the day. To know him was to love him--the remarkable intellect, the exceptional clarity of his thinking--the abiding Irish wit that impressed and enthralled us all so often. We were not alone. Pat's qualities and achievements captivated, educated, and inspired an entire generation of Americans.
All of us in Congress and around the Nation learned a great deal from Pat, and we will miss him dearly. His wisdom and experience contributed immensely to the progress our country has made on a wide variety of issues. We loved the professor in him.
It was not unusual for Senators on both sides of the aisle to come to the Senate floor to hear Pat speak--Senators sitting like students in a class, trying to understand a complex issue we were struggling with.
The whole Senate loved and respected Pat. As he often said, ``If you don't have 30 years to devote to social policy, don't get involved.'' He dedicated his brilliant mind and his beautiful Irish heart to that challenge, and America is a stronger and better and fairer nation today because of his contributions. With his great insight, and wisdom, he skillfully questioned the way things worked, constantly searching for new and better ways to enable all Americans to achieve their dreams.
In the 24 years Pat served with us in the Senate, he was the architect of many of the Nation's most progressive initiatives to help our fellow citizens, especially those in need. He left his mark on virtually every major piece of domestic policy legislation enacted by Congress.
He had a central role in shaping the debate on welfare reform, and he was a visionary when it came to protecting and strengthening Medicare and Social Security. He spearheaded the major transportation legislation that provides indispensable support for highways throughout the country and for mass transit in our cities.
An important part of Pat's legacy is the restoration of Pennsylvania Avenue, which my friend and colleague, Senator Schumer, referenced--the nation's principal thoroughfare. The key to that dream was the preservation of Lafayette Park, right across from the White House. Jackie Kennedy Onassis put forward the vision that she and Pat shared to preserve that famous national square and the townhouses that surround it, which are such a vital part of our history and our architectural heritage.
Throughout his career, Pat worked brilliantly, effectively, tirelessly, and with great political skill, to promote the highest values of public service. And in doing so, he earned well-deserved renown and respect from all of us in Congress on both sides of the aisle, from Republican and Democratic administrations alike, from political thinkers, foreign policy experts, and leaders of other nations as well.
In a world of increasing specialization, there was no limit to his interest or his intellect or his ability. In so many ways, he was the living embodiment of what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the United States Senate. And he did it all without ever losing his common touch, because he cared so deeply about the millions of citizens he served so well, the people of New York.
One of my own happiest associations with Pat was our work together to end the violence in Northern Ireland and bring peace to that beautiful land of our ancestors. Pat and I worked closely with Tip O'Neill and Hugh Carey on that issue, and they called us the ``Four Horsemen.''
Pat believed very deeply in that cause and in all the other great causes he did so much to advance during his long and brilliant career. Whether serving in the Navy or as professor, adviser to Presidents, Ambassador, or Senator, Pat brought out the best in everyone he touched, and his mark on earth will be remembered forever.
At another dark time in our history, after President Kennedy was taken from us, Pat said, ``I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually.'' Pat's loss breaks all our hearts today, and we know we will never forget him. We never forgot the lilt of his Irish laughter that stole our hearts away.
My heart goes out to Liz and the entire Moynihan family. We will miss Pat very much, and we will do our best to carry on his incomparable work to make our country and our world a better place.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I spoke briefly last night of the sorrow we all felt on hearing that our former colleague, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, passed away. This afternoon, I join with Senators Schumer, Clinton, Kennedy, Dodd, and others to return to the floor to say a bit more for the record about this truly remarkable man and about how much the Senate and the Nation will miss him.
Opening this morning's newspapers at a time when news of the war in Iraq seems to eclipse all else, I found it fitting that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was--as he was so often during his long public career--once again front page news. Newspapers across the nation--and indeed, around the world--are filled today with accounts of Senator Moynihan's life and work.
What has been written in just the short time since his death yesterday afternoon reminds us how extraordinary pat Moynihan really was.
The New York times--the newspaper Senator Moynihan read religiously every day, from cover to cover, we are told--reported that he ``brought a scholar's eye for data to politics and a politician's sense of the real world to academia.''
The Washington Post noted that he ``pursued with distinction enough careers for half a dozen men of lesser talents and imagination: politician, presidential adviser, diplomat, author, professor, public intellectual.''
In talking about Senator Moynihan with colleagues and friends last night and today, it strikes me that everyone seems to come back to one idea: People like Pat Moynihan simply do not come along every day.
I said yesterday that he seemed larger than life. He was also, truly, one of a kind. Senator Moynihan's myriad public accomplishments are being--and will no doubt continue to be--well documented.
Today, I want to add to what has been said in the press and on this floor some of the less-frequently mentioned things that made Pat special to those of us who had the privilege to know him and work with him.
Pat Moynihan enlivened the Senate. He did so in many ways, but there are three in particular that come to mind for me today.
First was the way he applied his encyclopedic mind to the deliberations of the Senate. In our Democratic caucus meetings, in committee hearings, and here on the floor, he elevated our discourse. He would make a point, and drive it home, by drawing on his sweeping knowledge of history, literature, poetry, and the arts. He could quote from hundreds of sources--from memory.
Listening to Pat speak extemporaneously, you might be treated to verbatim quotes from Disraeli or Churchill, Yeats or Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, Evelyn Waugh, Arthur Conan Doyle, or Shakespeare. He always had just the right quote to support his argument, and he always quoted accurately.
In once read that the staff of the Shakespeare Theater here--where Pat was a frequent patron--often noticed him silently mouthing the words of the play--as the actors spoke them.
A second gift of Pat's that we all treasured was his ready sense of humor. It was a puckish, mischievous wit, and it never failed to surprise and amuse us.
I remember when the Hart Senate Office Building was completed. Pat was never an admirer of the architecture of the Hart Senate Office Building. In fact, he thought it was downright ugly. When the building was finished and the construction tarp was taken down, Pat introduced a resolution saying the tarp should be put back up.
Pat also knew how to use his wit to disarm. He was famously blunt and direct with the press. But he also knew how to use humor to avoid questions he preferred not to answer.
Nearly every week, he invited the New York press corps into his office in the Russell Building for coffee and to answer questions. If he chose to, he could crack a hilarious joke and have the press in stitches. By the time they got through laughing, they had forgotten the question altogether.
Finally, Pat Moynihan was a fierce Senate institutionalist--a quality that endeared him to me, to Senator Byrd, and to so many of us.
Pat Moynihan loved and revered this institution--much as he loved and revered public service.
His respect for the Senate showed itself in many ways, from his stout defense of Senate powers and prerogatives to his keen interest in the architectural preservation of the Capitol Building and its environs.
Pat had a sentimental side, as many of us do, when it came to this building.
On special occasions, he loved to present friends with a gift of sandstone bookends made from the old East Front of the Capitol. With each presentation of those treasured stones, Pat loved to tell an elaborate story about the political intrigue surrounding the extension of the East Front in the 1950s.
These are just a few of the special things that come to mind as we reflect on the unique life and legacy of our friend and former colleague.
I said last night that in losing Pat Moynihan, New York and the Nation have lost a giant. And, as Winston Churchill once said of another great patriot, we shall not see his like again.
On behalf of the entire United States Senate, I again extend sincerest condolences to Pat's beloved wife and partner, Liz, to their children, Tim, John, and Maura, and to their grandchildren, Zora and Michael Patrick.
We thank them for sharing so much of their husband, father and grandfather with us. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this hour.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues to mourn the passing of and express respect and admiration for the service of our former colleague, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom we recently lost.
Before I came to this body, I had heard a great deal about Pat Moynihan. Who had not? If you followed Government, if you were interested in policy, Pat Moynihan probably said something that was very important. He was way ahead of his time on some issues. On other issues, I disagreed with him rather strongly, but you knew if Pat Moynihan spoke, it was going to be worth listening to. If you did not agree with him, you were going to have to work hard to counter it.
I had some disagreements with the distinguished Senator from New York. As a matter of fact, in the 1992 highway bill, I had a spectacular confrontation with him. We disagreed over a courthouse that was included in the highway bill. Thereafter, we became very good friends, and I think as a result of our rather tumultuous getting acquainted, I had the opportunity to spend a good bit of time with him.
We were neighbors in an area of the Capitol where we both had workspaces. I spent a number of evenings enjoying a discussion with him as we watched the debates on the floor of the Senate. His ability to discuss and have insightful observations about so many subjects was truly impressive. If I ever met a Renaissance man, it was Pat Moynihan.
I will give one example. Everybody knows the great role he played in revitalizing Pennsylvania Avenue and the leadership he provided. He was a great student of architecture. One of the projects we worked on in Missouri was saving the Wainwright Building, the first steel-framed skyscraper designed by Louis Sullivan. I mentioned it to him one day. He proceeded to give me a short course in architecture and the role of Louis Sullivan and his draftsman, Frank Lloyd Wright, which went far beyond the knowledge I had of the building in St. Louis. As a student of architecture, as a student who appreciated the benefits architecture brings to the quality of life, he was absolutely without peer.
There were many other issues, and I know my colleagues will have many thoughts to share about him, but I wanted to rise to say to those he leaves behind that he was truly an outstanding servant, one whose friendship and whose insights and experiences I personally will always hold dear. I know this body is far richer for his presence and his service.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I also rise to join with my colleagues on the passing of Pat Moynihan. Where does one start when a friend and colleague leaves us?
When Senator Moynihan retired from the Senate, where he served our country and his State so well, he really did not leave us. Now in this, his last transition, he will not leave us. He left so much of himself with us. His words will remain with us for years to come.
I did not join the Senate until 1989. Being on the opposite side of the aisle--I was one who had not earned his spurs yet--I did not have the opportunity to get to know him until we went on a trip together to the Persian Gulf during Desert Shield in 1990. I can say my life has been richly blessed serving with a lot of men and women who have since retired from this body. He was one of those people.
That was a great trip to the Persian Gulf. We spent a lot of hours in flight and spent a lot of hours in conversation, which was truly enlightening to this Senator from a rural State such as Montana. Our relationship grew from that point, and I realized what a marvelous man he really was.
He was a man true to his faith and principles. His intellect stood him apart from most men I have ever known, but he coupled that intellect with good old-fashioned common sense and deep wisdom.
The subject matter of the conversation did not make any difference. He could relate to anyone on a common ground. The ability to communicate with anybody who is not blessed with the same amount of institutional information or knowledge of any issue that may confront policymakers on a daily basis is a wonderful talent. He was one I held in high esteem, as he was one of the most intelligent men I have ever known.
It is unusual to find a person of that caliber to be blessed with a great sense of humor, and to put it on our level. He was quick, and his humor would sneak up on you. A man of his own style, very comfortable with himself, his presentations on the floor, in committee, or in public were strictly Pat Moynihan. We shall miss his voice on the floor of the Senate for several reasons, and printed words cannot describe that distinct sound.
I notice my friend from West Virginia is in the Chamber. Senator Moynihan sat only two seats behind Senator Byrd.
We can hear him today say: Mr. President, may we have order.
That was distinctly a call we all knew, understood, and respected. I shall miss him. I shall never forget him. Whatever accolades he may receive, he earned every one.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President:
There is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop, the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
I was saddened to learn last night of the death of one of the most educated, most versatile, and most gifted persons ever to bless this Chamber, and one of my favorites, our former colleague, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
With doctorate and law degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, he was a Fulbright scholar and the author of a number of sometimes controversial, but important, books. He held academic positions at several of our country's most prestigious universities, including Syracuse, Harvard, and MIT.
Unable to settle into an academic life, Pat Moynihan went on to serve in high positions in the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford--making him the first and only person to serve in the Cabinet or subcabinets of four successive administrations. His Government work included serving as the American Ambassador to India and as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
Even with this background, and these accomplishments, Daniel Patrick Moynihan still refused to rest. In fact, his greatest work, I might even go so far as to say his destiny, was still ahead. In 1976, he was elected to the first of four terms in the United States Senate.
I was then the Democratic whip. I knew I was going to be the next Senate majority leader, so I welcomed Pat Moynihan to the Senate and assured him I would do my best to see that he got appointed to the Senate Finance Committee. That is where he wanted to go.
So it was in this chamber that the talents, the skills, and the powerful intellect of this philosopher-statesman shined the brightest.
It was more than his outstanding work as a Senator from a large and powerful State.
It was more than his outstanding work as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
It was that he was a visionary with the strongest sense of the pragmatic, an idealist with the most profound grasp of what was practical, an internationalist who always put our country first. With his keen and profound historical perspective and his incredible breadth of knowledge ranging from taxes to international law, he had the uncanny ability to make us confront issues that needed to be confronted, and to cut to the core of a problem and then help us to solve it.
A person and a Senator not only of high intellectual quality, but also high intellectual honesty, Senator Moynihan took on the complicated and politically sensitive issues, like Social Security, health care, and welfare reform, with passion and compassion; he took on these mighty subjects with determination and foresight and with unflinching integrity.
I have never forgotten, and will never forget, our valiant fight together to challenge and defeat the line-item veto. I wish he were here now. This was one of his many struggles to preserve and to protect our constitutional system. We need more Pat Moynihans who would take an unflinching stand for the Constitution and this institution. He truly believed in our Constitution just as he truly believed in the mission as well as the traditions, the rules, and the folkways of the United States Senate. He knew that the American Government is not the monster that demagogues fear and like to portray but a positive, creative force in American life that has helped all Americans to enjoy better, safer, and more productive lives.
Senator Moynihan retired from the Senate in the year 2000. But he was one of those Senators who was so much a part of this institution that he has never really left it. I still look over at his seat and sit in my own and turn it in that direction and listen to him. I can hear him; I can still see him. Yes, just like I still see Richard B. Russell who sat at this seat and who departed this life on January 21, 1971; like I can still see Everett Dirksen, that flamboyant Republican orator and leader; as I can see Lister Hill of Alabama, and the other great lawmakers with whom I have had the privilege and the honor of serving.
I look over there and see his unruly hair, his crooked bow tie, his glasses that always seemed about to fall off his face, and that unforgettable Irish twinkle in his eyes.
But I have missed his incredible grasp of the issues. I have missed his intellectual vigor, and his incisive wit and wisdom. In these difficult and trying times, I, and the Senate, have sorely missed his innate sense of fairness, and his unbounded and unqualified determination to do the right thing regardless of political party or political consequences. As I said when he retired from the Senate,
``His conscience is his compass. . . . Senator Moynihan states facts, the cold, hard truths that many others in high places refuse to face and that some are unable to see.''
Senator Moynihan lived the lifetime of ten mortals. An author, ambassador, a college professor, an outstanding public servant, and a great United States Senator, he accomplished so much. He leaves an indelible mark on this country. His legacy is intact. His was a creative and successful life. And, he was blessed with a wonderful and gracious wife, Elizabeth. My wife, Erma, and I extend our deepest and heartfelt condolences to Pat's entire family.
I close my remarks by reciting the immortal words of Josiah Gilbert Holland:
God give us men!A time like this demands strong minds,great hearts, true faith, and ready hands.Men whom the lust of office does not kill;Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;Men who possess opinions and a will;Men who have honor; men who will not lie.
Men who can stand before a demagogueAnd brave his treacherous flatteries without winking.
Tall men, sun--crowned;Who live above the fog,In public duty and in private thinking.For while the rabble with its thumbworn creeds,It's large professions and its little deeds,mingles in selfish strife,Lo! Freedom weeps!
Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps.God give us men!
Men who serve not for selfish booty;But real men, courageous, who flinch not at duty.Men of dependable character;Men of sterling worth;Then wrongs will be redressed, and right will rule the earth.God Give us Men!
Mr. President, those of us who knew Daniel Patrick Moynihan, especially those of us who served with him here in the Senate, will remember his ``strong mind,'' his ``great heart,'' his ``true faith,'' and his ``ready hands.'' We will remember him as a man of ``dependable character'' and ``sterling worth.''
Thank you, God, for giving us Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWNBACK. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in offering a tribute to the late distinguished Senator Patrick Moynihan, a role model, an inspiration, a friend, and my fellow Senator. I can only hope that with my poor speaking skills, in comparison certainly to his, I can do justice to his many virtues and innumerable contributions he made to this Nation. I know today many of my colleagues are lauding him for his principled stands, even if it meant feeling exiled in Siberia. He many times fought the lonely and oftentimes frustrating fight, but he knew what was right and that sustained him through the years of criticism and controversy and, ultimately, was normally proven right. He was a great role model.
In fact, when I first met the Senator from New York, one of the things that came to my mind was what the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, once said:
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
He also said:
He who is firm and resolute in will, molds the world to himself.
I can't think of anybody to which this statement applies better than to Senator Moynihan. He has always been willing to stand upon his principles, in solitude if necessary, to weather the stormy billows of the world, to truly mold the world to himself.
He has been someone who has been the epitome of being firm and resolute in will, no matter the criticism, the controversy or the circumstances.
In fact, when he first wrote his report to President Johnson, for example, 40 years ago, highlighting the rising out-of-wedlock birthrates that were taking place in the country, he felt that this threatened the stability of the family, particularly minority families, one of the building blocks of our society. He was roundly attacked at that time. Rather than seeing this report rightly as a chilling foreboding of problems to come, people chose to turn a blind eye to the truth upon which he so correctly shed light. Now we have reached a stage where the out-of-
wedlock birthrates in all the communities in our country have reached dangerous proportions, and everyone is in agreement about exactly how dangerous this is.
How many times we have heard, ``Patrick Moynihan was right.'' How many times should we have had to hear it said? Senator Moynihan always understood the overriding importance of the truth, of ensuring that there is substance behind one's politics and not just words. He showed this time and time again.
For example, one of the most important chapters of our Nation's story of human freedom and dignity is the history and legacy of the African-
American march towards freedom, legal equality, and full participation in American society. Senator Moynihan understood the importance of this history, which is why in the 102d Congress he championed the effort to create a National African American Museum, a vital project upon which Congressman Lewis and I now have spent several years working and which we hope to get to completion.
With Senator Moynihan's leadership, at that time the museum idea successfully passed the Senate but, unfortunately, did not pass the House and to this day we picked up his mantle and are still working on it.
Senator Moynihan understood why it was so critical to honor this history, truly the history of not just African Americans but of our Nation. His commitment was key to the first efforts.
As I seek to move forward the legislation to create the museum, I am honored that I am now carrying on the work he began in this body. It certainly makes for very big shoes to fill, but I am only hopeful that in his memory I may do just efforts justice.
Billy Graham once said:
Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand the spine of others are often stiffened.
This was always true when we associated with Senator Moynihan. Somehow, people seemed to stand a little taller, act more resolute. They even argued better. No one could ever out argue Senator Moynihan, but somehow the challenge of having such a talented opponent made one's own skills sharper.
There is so much more to my friend, though, than what is so obviously and publicly known. For example, so many of us here experienced his wonderful and robust sense of humor, something I wish everyone could have had the pleasure of participating in seeing. Senator Moynihan was all of this and much, much more.
He was often described as the great statesman of the Senate, a breed that seems more and more difficult to find in politics. He was always a steadfast defender of American principles. He was also someone who brought dignity, character, and humor to this body. He has been and always will be the role model of the true statesman.
In the Second Epistle to Timothy, Paul writes:
I have fought the good fight, I finished the course, I have kept the faith.
Senator Moynihan certainly did so. All of us here and across the Nation have benefited.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, as we bring to a close what has been a very productive week over the last 4 days here in the Senate, we have had ups and downs and a lot of very productive debate. Many sad events have been talked about on the floor, and many happy events have actually been talked about on the floor, with the range from the death of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an icon who has spoken so many times from this floor to the American people--indeed, to the world--to the many comments made in morning business over the course of this week paying tribute to our men and women, our soldiers overseas; a resolution today commending the coalition of allies who support the United States and our British friends in the efforts that are underway as I speak today; all the way to a budget that is a culmination, in many ways, of weeks and weeks of work as we have defined the priorities of this body in spending the taxpayers' dollars for the foreseeable future--a first step, the culmination of a lot of debate and discussion as we go through our conference with the House over the next several weeks.
We had a lot of ups and a lot of downs but a lot of progress, and we are doing the Nation's business at the same time we are paying respect to the incidents that are playing out before us in the international and domestic realm. Last night I had the opportunity of introducing the resolution, along with Senator Daschle, paying respects to Senator Moynihan and, as I mentioned in my opening comments today, once again, the great legacy that he leaves all of us.
I would like to pay one final tribute to him, and read just a few paragraphs from the commencement speech he gave at Harvard in 2002, which has previously been printed in the Record.
The commencement speech at Harvard, 2002, is entitled ``Civilization Need Not Die'' by Daniel Patrick Moynihan:
Last February, some 60 academics of the widest range of political persuasion and religious belief, a number from here at Harvard, including Huntington, published a manifesto:
``What We're Fighting For: A Letter from America.''
It has attracted some attention here; perhaps more abroad, which was our purpose. Our references are wide, Socrates, St. Augustine, Franciscus de Victoria, John Paul II, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We affirmed ``five fundamental truths that pertain to all people without distinction,'' beginning ``all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.''
We allow for our own shortcomings as a nation, sins, arrogance, failings. But we assert we are no less bound by moral obligation. And finally, . . . reason and careful moral reflection . . . teach us that there are times when the first and most important reply to evil is to stop it.
But there is more. Forty-seven years ago, on this occasion, General George C. Marshall summoned our nation to restore the countries whose mad regimes had brought the world such horror. It was an act of statesmanship and vision without equal in history. History summons us once more in different ways, but with even greater urgency. Civilization need not die. At this moment, only the United States can save it. As we fight the war against evil, we must also wage peace, guided by the lesson of the Marshall Plan--vision and generosity can help make the world a safer place.
Those are the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, again, in 2002. They reflect very much the global thinking, the compassion, the integrity, the foresight of this great icon in this body.
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