CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

August 8, 1969

Page 23003

MISSOURI ADDRESS BY SENATOR MUSKIE

Mr. SYMINGTON. Mr. President, on behalf of my colleague, Senator EAGLETON and myself, and in the belief that its thoughtful and constructive contents would be of interest to the Members of the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that an address made by the distinguished Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) in Jefferson City, Mo., at a dinner on July 26 in honor of Governor and Mrs. Warren Hearnes, be inserted at this point in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE AT PARTY HONORING GOVERNOR AND MRS. HEARNES, JEFFERSON CITY, MO., JULY 26, 1969

State Chairman Del Houtchens, Warren and Betty Hearnes, my colleagues Stu Symington, Tom Eagleton, and Dick Ichord and my distinguished friends of the great State of Missouri; I am delighted, as always to be here in Missouri, and most grateful for that overly generous introduction which Stu has given me.

It is never easy to listen to an overly fulsome introduction of one's self. I think one of the best descriptions of my political career that I have heard was given by Gene McCarthy years ago. I met Gene for the first time in 1959, when we were first inducted into the Senate of the United States. We had both been elected that fall, and Gene and I became the closest of friends of the fifteen new Democratic Senators that year. I say that in order to put what I am about to say in the proper perspective.

Gene said, "You know, Ed, we have watched your career out in the Midwest. When you were first elected governor in September of 1954, you heartened us in our part of the country so much that we went on in November of that year to elect Democrats. Again in 1956," he said, "when you were re-elected to the governorship in September of that year you gave us a shot in the arm for November of that year in our State. And again in 1958," he said, "you impressed us, but now that I've met you I think all you've proven is that anybody could get elected from Maine!"

That's not a bad perspective for all of us to have when we are in public life. A little touch of humility is pretty good, but not on one's birthday. And I'm especially delighted to be here to join you in this happy birthday greeting to the Governor and his lady, a man whom I consider one of the outstanding leaders of our country, not only as a Democrat but as a governor.

I was first impressed with him not when I heard of his first election as governor, but when Stu brought him to Washington for a dinner one evening. In the course of a very pleasant and stimulating evening, Warren had the nerve to disagree with me. I've been impressed with him ever since. And I know that I'm going to be increasingly impressed with him in the months and years ahead. I wish him well. And I know that in wishing him well. I am wishing your great State well. In his hands you will have a brighter future.

Now I'm not going to forget to say something about Tom Eagleton. Tom is on the Committee on Public Works of which I am a member. We have had recently some long, dreary, and sometimes controversial discussions over the newest water pollution bill. Seventeen mark-up sessions took place over a period of two months before we could finally hammer out a bill. We could have used a little of that humor of yours, Tom. Where was it? I'm already developing plans about where to use you.

As you have all noticed, the light touch has been missing in Washington since January 20.

I understand that this is the fifth annual dinner of this kind. I'm not surprised that it had small beginnings. We had similar experiences in my State. But these dinners do grow when you have a governor in office, but they grow at the expense of the same people.

You know, a young lawyer in my State, and I'm sure it's also true here, finds himself engaged in all kinds of civic activities that he undertakes to make his name known so he can attract business, clients, and eventually an income so he can support his family. One of the civic activities I found myself engaged in many, many times was fund raising of one kind or another for one worthy cause after another. After the first three or four, I became a little embarrassed about going to the same people, to touch them for another contribution. But at that point I was reassured by an old-time fund-raiser who was born on the farm. He said, "Ed, long ago I learned as a boy on the farm that if you want to keep a cow fresh, you've got to milk her regularly and often." So if you've been milked, count it a blessing.

This is supposed to be a political speech. As I think of political speeches of the old style, I think of a friend of mine who was just recently Democratic National Committeeman from Maine. He was a neighbor of mine when I was still a happy young lawyer. We lived one street removed from each other. He was Godfather to one of my daughters. We had elected him mayor over a Republican incumbent.

We enjoyed going fishing together, but he was one of those fishermen that you could never believe, and I could never outdo him. It was like golfing with Stuart Symington. No matter how big a fish I caught, he always outdid me, but I could never figure out why -- until one night a neighbor and mutual friend of ours living next door gave birth prematurely to a child at two o'clock in the morning. The child was born at home. Adequate preparations hadn't been made, but the doctor still managed to get there and bring the child into the world.

He needed some scales to weigh the child for his records, but the only scales available were my lawyer friend's fishing scales. And believe it or not that baby weighed 42 pounds!

Well, that's in the nature of the old style political speech -- exaggeration, maybe humor. The new approach to political speeches is typified more by a down-to-earth, laconic Maine story.

It's the story of an out-of-stater who crossed the New Hampshire border into Maine at Kittery. Within a few hundred yards, he came to an intersection of two roads both pointing north. Each of them had a sign pointing to Portland, Maine. The man was puzzled by the two signs, so he stopped and asked the natives, "Does it make any difference which road I take to get to Portland?" They said, "Not to me, it don't."

Well, the story is told, of course, to characterize my Maine, and to a certain extent, it is accurate. But actually, of course, Maine people are not indifferent to what happens to our guests. And more than that they have learned, as have people all over this country, that it does make a difference to each of us what happens to the rest of us. And I think there is a growing awareness of that fact which is changing political parties and the relationships of people with each other in this country, and which is contributing to the reluctance of growing numbers of people, especially the young, to accept the old assumptions, old ideas, and old politics which bear upon these questions.

I suppose that the perspectives which the Apollo missions have given us of the earth have intensified that awareness. Through their eyes we recognize as never before that we do occupy a small planet, a tiny planet. Small and vulnerable in the vastness of space. And as they give us that perspective, I think we recognize increasingly that we are vulnerable not so much to assaults from outer space as to our own divisions and weaknesses here on this planet.

The Apollo flights, of course, have been inspiring things to see. They've been a demonstration of the capacity of man to grow, to enlarge his understanding and capability to set goals and to reach towards them and to meet them.

Whatever the unprecedented nature of the exertion, whatever the unprecedented nature of the problems, whatever new capabilities and technology must be developed, it is an awesome thing which man has done in the 1960's. To have seen it, to have heard their voices from the surface of the moon, has endowed each of us with the memory which is not only personal to us in our lifetime but which is one of the precious memories of the species.

Man has achieved greatness momentarily on another body in space. And this feeling is shared by all mankind. Here at home the poor and affluent, the white and the black, the young and old, and around the earth people who never know a full meal, people whose lives hold nothing but hope, as well as citizens of the great industrial nations who may be inclined to envy our achievement – human beings who know of this event and who witnessed it know that something great has happened.

Our challenge now is to understand the nature of this greatness. Was it the technology of this space craft -- all of the backup equipment and machinery? Was it technology of the electronics equipment which beams the pictures and the voices back to us on earth? Was it the fact indeed that it was accomplished by Americans?

We are all awed that human beings like all of the rest of us on earth were able to put this together.

What is inspiring about it all is that it showed in a traumatic, memorable way that man is capable of doing whatever great things he sets his mind, heart and spirit to do. Our challenge is not whether we can do these things -- whatever they may be. Our challenge is to decide what the great things are, what they are to be.

We know that if we identify the right ones and if we pursue them diligently with determination and wisely, we can enhance the lives of countless millions of human beings -- not only those alive on this planet today but through the ages which lie ahead.

What an exciting time in which to live! Is it any coincidence that the very time that man has reached the moon the injustices of past ages should be erupting here in our own country and around the globe? Is it coincidence -- I don't think it is -- that the nation which has put this effort together is also equipped as no nation has ever been with resources, understanding, accumulated knowledge, and an appreciation of what freedom can do in unleashing the creative energies of human beings? Is it any coincidence all of this has been assembled within the borders of the United States at this point in history? I don't think it is, or if it is -- it is a blessed coincidence.

Shouldn't it be clear to all of us what must be done to make life a thing of promise for all human beings when we have demonstrated man's capacity to do such a thing?

I know Americans are troubled -- young Americans especially are troubled, and older Americans are troubled about young Americans -- because we find ourselves plunged into a time of ferment and unrest and discontent which threatens to divide us irrevocably.

I'm troubled too -- not because we're in ferment, but lest we fail to do what the causes of that ferment suggest that we do.

Times like these are the creative times in the history of any society. Over so much of my lifetime -- and it isn't that long -- parents have been exhorting young people to become involved in the world about us. To think of serious things, to begin to think about their responsibilities of the lives which stretched ahead of them.

When we finally get a generation of young people who are doing just that, why should we be disturbed? Is it a bad thing that the young of the species should be pointing out where we've gone wrong? Is it so bad that the young of the species have consciences sensitized by the injustices of man's lot here on earth? Is it a bad thing that they'd like to make things better for others?

Are these values that we don't recognize? Are these values that we think are no longer relevant?

Apollo has demonstrated a lot of things, and it symbolized some fundamental things. Insofar as space is concerned, Apollo 11 told us that man's role in the universe will never again be the same and that what lies on the other side of the threshold is awesome, unimaginable and a tremendous opportunity for the greater growth of human beings.

But it also symbolized the fact that here on earth -- not only because of Apollo 11, but for more fundamental reasons -- life will never again be as it was. No human being on this planet has a stake in the status quo that has any meaning at all in the future of mankind.

If we want to build something for ourselves individually we've got to begin not as of some point in the past but as of this moment to build lives of fulfillment for all men. We must dwell upon the objectives of creation, innovation, and invention. We must focus as we never have before on the idea that the only thing worthwhile for the future is the worth of individual human beings.

Only when individual human beings -- whoever they are, wherever they are -- believe that worth is all that counts in the society of which they are a part, will we have a place where people are not alienated from each ether but instead are working together to build something together.

You know, Apollo 11 was something like victory on election night -- the most exciting thing about a political career. You can have the rest of it. The rest of it after that is hard work, tough decisions, unhappy constituents, problems that can't be solved and won't go away, decisions to be made, and priorities to be set.

A politician learns very soon that politics is not only the opportunity to say yes, it is also the responsibility to say no. This has been the lot of the politician and the political leader for all of our history. From now on it's going to be the lot of the individual citizen. If the individual citizen isn't up to it, this nation isn't going to work.

I know it's trite to say that, because when we began this experiment the founders understood that this was the basis of it all. But instead of developing a society which rested increasingly upon the capacity of the individual citizen to make wise decisions, we built a society which -- because of the tremendous growth in its problems and its institutions -- is based less and less upon the capacity of the individual citizen to become a leader.

So what is our challenge? Our challenge first of all is an organizational one to reform our institutions so that they do rest upon such a base. Secondly, our challenge is to challenge our citizens to rise to that kind of responsibility. It isn't easy.

A French writer I read recently said that one of the difficulties of society is that leaders do their work upon the assumption that their followers are incompetent -- incompetent to make the judgments and incompetent to make the tough decisions. There's some truth to that. It’s implicit in a lot of the things that are said on the floors of the Congress and the State Legislatures, the places where leaders congregate. It is there notwithstanding the fact that this is a free democratic society based upon the notion that it's the individual who counts.

There is an underlying feeling that perhaps we haven't yet reached the point where citizens are actually competent to make the tough decisions.

The point that this French writer made -- and I think he's right -- is that the assumption of incompetence breeds incompetence. When people aren't given responsibilities, they are tempted by irresponsibility. It is only when people are given the tough decisions with the realization that what they decide will be done, that they develop a capacity to make good decisions.

This is why we're troubled by the young. Think of it. Isn't it true that we think they're incompetent to make the decisions that are involved in running a university? That we think they're incompetent to make the decisions which a voter must make? And they often respond to those assumptions of incompetence with evidence of incompetence and irresponsibility.

You see it in your own children. We’re so reluctant to give them the chance to make the decisions as to how late they should stay out, when they shall come back, or who they should fraternize with. Of course up to a point we must be reluctant but don't we carry the assumption of incompetence too far?

We've reached the point not only here in the United States but in France and in freedom-loving countries around the globe that we have no choice but to abandon that assumption of incompetence and to bring our people into the act. And unless we do, the momentum which we have built up over a hundred and eighty years will continue -- ever greater institutions, ever more impersonal, ever farther removed from the sensitivities of our people, ever less responsive to the desires and the wishes and the judgments of our people. And I speak not only of governmental institutions -- I speak of industrial institutions, the military-industrial complex included among them. I speak of the giant educational institutions which are developing.

We've got to find a way to democratize this democracy. We've got to find a way to give it a popular base and then we've got to find a way to trust the people. And if we do that, they can respond to the greatness which lives within every human being in greater or less degrees.

If we can't prove this in the United States of America we haven't proven anything in 180 years; because this is where we began. This is the assumption upon which we’ve been building and now as we face our greatest challenges we face the question of whether we continue or whether we call a halt here.

It's no mysterious thing that we've got to do. It's very simple. We've got to be able to trust every other American, whoever he is, whatever the state of his education and his experience, whatever his native intelligence. We've got to trust the prospects of human beings no matter how different.

I think we can do it. I think Apollo 11 has told us we can do it. And I'm convinced out of last year's campaign and the exposure it gave me to this great people of ours that they're capable of the job which Apollo 11 has set before each of us -- to make this country and this earth livable for all God's children.

When we've done that we cannot only match Apollo 11, we can look forward to going into the farthest reaches of outer space to encounter all of the challenging, exciting, stimulating unknowns that lie out there. I don't think there's a human being in this room who doesn't feel excited at the prospects of what may or may not lie out there. There isn't s human being in this room who wouldn't like to live to know more about what is there. We all have the feeling that what is out there is somehow related to the beginnings of man on this planet and we want to know what those beginnings were.

I think that when we get out there, we will learn that what is out there is what we have already here on earth -- that is a capacity for greatness, if God's children can only find a way of breaking down the barriers which exist between each other.

Mr. EAGLETON. Mr. President, I wish to join with my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from Missouri (Mr. SYMINGTON) in expressing my admiration for the speech which Senator MUSKIE delivered in Jefferson City on July 26, 1969. I was privileged to be present and to hear this speech and I wish to assure all that it was a tremendously moving occasion.