October 6, 1970
Page 35114
SENATOR MUSKIE – A MAN OF STATE AND NATIONAL PROMINENCE
Mr. EAGLETON. Mr. President, whenever a national leader like the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) runs for reelection in his home State, he is always criticized for his national prominence. However, as the Ellsworth, Maine, American stated in an editorial last week, "it is a poor argument" and "is false even in its narrowest and most selfish sense."
The Ellsworth American is a weekly newspaper edited by the former editor of the Washington. Post and Ambassador to the U.N., J. Russell Wiggins. It has gained a fine reputation for its perspective on National and State affairs. I am sure that the people of Maine also recognize what ED MUSKIE has done and can do for his State and will send him back to Washington with an overwhelming margin.
I ask unanimous consent that the editorial be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
ON NATIONAL FIGURES
Senator Ed Muskie is being criticized for his national prominence by an opponent who runs no great risk of ever incurring that political disability. It is the fate of public men of stature and influence to have brought against them the charge that their preoccupation with national and world affairs is diminishing their ability to run errands for their constituents and further the narrow concerns of their own states.
It is a poor argument. A state is never more fortunate in politics than when its own elected senators and representatives and leaders acquire enough reputation to be sought after as national leaders. The citizens of Maine, for one thing, can have no interests larger than their interests in the conduct of national affairs and the settlement of international problems and to have a Maine man active in these larger matters is not a loss to the state but a decisive gain. If this involved some sacrifice of time the public man might otherwise devote to kissing babies, mending fences and running errands for his own constituency, it is a sacrifice justified by the larger interests that are served. Maine surely does not regret that Speaker Reed and Vice President Hamlin were Maine men. The state did not suffer by reason of their national stature.
But the argument is false in even its narrowest and most selfish sense. National prominence enhances and does not diminish the ability of a public man to serve the proper interests of his own state. Maine does not have less influence to further its own causes in Washington because Muskie has been a vice presidential candidate or because he is a presidential candidate. If he had been a successful candidate for the vice presidency, Maine would have more influence in Washington. If he becomes a successful presidential candidate, it will have more influence.
The argument is a wrong-headed argument whether it is made on narrow and parochial grounds or on grounds of broad national interests. If an elected official's national prominence is a disadvantage to a state, it is a disadvantage that could only be forestalled by electing to office candidates so lacking in ability, authority and character that they could be certain of escaping attention or acquiring recognition in the nation at large. Some of the critics who castigate Muskie on these grounds seem confident that their own qualifications for national political oblivion are so pre-eminent as to make it certain that, if elected, they would be left wholly free to devote themselves entirely to Maine, whose interests they, of course, could not notably advance because of a total lack of political influence, no matter how much time they might spend on the job.