September 24, 1976
Page 32320
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the memory of Paul Douglas will always be a reminder of a standard of integrity so rare among men as to inspire us all. He set an example of commitment to fundamental human and constitutional rights at a time when the protection of those rights for many of our citizens was not taken for granted. The fundamental securities guaranteed in our labor and civil rights laws are, in large part, the products of his courage.
His was the leadership that assured that the most fundamental revolution in the Federal system — the reapportionment of State legislatures on a one-man, one-vote basis — was not overturned by ill-advised constitutional amendments.
We reflect here today our admiration for a great man, an exemplary Senator, and a good friend, and we are saddened at his passing. But memorials are inadequate to those whose very lives are their monuments. Of Paul Douglas we say, with Pericles, "Heroes have the whole Earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record, unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart."
In the 8 years we served together in this body Paul became a great friend. As a native of New England and a member of the class of 1913 at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, Paul had a keen interest in my home State. We would trade stories of Maine, and of our colorful mutual friend, Sumner Pike, of Lubec, Maine.
Maine people benefited not only from his interest, but also his commitment to the rights of the individual, his achievements as a legislator and economist, and his concern for his country and its people. I know they join me in mourning his passing.