March 4, 1976
Page 5311
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the rumor has been floating around all morning that this decision was about to be announced some time today. Somehow, I have had a premonition for some weeks that the distinguished majority leader already had made up his mind to end his Senate career.
I do not know that I have any special way to express my sense of loss, and I do not know that I have any special way to articulate the historic place that the majority leader has made for himself in the annals of the Senate and the country.
Most of my recollections at the outset are personal. I came to the Senate in 1959, having just ended 4 years of service as Governor of my State and feeling overwhelmed by my relative insignificance in the U.S. Senate, as a freshman Senator.
As has been his wont throughout all the years I have been here, Senator MANSFIELD was one of the first to make me feel at home, not just as a friend or socially but as a part of this institution. It has been his effort ever since to make every Senator, in the words of the Senator from Alabama, feel as an equal to every other Senator. I appreciate it. I appreciated it especially in those early 2 or 3 years, when I had to adjust to being a Senator, after having been Governor of my State.
I would disagree with the distinguished Senator from Alabama in one sense. He expressed the feeling that the Senate will be a lesser place when Senator MANSFIELD departs. I think that because of Senator MANSFIELD's leadership, because of the contribution he has made to the shape and growth of this Chamber, the Senate will be a greater place than it was when he assumed leadership a dozen years ago.
I enjoyed a couple of years under the leadership of Lyndon Johnson, and it was a different kind of leadership. It was hailed as strong leadership, as it was. But I think the Senate required a different kind of leadership thereafter, and Senator MANSFIELD has risen to the demands of the times. He recognized that the Senate can be great if it is possible for each Senator to rise to his or her own potential. So he has been willing to delegate responsibilities on the floor of the Senate. He has encouraged Senators to take initiative, to develop leadership, and to fight for their points of view, whether or not they agree with his, on the floor of the Senate.
Senator MANSFIELD has undertaken to drum home to us what we individually may not have always realized, that our individual performance and behavior are more important to the future of the Senate and its viability as a political institution at this time, when all political institutions are the subject of public cynicism and distrust, than anything a single strong leader might do.
I have heard the criticisms of Senator MANSFIELD's leadership — that he does not assert himself in the way that others did before him; but I think that Senator MANSFIELD's kind of leadership was the right kind at the right time, and that his 12 years of leadership will go down in history as a period when the Senate rose to its potential to a greater degree than before. Not that we do not have our shortcomings as an institution today. We do. But I think those shortcomings can be overcome best if we follow the Mansfield formula, of trusting to the ability and potential of the Senators the people send here to make this institution truly representative of our people, truly responsive to their needs, and truly effective in acting in their behalf.
So I say to MIKE how much I have appreciated his friendship, how much I will miss him, and how much I appreciate his historical significance. He has been a great leader.