February 2, 1976
Page 1881
SENATOR PHIL HART
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, a sensitive and moving article on Senator PHIL HART by Mr. Colman McCarthy was brought to my attention this morning. I know my good friend, PHIL HART, would blush at the article's high praise for him, and would probably say that he scarcely recognizes himself in its characterization of him. But the truths about our colleague, which Mr. McCarthy has so ably described, require me to test once again the modesty of this most modest, most kind, and most gentle man.
PHIL HART is a man whose friendship and faith have so enriched my years in the Senate that he must expect my encomiums as his final year in the Senate continues.
But for now, I want to share with the Senate the thoughtful article by Mr. McCarthy, which pays proper tribute to the greatness of PHIL HART. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 2, 1976]
PHILIP HART: THE GENTLE WAY AS THE EFFECTIVE WAY
(By Colman McCarthy)
A few years ago, a Washington journalist wrote a book in which he called Sen. Philip Hart "a man widely regarded as the gentlest and kindest in the Senate." The galleys of the book were sent to then Sen. Paul Douglas of Illinois, who had been asked to review the book for The Washington Post. He read the reference to Hart but was troubled. It took Douglas several phone calls to track down the author, who was at his vacation retreat. Talking with him, Douglas explained that he knew it was unusual for a reviewer to call an author before the book came out, but he had a suggestion for a galley change. Must it say that Senator Hart is "widely regarded" as the Senate's gentlest and kindest men? Couldn't the book just state "he is," and avoid the cop-out qualifier?
This story is not one of the vintage political tales that float to the top of the air currents in Congress, so many of the stories flavored to put down another member or raise up the teller. But the solicitude of Sen. Douglas — authentic feeling, not the hollow "my distinguished colleague" kind — suggests that nothing less was due Philip Hart than unqualified esteem. The session of Congress now beginning is Hart's last. His recent retirement announcement has prompted a number of Michigan politicians to seek to replace him. They can stop now. The seat will be replaced, but not the man.
In his 18 years in the Senate, Philip Hart has practiced as pure a style of politics as that body has ever seen, elevating not only the level of thought but also the vocation itself. In a profession often trivialized by fitful hacks who think political impact is made by the raised voice or eyebrow, Hart has remained loyal to the Greek meaning, politikos — of the citizens. What concerns the citizen? What possibilities can he be drawn to, or to what form of humanized service can the politician, the server, give himself?
Before a politician can adopt this cast of mind, he has to think first of keeping his job. From the record, it could seem that Hart has represented not Michigan at all, but a territorial outback whose citizens sent him to Washington with a moral compass, not a political one: point the needles not merely to our wishes back home, they instructed, but also to honesty and fairness. We will be served that way. Thus, with the auto industry as Michigan's largest employer, Hart has persisted in attacking the monopoly practices of the Big Three. He began or supported every major safety or environmental regulation involving Detroit. The state has the nation's second largest hunting force, but no one in the Senate has called for stronger gun controls. He supported busing in Michigan (because he believed in the rightness of it in the South) when other Democrats ran for pillows to make the issue more comfortable for fence-sitting.
Electoral risks put Senators on slide rules, moving them along exponentials that make the conscience a variable. The issues, like logarithms, are said to be complex. Perhaps. But Hart has remained the still point in the middle of complexity. Situation ethics make as little sense as situation politics. He was the only Senator to speak out in 1972 against Sen. James Eastland's becoming president of the Senate. The courage of Hart's stances has been perceived by the voters. He has never had a close re-election race; in 1970, he received as many votes as Gerald Ford in Ford's home district.
How is it possible for a man to be in the Senate for 18 years, a defender of periphery causes, and yet be held in deep affection by most other members? It is assuredly something more than Hart's soft voice or the merry Irish twinkle in his eye that does it. One explanation is that he has a style of personal humility that keeps his convictions from being crusted with either blowhard or diehard righteousness. He is known, much to staff impatience, for spending as much time examining an opposing position as in presenting his own.
"You never know your own motive most of the time," he said recently, "but most people are always assuming they know the motives of everyone else. But it's hard. It's hard for a politician looking at another politician. It's even more difficult for the public looking at the votes and the positions taken by a politician to determine what motivated that man. I am sure that there are people in Michigan, for example, who believe that the reason I have a voting record that conforms generally with the labor movement is because labor gave me money. And certainly in the liberal group there's much too much of the assumption that the reason some conservative around here is conservative is because some company or corporate officials fund him. We liberals don't credit ourselves. I say I vote in a way that finds approval with labor because it happens that I believe that this is the best for the people. Our goals are common but we arrive at them independently. The liberal is apt not to give the conservative credit for the same thing. A conservative may conclude quite independently of constituent pressure that the program of, say, the National Manufacturers Association makes good sense."
If Hart can look at liberals dispassionately he also sees his own role in the Senate with a measure of restraint. "There's a terrible tendency here to think that everything we do and say or omit to do, is of world consequence. But you know full well that you can go across the street and the bus driver couldn't care less." If caring is present, it must come from within the man. "I remember the expression that the politician is the lay-priest of society. The corporal works of mercy are part of the business of how the government runs. A solid case can be made that whatever the venality that attaches to the profession, politics is still a high vocation. I have regarded it as an opportunity to make a more humane life for everybody."
Hart's humanism was shaped by what he calls a typical education within the church school system: the Sisters of Mercy for eight years, the Christian Brothers for four, the Jesuits (at Georgetown) for four. At a moment when politicians and their families are being examined, Hart says of his children, "I won't try and guess what my own children may have felt about my being in politics or about me as a father, but I think my strong love of them has been reciprocated."
Little of Hart's Senate work has made him a national figure. He caught the glare during the ITT scandal when he was in the Senate contingent that went to Dita Beard's bedside, and he was on the committee that Richard Kleindienst deceived. Instead, he has been committed to the hidden and unshowy work of the hearing room. He came early and has stayed late on such issues as pesticide poisoning, lead gas fumes among inner city chldren, amnesty, no-fault insurance, decriminalization of marijuana, freedom of information, divestiture of the oil and auto companies. He will be gone before these matters are resolved in a way that citizens deserve, and others will likely be on hand to take winner's credit. But those who have watched closely will know who began the bold struggles.
Hart has no bitterness that his issues have attracted little press attention. It is hard to expect reporters to sit through unglamorous economic or antitrust hearings, he says, "when at the same time in the next room you have some hoodlum invoking the fifth amendment." For the occasional reporter who does cover the unnoticed hearing, Hart has special feelings. He speaks of one Washington journalist: "he has excitement in his stories simply because he is able to describe the way certain private interests have been able to twist debate or cause decisions to be made that disserve the general interest. But more often than not, this man is reporting the important issue though it is relatively heavy and unexciting."
In recent months, Sen. Hart has been hospitalized for cancer. On the subject of death and dying, he as gently candid as on anything else: "When the doctor walks in and says it's cancer and they chase around for weeks trying to find the original source and still can't, you'd have to be a very insensitive fellow not to be shaken up. Sure you think about it. (Death) becomes not something vague that everyone knows is going to happen. It's something that not only is on schedule ... but is in motion. And you do review the bidding and test the faith. I think now I'm prepared."
For the rest of this session, news reports will tell of other members of Congress retiring. Careers will be reviewed and testimonies given. It is likely to be different for Philip Hart. The public won't fully know how valuable and towering he has been in the Senate until next year, when he is not there.