[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 17] [Senate] [Pages 21970-21972] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]BOB DOLE ON GEORGE McGOVERN Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, civility is alive and well in the great State of South Dakota. During the recess, there was an extraordinary, bipartisan celebration honoring our former colleague, Senator George McGovern. The occasion was the dedication of the George and Eleanor McGovern Library at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, SD. The dedication brought together former President Bill Clinton, former majority leader Bob Dole, former majority leader Tom Daschle, Senator John Thune, Representative Stephanie Herseth, Governor Mike Rounds, and 5,000 of Senator McGovern's closest friends and admirers. Governor Rounds noted that Senator McGovern was a ``patriot'' and that ``all of us gathered here today have a whole lot more in common than what divides us as Americans.'' Senator Thune noted that his father always voted for George McGovern, even as the children urged him to vote Republican, because George was a decorated WWII fighter pilot. Perhaps it was Senator Dole, with his characteristic humor, who best captured the significance of Senator McGovern's inspiring career. I ask unanimous consent that the remarks of Senator Dole be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: Thank you very much for that generous introduction, and for the honor of receiving the first McGovern Prize for Leadership and Public Service. It is something that I will cherish, not least of all because of its namesakes who have set the standard--in friendship as well as in leadership. This week's events remind us once again that George McGovern is a uniter and not a divider. Who else could bring together Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Al Neuharth, Tom Daschle, John Thune, and Peter, Paul and Mary? As you know, at times George and I have had our political differences. Though not the differences you might think. For example, here at Wesleyan he was twice elected president of his class. I have yet to be elected president of anything-- though I'm thinking of running against Bill Clinton for president of the Senate spouses. For me tonight is both an opportunity to salute an old friend, and to repay an old debt. You see, three years ago George came to the dedication of the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. What he said about me then more than made up for what he said about me when I ran for President in 1980, 1988 and 1996. So I figured the least I could do was to return the favor, and make up for what I said about him, when he ran for President in 1968--and 1972-- and 1984. I've long since accommodated myself to a career pitching Pepsi and other stimulants. And George has happily resigned himself to the fact that the only presidents in South Dakota are on Mount Rushmore. At our stage of life we both adhere to the wisdom of W.C. Fields, who expressed his philosophy as follows: If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then give up. No use being a damn fool about it. Of course, in all that truly matters, George has never given up. Neither has his beloved Eleanor. Sixty-six years after they enrolled as undergraduates on this campus, sixty- three years after they declared their marriage vows, the McGoverns of Mitchell are still making a difference, still living every [[Page 21971]] day in the spirit of this school's motto: sacrifice or service. Having been both a candidate and a candidate's spouse, I speak from experience when I say that for spouses it isn't sacrifice or service, it's sacrifice and service. But then Eleanor McGovern has always been a leader and humanitarian in her own right. What ever else you can say about us, it's pretty clear that both George and I married above ourselves. That's not all we have in common. ``There is a wholesomeness about life in a rural state. . .life tends to be more authentic and less artificial.'' The words are George's but the sentiment applies as much to Russell, Kansas as to Mitchell, South Dakota. We both can attest to the fact that small towns nurture large dreams, and a generosity unbounded as the Great Plains. Generosity is what this evening's all about--the generosity of donors, and of those who seek their donations. I want to congratulate Ambassador Kimmelman and President Duffett as well as the trustees and the campaign committee and every single individual whose generosity has helped to realize a dream called the McGovern Library and Center for Leadership and Public Service. Since we're all being so generous, maybe george would let me borrow his fundraising team. We could use your help at KU. I can't imagine a more appropriate tribute to the McGoverns than a library, and not just because George taught here at Wesleyan before he put classroom theory to the test in a public career that spans half a century. In fact, he and Eleanor are both educators at heart. They understand, for they personify, the essential truth of education--that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed. In years to come, this place will be an incubator of informed Citizenship. What more could any teacher ask for? Generosity takes many forms. In the case of the McGoverns, it means a lifetime of principled service, and a personal decency that transcends any party label. I'm tempted to say it transcends generations as well. It has been said by this state's second most famous son, Tom Brokaw, that George and I belong to the greatest generation. Actually, we were fairly average americans, who suddenly found ourselves caught up in the historical whirlwind--a tornado as random and devastating as any that slashed across the prairies of my youth. If we were prepared for the curve balls that came our way, it was only because of the values passed on to us by pioneers and parents who had confronted more than their share of challenges. When hard times engulfed the American farmer like a Kansas dust storm, we clung all the tighter to our neighbors. I don't know about George, but my own commitment to feeding the hungry is rooted in those distant days when millions of Americans struggled to put food on the table. Hunger is bipartisan. So is compassion. It wasn't only economic democracy that was called into question during those bleak years. Also on the line was the idea--enshrined in places like Mitchell and Russell--that every life is precious because every human is created with a plan and a purpose. The great test of our time was moral as well as military. It was met by 16 million citizen soldiers, backed by millions more on the home front. All of them heroes in the age old struggle for popular government. The word hero gets thrown around a lot. It's a lot easier to be a hero if someone is shooting at you, as happened to me on an Italian hillside--or attempting to shoot down your plane, as George will recall from 35 missions with his fellow B-24 bomber pilots. Nor was it any accident that he named his plane the Dakota Queen--for the young bride to whom he would return after the war, with a Distinguished Flying Cross pinned to his uniform. When in another context George said, ``Come home, America,'' I think it was that America to which he referred--a country that in every generation has produced heroes, and is, in turn, a land fit for heroes to come home to. In this America we fight as one, though we vote and pray and speak as many. One of the unfortunate aspects of modern politics is our tendency to label, dehumanize and even demonize opponents who are, after all, opponents--not enemies. George McGovern is a leader, not a label. The man we honor this evening is a proud liberal who nevertheless found much to admire in such common sense conservatives as Bob Taft and Barry Goldwater. A Methodist preacher's son, raised in a republican household, he cast his first vote for Henry Wallace. As a young activist he was spellbound by the eloquence of Adlai Stevenson. But in later years he would praise my hero, Dwight Eisenhower, for his statesmanship and restraint while in the White House. George got to Congress ahead of me. By the time we served in the Senate, it's a safe bet that our votes usually cancelled each other out. As fate would have it, I was Republican national chairman in 1972, the year George ran against President Nixon. In politics, as earlier, I tried to be a good soldier. but there are times when party loyalty asks too much. More than once I returned speech drafts objecting to the official line against the Democratic nominee for President. By election day, I think I had upset more people around the White House than George did. enough, anyway, so that I became expendable once the votes were counted. Come to think of it, George, there's another thing we have in common. We were both left unemployed by the Nixon White House. If ever a candidate was entitled to nurse a grudge, it was George McGovern. Except no man I know is less inclined to waste time or energy in holding grudges. His generosity of spirit extended to the man who defeated him in 1972. I will never forget a day in June, 1993, when we buried Pat Nixon in the rose gardens at the Nixon Library and birthplace. After the formal service concluded, we were invited inside--away from the prying eye of television--so that President Nixon could deliver a tribute of his own to his wife of fifty-three years. Among other things, he spoke of the joys of grandparenting, describing what happened when their youngest granddaughter, Jennie, asked Mrs. Nixon how she wished to be addressed. After rejecting ``grandmother'' as too formal, and ``grandma'' as a bit too elderly for her liking, Pat suggested to the little girl that she call her ``Ma.'' Jennie then put the same question to her famous grandfather. To which he replied, ``Oh, you can call me anything, Jennie, because I've been called everything.'' At that moment I wasn't the only person in the room who was struggling to control his emotions. Not twenty feet from Nixon stood George, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. Later that day, a reporter approached him, curious to know why he was there. George replied that he had always admired Mrs. Nixon, and wished to honor her memory. The reporter persisted. Why should he honor the wife of the man whose alleged dirty tricks may have denied him the White House? And you know what George told him? In what may be the classiest remark I've ever heard, George looked him straight in the eye and said, ``You can't keep on campaigning forever.'' Four years later I had my own taste of defeat, following a hard fought campaign as President Ford's running mate. When it was over, I got some bracing advice from Hubert Humphrey-- yet another proud son of South Dakota who knew what it felt like to lose a close one. Hubert, like George, had a gift for bipartisan friendship that made him a genuinely beloved figure in the Senate. We worked closely on issues dealing with agriculture and nutrition. He was promoting Minnesota dairy farmers, and I was pushing Kansas wheat, but we shared a common vision--the same vision with which George McGovern gave life to President Kennedy's Food for Peace Program--with which he inspired school lunch programs and food stamps and which, even now, underlies his dream of a world in which no child goes to bed hungry. George and Eleanor call this the third freedom. They have even set a deadline of 2030 by which they hope to banish hunger around the globe. To some this may seem impossibly visionary. Not to the McGoverns. ``People call me an idealist,'' Woodrow Wilson once said. ``Well, that is how I know I am an American.'' Is it idealistic to insist, as George and I do, that school children deserve not only a square lunch, but breakfast as well? Is it idealistic to demand that the children of low income and working families have the same access to basic nutrition as their well-heeled classmates? Is it idealistic to want to share American's bounty with hungry children in other lands--to feed their bodies out of our abundance, to demonstrate that the freedom we cherish is not the freedom to starve, but the freedom to soar. Is that idealistic--or just plain American? Here in the Heartland our ideals and our interests are inseparable. To us freedom is a theory, a mere abstraction, unless it improves the quality of life for those who are set free. Earlier I mentioned Mount Rushmore. One of the four Presidents enshrined there is Theodore Roosevelt. One hundred years ago TR professed horror when told of Americans who, when traveling abroad, apologetically asked their foreign hosts to refrain from judging the United States based on its politicians. But they must judge his country by the actions of its politicians, said TR. Was that idealistic? Or was it simply the old rugged faith in the ability of so-called ordinary men and women to govern themselves? It is easy to be cynical about modern day politics. But the easy course will never fix what is broken. In America, government is nothing if it is not self-government. For in the mirror of democracy we see reflected back to us both our noblest, and our meanest, attributes. It is the purpose of this college to promote the best that we can be. It is the goal of the McGovern Center to foster service before self. And it is the hope of America that our politics can be as decent as our people--that civility need never be confused with weakness--nor compromise with surrender. When we come home to this America, we will fulfill the promise of our birth. We will create a legacy to inspire generations yet unborn. And we will uphold the McGovern tradition of idealistic leadership--for that is how we know we are Americans. Thank you very much. [[Page 21972]] ____________________