Tribute to Former President Ronald Wilson Reagan

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
TRIBUTE TO FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD WILSON REAGAN

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I, too, rise to join my colleagues in honoring our Nation's 40th President, Ronald Reagan. It is most fitting and I know that I have watched, as have Americans across the country, as we see the stories of Ronald Reagan and his life and his contributions to this country, stories coming from not only those of us standing on the Senate floor but from other countries, from small communities. People are focusing on the man that was Ronald Reagan, a great leader for this country. The stories that have been told have been wide-ranging, covering President Reagan's role in the cold war, his truly undying sense of optimism for the country, the discussions about Reaganomics, and, of course, all those personal stories that make President Reagan so unforgettable.

Alaska certainly has its stories to add and to share as well. President Reagan's impact on Alaska began before he even entered the office of the Presidency. In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, putting over 100 million acres of land under Federal control, was pending before the Congress. With Reagan's election that year, leaders in the House and Senate-at the time, both were under Democratic control-knew that if they were going to get a bill signed into law, it would have to be then, before President Reagan was sworn in, and the Act, for better or for worse, was signed into law on December 2, 1980. But President Reagan understood Alaska and Alaskans.

In his book, entitled "Reagan, In His Own Hand," the President asked this very important question:

Will Alaska wind up as our biggest state, or will it be our smallest state surrounded by our biggest national park?

He tried to ease the impact these land withdrawals had on Alaskans living in and around the new parks and refuges. He fought for access to these lands to provide for economic development, and it was his administration that determined that oil drilling should be allowed in a small section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a debate that continues today.

Alaskans remembered all that President Reagan did for us in both Presidential elections by giving him wide and broad-based support throughout the State.

President Reagan had the opportunity to visit Alaska several times. He liked to talk about his ties to the State. He was a big fan of Robert Service, and one of his favorites was a poem entitled "The Shooting of Dan McGrew." It is a poem about a particular barroom brawl, and most people may remember the beginning of it:

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up at the Malamute Saloon.

It is a wonderful, kind of down-and-dirty, rough-and-tumble poem that personified what many wanted to believe about Alaska and the last Frontier.

But President Reagan was quite fond of that. I had an opportunity last night to pull out "The Shooting Of Dan McGrew" and read it yet one more time, and it brought good smiles to my face.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD the full contents of "The Shooting Of Dan McGrew."

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

THE SHOOTING OF DAN MCGREW

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd to,
And I turned my head-and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway,

Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands-my God! but that man could play.
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad with the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars?-
Then you've a hunch what the music meant . . . hunger and might and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowded with a woman's love-
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true-
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,-the lady that's known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through-
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost dies away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . . then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dangerous Dan McGrew."
Then I ducked my head and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;
And a woman screamed, and the light went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.
These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two-
The woman that kissed him and-pinched his poke-was the lady known as Lou.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I have a wonderful personal anecdote about President Reagan. He visited Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1984. It was a monumental visit because he joined Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks for a summit there. The President and Nancy Reagan arrived in Fairbanks on their way back from China. The following day, the Pope was arriving on his way to Korea. As we do in Alaska, we can facilitate great unions because of our strategic location at the top of the globe. So they were able to meet at the Fairbanks International Airport.

During his stopover in Fairbanks, the President spent his time at my parent's home out on the Chena River. They were there for a couple of days. It would not be much of a story except that the home was brand spanking new. It had not yet been furnished. So in an effort to make sure the President and Mrs. Reagan were comfortable, the community literally furnished the home, complete with very fine Alaskan artwork. It was perhaps a showcase home for a couple of days. Everything from the city's artwork to the china ultimately had to be returned to wherever it came from. The community went all out for the President and Mrs. Reagan.

Because this was a new house, there were some kinks that still needed to be worked out, specifically the water. It didn't have hot water. Apparently, after a long flight, it is quite nice to stop and take a shower, or perhaps Mrs. Reagan needed a warm bath. But there was no hot water. A call was made to then-Senator Murkowski at about 3 a.m. asking how come there was no hot water. As the story goes, the President and my father were wandering around outside trying to figure out how to make the hot water come on. They learned you had to keep the water running for a while. That was the way President Reagan was. He was willing to go out and try to be helpful and fix the problem. He was a man who wanted to make things work, to cut through the redtape and bureaucracy, reduce the size of Government, and a man who was not afraid to stand up and promote his vision for America, but also knowing when it was time to compromise on issues. He was an individual who truly made America feel good about itself again.

I will close by reading a quote from Ronald Reagan during his speech at the 1992 National Republican Convention. I feel it is truly a fitting reminder of this great man's legacy. I read as follows:

My fellow citizens-those of you here in this hall and those of you at home-I want you to know that I have always had the highest respect for you, for your common sense and intelligence, and for your decency. I have always believed in you and in what you could accomplish for yourselves and for others.

And whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arms steadying your way.

My fondest hope for each one of you-and especially for the young people here-is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will make the world a little better for your having been here.

May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism.

And finally, my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.

I yield the floor.