On the recordJuly 30, 2011
I ask to be informed when I have 5 minutes remaining. Mr. President, when Harry Truman served in the seat Senator McCaskill of Missouri holds today, he used to sit back over there, in back of the row where a lot of the newer Senators sit. He, from that vantage point, would often watch the great debates on the New Deal. He listened long into the night. He used to frequently write home to his wife Bess. One late night after a long debate, he wrote about his experience of sitting in the Senate--this was early on--and of the awe he felt sitting in this institution and looking across at his colleagues, I assume imagining the ghosts of Calhoun and Clay and other great Senators. He wrote to his wife, and he said: I sit here in the Senate looking at this institution and at my colleagues and I pinch myself and I say, ``How the hell did I get here?'' A number of months later, it was very late at night, and he was again sitting there, and he wrote to his wife, again watching the debate and looking across at his colleagues, and he wrote to her and said, ``I ask myself, how the hell did they get here?'' Anyway, I suspect at this moment in America a lot of Americans are looking at the Senate, at the Congress, and they are asking a similar question, wondering whether we get it. I have enormous respect for this institution.…
