could be during the past 30 years. We represented adjoining districts which cover the entire coastal area of South Carolina where we were confronted with similar problems at all times.

Congressman RIVERS was always one of the first people I saw on arrival at the House Office Building between 7 and 8 a.m. Our parking spaces were adjoining in the House garage and I have never heard MENDEL complain concerning his strenuous 12-hour schedule each day or his health.

Mr. RIVERS' record will stand and be well remembered for its forceful brilliance and integrity. He was a true statesman, an American who gave of himself to uphold the ideals upon which this country of ours is founded. He had a strength of character that could not be swayed by vigorous attempts to alter his ideals. And he answered his challengers with oratory, the likes of which few men today can muster.

On December 7, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Mendel Rivers handled what was to be his last piece of legislation on the floor, the resolution in support for efforts to rescue American prisoners of war in North Vietnam. He took a strong position, urging that the United States be resolute in protecting its military men and its heritage. In his closing remarks that day, he said, among other things:

Mr. Speaker, I want the world to know that I would tell that crowd in Hanoi, you will either treat them with human dignity or some of you will not be here tomorrow . . . So far as I am concerned, Mr. Speaker, if I were the President of the United States, I would deliver an ultimatum to this crowd and let them guess where the next blow is coming from.

That was the kind of man he was. He believed in determining what was the right thing, and then standing up firmly for it.

My heartfelt sympathies go out to his lovely wife and children. He was a devoted family man and I know what a void his passing will leave in their lives. I trust that they will be sustained by their fine memories of him as one of our greatest statesmen and patriots.

Mr. McCORMACK. Mr. Speaker, the death of our dear colleague, L. MENDEL RIVERS, of South Carolina, takes from our midst a valued friend, an outstanding legislator, and one who loved our country with a devotion and intensity which was always evidenced as a Member of this House and particularly as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Mendel Rivers was a man of strong convictions, particularly in the field of national defense, and of a firm foreign policy. MEndel RIVERS knew that a strong national defense was a powerful instrument and so necessary in adopting and carrying out the foreign policy of our country, particularly a firm foreign policy.

While everyone did not agree with him on a powerful national defense and a clear majority of the Members of the House, including myself, did-but those who did not, respected Mendel RIVERS because they knew he was intellectually honest and believed in the policies of national defense and foreign policy he so ardently and strongly and courageously advocated.

In the history of our country there are few Members of the Congress who have contributed more to a strong national defense than MENDEL RIVERS. He realized in the troubled world of today, with the challenge that faces free governments everywhere, that if he were going to err in judgment, it was better if he erred on the side of strength than on the side of weakness in connection with our national defense. He also was aware of the meaning and significance of what is an indisputable fact today, which some persons overlook, that the Atlantic Ocean is no longer our first line of defense.

He knew, as all Americans should now know, that we must be prepared before the fact and not after the fact, and that World War II was the last time that our great country, our beloved country, would ever have an opportunity to prepare itself after the fact. In this opinion of our dear friend, I looked “eye to eye" with him.

MENDEL RIVERS represented strength and security, not gambling with weakness and appeasement.

While MENDEL RIVERS was a man of strong convictions, he possessed an understanding mind and a kind heart toward his fellow human beings. There are countless thousands of persons who are the beneficiaries of his good deeds.

A fighter in committee and in debate in the House for what he stood for, he did not harbor any ill feelings toward anyone. A strong character, yes; but a kind gentleman, yes.

So we pause today, my dear colleagues, with deep sorrow to eulogize and pay tribute to MENDEL RIVERS, a great man and a good man, who has left his strong and favorable impressions upon the pages of American history.

For my colleagues in the House and myself and Mrs. McCormack, I extend our deep sympathy to Mrs. Rivers and her daughters and her son in their great loss and sorrow.

Mr. ALBERT. Mr. Speaker, I join the distinguished dean of the delegation from South Carolina and all my colleagues from the State in which my wife was born in their expression of sorrow over the death of the Honorable L. MENDEL RIVERS.

I join the great Speaker of the House in the stirring tribute which he has made.

The passing of our late colleague struck down one of the strongest public figures of the Nation and one of the ablest legislators of our time. Seldom has the House seen in one person a combination of so much resolution, so much devotion to his ideals, and such varied talents as was possessed by our late colleague. He was the No. 1 public official of the Nation in the area of insisting on a strong national defense. He was known throughout the Armed Forces as one of the finest friends our fighting men have ever had. He was a finished student of the subject matter with which his committee dealt. Few Members have ever known their area of operations in the House as he knew his.

He was strong. He was confident. He was able. He was one of the masters of debate of this generation. I am convinced that every Member of the House, whether he agreed with him or was hostile to his point of view on any issue, would concede that on the floor or on the rostrum he was peerless in debate, eloquent, fluent, witty, intelligent, and always in command of every situation.

I have had several occasions to visit Charleston, S.C., with Mendel RIVERS. NO Member of this House was ever held in higher esteem by his constituents. They loved him. They have lost their greatest public servant. The Nation has lost an outstanding legislator, and the House has lost one of its most competent and colorful Members. I have lost a devoted friend.

Mrs. Albert and I extend to Mrs. Rivers and their children our deepest personal sympathy in their bereavement.

Mr. ANDERSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, this House has lost one of its most eminent and distinguished Members in the passing of L. MENDEL RIVERS, late the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

His long career was marked by a ceaseless devotion to a strong defense force for the United States. His expertise on matters relating to the military was legendary, as was his prodigious capacity for hard work. He was ever the loyal son of his native State of South Carolina and devoted in his allegiance and loyalty to the United States.

A man of great personal charm and strong opinions, he will be sorely missed by all of his colleagues.

I join other Members in extending sincere condolences to the Rivers family on their immeasurable loss.

Mr. BOGGS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join with my colleagues, including the distinguished Speaker, the distinguished majority leader, and the distinguished Republican leader, in expressing the sentiment which I know is felt throughout this body at the loss of one of the great Members of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I feel this loss particularly, because 30 years ago I came to this House of Representatives with MENDEL RIVERS.

I look about me now, and as far as I know, the only Members left in that group are my good friend and distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, the successor to the late MENDEL RIVERS as chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, the able gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Hébert), and the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Sikes).

Throughout the years during which I knew MENDEL RIVERS he not only distinguished himself as a great leader of this country but also as a friend of the Members of this body.

Mr. Speaker, Mendel Rivers was a man of his word. He was a man of great honor. He was a hard worker. My office happens to be just one or two doors from the office which he occupied. Frankly, I can state that I never arrived earlier at my office than did MENDEL RIVERS.

Mr. Speaker, seldom do we know what is happening to one of our dear ones. It was just a few weeks ago that MENDEL, despite his dedication to the armed services of this country, talked to me about a matter entirely separate from matters involving the armed services but about a matter with reference to the University of South Carolina. Just before he left I had a long talk with him about some of our problems and at no time had I ever heard him complain in any way. But on that day he said to me that he had been having a little trouble with his heart. However, I came to know that he had had a

great deal of difficulty with his heart extending back for many years, but little did I realize how serious it was.

I join with the distinguished Speaker and others in extending my deepest sympathy and condolences to his lovely wife and his three children.

Mr. DORN. Mr. Speaker, all South Carolinians, all patriotic Americans, and lovers of freedom throughout the world mourn with us today over the passing of one of the great leaders of our time, a South Carolinian who now takes his place in history along with Calhoun, Hampton, Andrew Jackson, and other great leaders of our State.

MENDEL RIVERS was no stranger to poverty or to hard work. His life was in the classic Horatio Alger tradition. His father, a member of a patriotic old family that had been in America since before the Revolution, raised cotton and ran a turpentine mill near the Hell Hole Swamp around Gumville, S.C. The elder Rivers died when MENDEL was quite young, forcing him to take on more of the farm chores. Later, while a high school student, he would arise at 4 a.m., milk cows, deliver newspapers, and then catch the trolley into Charleston. Throughout these early years of adversity he showed the energy and tenacity that were to characterize his public service, while experiencing the hardships that were to give him such a keen insight into the problems of poverty. Not many of my colleagues are aware of the fact, but MENDEL RIVERS' voting record in the House of Representatives was among the most progressive of all his colleagues from the Deep South. He supported much legislation to help the underprivileged, to help them up the ladder of life. And more important was his leadership in bringing well-paying, industrial jobs to all the people of his district. and State. Here was a man who did something tangible about economic distress, and we all know of his pride in the positive economic effect of these great installations and industries on some of the previously most deprived and disadvantaged of our citizens.

Of course MENDEL RIVERS advocated military strength. He advocated military strength through necessarily vast expenditures for national defense because he was a lover of peace. He believed that the only way to have peace was to be strong enough to withstand and forestall aggression.