Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Bumpers Urges Democratic Vote

Sen. Dale Bumpers, who is stepping down from his seat after 24 years of service, was the keynote speaker at the Clinton Day Dinner Saturday night in Arkadelphia.

When he first ran for office in Arkansas, he had 1 percent name recognition statewide. He was also going up against two of the state's toughest politicians for the governor's office Orval Faubus and Winthrop Rockefeller when the smoke cleared from the election, Bumpers was the clear victor.

After serving two terms as governor, he set his sights on the U.S. Senate seat held by William Fulbright, and beat him as well.

He joked with his fellow Democrats saying the rally had gone on so long he'd gotten hungry again.

Sen. Bumpers shared several jokes and humorous stories with the crowd, but quickly got to the meat of his message vote for the democratic candidates in November and take control of the state and nation back from the republican party.

He called Rep. Judy Smith the most underrated woman in Arkansas, but said she has a pivotal role in changing the 4th Congressional District seat.

"As Democrats," Bumpers said, "it's important we don't let her down."

He asked a personal favor for democrats in the district to vote for her and reclaim the seat from Jay Dickey.

Bill Bristow, the democratic candidate for governor, is the consummate country boy, Bumpers said.

He grew up in Strawberry, which is not a metropolitan area in the state, but was bright and went to Harvard Law School where he graduated with honors.

"He could have gone to any law firm in the United States," Bumpers said, "but he chose to return to Arkansas."

Bristow, Bumpers continued, settled in Jonesboro and is the best trial lawyer in the state.

The Senator digressed, telling those present how his father urged him to enter public service, though his mother wanted him to be a Methodist preacher. "I listened to my father," he said, "and I'm glad I did."

Bumpers said he's never once regretted his decision to enter the public realm, and praised Bristow for his desire to be in public life as well.

"Bill Bristow did right by Arkansas," he said. "He came back to help people."

Turning to his love for history, Bumpers said Bristow isn't cute, but neither was another politician Abraham Lincoln.

However, he said, because of his debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln was elected to the highest office in the land president

"We have an Abe Lincoln-type person in Bristow," he said.

Time travel was popular with Sen. Bumpers, who took the audience back to the Great Depression when his family, along with most others, had nothing.

When a Democrat took office as president, things changed, he said. This president was Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt, Bumpers said, recognized the south and worked to get things straightened out.

"My father was right about public service," he said. "My father told me all my life if I ever voted for a Republican I'd be sorry. I took him at his word and have never been sorry."

The GOP, he said, will be the utter destruction of the public school system in this nation, as most favor the voucher system.

The Republican party, he said, also killed the tobacco bill. Some 3,000 children begin smoking each day, and 1,000 will die from tobacco-related illnesses.

Bumpers, himself, smoked at one time, but quit, discovering it was a nasty habit.

The tobacco bill, he told the gathering, would have allowed tobacco companies to raise the price of cigarettes. The money would be used by Congress to help pay for child care.

But, he said, the GOP gets millions from the tobacco industry, while the Democrats don't.

The GOP, he continued, doesn't want campaign finance reform either, while the Democratic Party favors this issue. Democrats, he said, want to put a limit on the amount of money a candidate can raise for office. "Putting democracy on the line based on the amount of money a person can raise is dangerous in the extreme," Bumpers said.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton promised to cut the deficit in half, Bumpers said. "At the time I didn't think he was interested enough in it (the deficit issue) and I was obsessed with it. He submitted a bill to us and not one republican voted for it. In fact, six members of the democratic party voted against it.

This resulted in a 50-50 tie and Vice President Al Gore had to be called in to break the deadlock. It passed 51-50.

The bill, Bumpers said, was to put a tax increase on the top 1.5 percent of Americans in the country the wealthy in other words.

Sen. Robert Dole said if the measure passed it would make the Depression look like a cakewalk. It passed and there has been no cakewalk yet.

This year, Bumpers told the gathering, the nation will have a $50 billion surplus coming. The GOP, though, wants to go whole hog at the trough and tell the nation how the money should be spent.

The Republican Party, he said, is only interested in two things protecting the rich and investigating Democrats.

Now, they want to give the surplus to the rich in tax cuts and not make the Social Security program solvent, he said, or put any money in education.

Clinton wants the surplus to be spent on Social Security and education, Bumpers said.

"If I live another 100 years," he said, "I would work to raise teacher's salaries to $50,000 a year."

Bumpers told how his daughter went to law school, graduated and went into a job paying $80,000 a year. "She would have made a great teacher," he said, "but there was no money in it."

With the budget surplus, he added, every child in the U.S. could be given a college education, and no child in this nation should be deprived of this opportunity. "It's a no brainer," he said of what to do with the surplus budget funds.

In 1978 Bumpers visited China. At the time, he said, there were three churches in the entire country. Now there are more than 12,000.

People are complaining about Clinton going to China, he said, but it was the right thing for him to do. We don't need to look at where China is now, but at where they came from 20 years ago.

Pres. Clinton returned from China with a chemical weapon treaty as each side promised not to build them, help others build chemical weapons or sell them to other countries. In addition, Bumpers said, the treaty agreement includes a part where China and the U.S. agree not to use nuclear weaponry against one another. "He did what he should have done," he said.

Turning to the topic of prayer in school, Bumpers said he favors it, but not the way Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell want it done. He said they want to tell the children how to pray and what to pray for.

The Bill of Rights, he said, are the first 10 amendments to the U