REMARKS BY AL GORE
                       VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL
                       LEADERSHIP DINNER HONORING
                       PAULINE LAFON GORE
 
                       It is a great privilege to join you in honoring my mother,
                       Pauline LaFon Gore -- who has been an inspiration to me for all
                       of my life. 

                       For nearly 51 years, she has been my teacher and my role
                       model -- the woman who taught me what it means to be part
                       of a close, loving family. 

                       I'm reminded of the words of a writer who said: "no matter
                       how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for
                       signs of improvement." So I'm going to be very careful about
                       what I say tonight... 

                                        Vanderbilt gives this award, its very
                                        highest honor, to those who "manifest the
                                        values of a Vanderbilt University Law
                                        School education." I know my mother and
                                        Vanderbilt Law School share many of the
                                        same values -- because Vanderbilt helped
                                        to smash through the glass ceiling in this
                                        country by offering my mother a legal
                                        education. It was little more than a dozen
                                        years after women won the right to vote.
                                        She was among the first ten women ever
                                        to enroll at this school -- and the only
                       woman in the Class of 1936. Today, nearly half of your
                       graduating class are women. 

                       My mother has always been reluctant to talk about herself. But
                       I think there is a lot about her life and career that speaks to
                       the core mission not just of this law school, but of the law
                       itself -- to deepen human dignity and opportunity, and ensure
                       that everyone can seize the promise of this nation. 

                       Back when my mother applied to Vanderbilt Law School, that
                       promise was out of reach -- not just for women, but for people
                       of color, for farmers who did not have electricity or crop
                       insurance, for older Americans who lacked decent pensions or
                       health care, for those who were hit hard by the Depression --
                       for all those who had yet to be uplifted by the New Deal, and
                       the ever-expanding circle of social justice of which my parents
                       were so proud to be a part. 

                       For my mother -- and in many ways, for me -- her time at
                       Vanderbilt was an important step on that journey. 

                       She was greatly troubled by the stories my grandfather told
                       her about his struggle to help my grandmother and my
                       great-grandmother inherit land that was rightly theirs. Instead,
                       it went entirely to their brothers. Women weren't supposed to
                       own land in those days. They certainly weren't supposed to
                       become lawyers. As a young girl, those inequalities made a
                       deep impression on my mother. She set out to change them.
                       And she did. 

                       My mother's parents had married at 17. Her father ran a small
                       country store in Cold Corner -- in the First District of Weakley
                       County in Northwest Tennessee -- in a community that didn't
                       even have any radios at the time. Neither of her parents had
                       the chance to get the education they wanted. But they were
                       determined to do better for their children. They moved to
                       Jackson when my mother was in the seventh grade -- partly
                       because it had a better educational system. 

                       She started her education in a one-room schoolhouse in Cold
                       Corner. And her fire for learning was lit from the beginning. In
                       my mother's words, "it never occurred to me that I couldn't go
                       to college. I just knew it was up to me to find a way." 

                       She found a way. First she went to Union College in Jackson;
                       and she insisted on bringing her sister Thelma, who was blind,
                       to college with her; she paid her sister's way, and would take
                       notes and read assignments for both of them. Then my mother
                       enrolled here at Vanderbilt. She scraped her way through by
                       waiting tables at the old Andrew Jackson Hotel, working for
                       25-cent tips during the Depression. She lived at the downtown
                       YWCA for two dollars a week, took a trolley to her morning
                       classes, and then rushed back to the Andrew Jackson for the
                       dinner shift. 

                       Meanwhile, my father had just started YMCA night law school,
                       even as he worked as Smith County Superintendent of Schools
                       and awoke well before dawn to tend his crops. 

                       As I said at my father's memorial service in December, he
                       must have been sleepy after such long days and nights, facing
                       an hour's drive yet to return from Nashville to Cartage on old
                       Highway 70. So he went looking for coffee, and found it at the
                       Andrew Jackson. He loved to tell the story of how the coffee
                       didn't taste good unless it was poured by that beautiful young
                       woman named Pauline LaFon. 

                       From the day they met, they were partners. They studied
                       together for the bar exam -- and passed it on the same day. 

                       When my mother graduated from Vanderbilt, it was virtually
                       impossible for a woman to find a legal job here in Nashville.
                       So she left for Texarkana, and put up her shingle. 

                       She was the only female attorney in Texarkana, and one of
                       only dozens in the entire nation. She practiced oil and gas law,
                       and also took on divorce cases -- unprecedented for a female
                       attorney back then. 

                       The next year, my father persuaded her to come back as his
                       wife. Soon after, he decided to run for Congress in the old
                       Fourth District. At that time, politicians' wives stayed far in the
                       background. My father wanted my mother right up front with
                       him. It turned out to be a wise decision on his part. Ned
                       McWherter puts it very bluntly: "she is the best politician in
                       the entire family." 

                       In that first campaign, my mother hit the campaign trail with
                       tremendous energy and enthusiasm: speaking at any club
                       meeting that would have her, calling on the wives of
                       well-known men to help in the race, and walking the dirt roads
                       of the district -- from Franklin County to Clay County, and all
                       points in between. On rainy days, she'd sometimes pull off her
                       shoes and wade through the mud to reach people's homes. 

                       She made a big difference in that race. A lot of people
                       supported my father that year because they saw my mother's
                       heart -- how she listened to people, how she understood their
                       concerns, and how she could speak with anyone -- from the
                       downtown businessman, to the farmer struggling to recover
                       from a bad crop. 

                       When my father served the Fourth District, she knew it like the
                       palm of her hand. When he served in the Senate, she got to
                       know this whole state. From Memphis to Mountain City, the
                       concerns of Tennessee's working families were always on her
                       mind. 

                       The people she met and recruited on those early campaigns
                       formed a powerful bond with her, and helped our family for
                       decades. Many of them helped on my own campaigns, more
                       than 40 years later. Many still do. 

                       It wasn't just in that first race that my mother's political skills
                       came to the rescue. In 1952, my father decided to run for the
                       Senate. He was challenging a powerful incumbent, Senator
                       Kenneth D. McKellar, who was the Chairman of the Senate
                       Appropriations Committee. McKellar sought to remind the
                       voters of his power to bring money to the state with his
                       omnipresent slogan: "The thinking feller votes McKellar." 

                       My father would never allow his supporters to remove those
                       McKellar signs. And so my mother came up with the perfect
                       solution. On her advice, every time we found a sign that said
                       "The thinking feller votes McKellar," we put a new sign directly
                       underneath it: "Think some more and vote for Gore." Without
                       that slogan, he might not have won the race. 

                       In 1992, when then-Governor Clinton asked me to join his
                       ticket, she was a favorite on the campaign trail. She and my
                       father took their own bus trip that year -- with Tony Randall,
                       Mitch Miller, and Dr. Ruth. 

                       For my whole career, my mother has given me excellent advice
                       -- and passed on the best advice she's received from others. 

                       My mother was much more than a campaigner. She was my
                       father's closest adviser. And when he took tough and
                       controversial positions, such as his strong support for civil
                       rights, and his opposition to the war in Vietnam -- positions
                       that caused great tension among their colleagues and friends
                       -- she always stood with him. She shared his conscience, and
                       was his strongest supporter. 

                       She loves the history and heritage of this state. After my
                       father passed the bill that created the Interstate Highway
                       system, my mother made sure there was an exit sign for the
                       Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson -- the namesake of her
                       beloved hometown. 

                       She has always believed in the power of education. She taught
                       it to me and my sister Nancy -- and she taught it to her
                       grandchildren. She carved her own path because of the
                       opportunity she had here at Vanderbilt. That may be why,
                       when she won a humanitarian award last year, she used the
                       money to set up a scholarship fund for aspiring college
                       students from Smith County. 

                       She has always found ways to serve. During World War II,
                       when my father resigned his seat in Congress to enlist, my
                       mother helped with the war effort as well. At first, she
                       volunteered for her friend and role model Eleanor Roosevelt in
                       the White House, answering letters from those who poured
                       their hearts out, looking for hope at a time of distress. She
                       then volunteered at the Red Cross, interviewing young women
                       who wanted to go overseas to help with the war effort. 

                       After my father left the Senate, my mother finally returned to
                       her legal career -- first at a firm she opened with my father,
                       then as the managing partner at a large firm in Washington.
                       During her law firm years, she liked to advise young women
                       who were considering legal careers -- so they could walk the
                       trails she had blazed, and make the legal profession more
                       open and equal for all. 

                       Maybe it was just her way of redeeming the struggles her
                       mother and grandmother could never win in their time. 

                       It has been said that when you educate a woman, you educate
                       a whole family. I feel that is true of my mother. 

                       She still loves the law, and the promise it holds for erasing
                       life's inequalities. 

                       She still cares deeply about the working families of this state,
                       from the farms to the factories to the office towers of
                       downtown Nashville. 

                       I know that as long as I am privileged to serve Tennessee and
                       America, I will carry the lessons she taught me -- and the
                       values she passed on to me. 

                       For I believe it is true that "a mother is not a person to lean
                       upon, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." 

                       And that may be the greatest gift she has given -- not just to
                       me, but to generations of women in public life -- and to the
                       Tennessee families whose cares have been her concern. 

                       Congratulations, mom, on a wonderful career -- and on the
                       high honor you have earned, and so richly deserve. Thank you. 



