Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, made the following statement early Friday morning in the final meeting of the Senate and House conferees on financial services modernization, after conferees agreed on a compromise on the Community Reinvestment Act and other issues:

"Success has many proud parents, and failure is a foundling. We have many proud parents of this compromise.

"This was a tough undertaking. People have been trying to do this for 50 years. If it was easy, somebody would have already done it.

"I think we started this process with great suspicions about each other. After all we have different positions in the world; we have different things we want to see achieved.

"But I think what we had in common here is that we wanted to make history. I believe tonight we have set the foundation for making history.

"My goal when we started this bill in the Banking Committee was to do something that we could be proud of. I remember above the Speaker's table in the House is a quote from Daniel Webster to the effect that, in our own time, let us do something worthy of being remembered.

"I believe tonight that tonight we have done something worthy of being remembered. And part of that was because we were willing to put our suspicions of each other behind us and willing to hear other people out and recognized the possibility that maybe they were right and we were wrong.

"I want to thank the Treasury Department. I want to thank Gene Sperling. I want to thank Secretary Larry Summers. I don't remember two senior officials working as intensely on anything as they did.

"This is a big moment I believe for our two banking committees and the Commerce Committee. Never in the time we've been here have these committees done something as important as we've done tonight. I'm proud, and I think every member has a right to be proud."