[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 18, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     TRIBUTE TO AN AMERICAN LEGACY

                                 ______


                          HON. PHILIP M. CRANE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 18, 1994

  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, recently the American conservative community 
lost an intellectual giant with the death of Russell Kirk.
  Mr. Kirk is properly credited as the father of the modern 
conservative movement. He was an accomplished author, best known for 
``the Conservative Mind.'' In addition to writing articles for National 
Review, he lectured at colleges all over America, frequently at my alma 
mater, Hillsdale College.
  As a tribute to Mr. Kirk, I would like to submit to the Record an 
article from the May 4, 1994 Washington Times by Timothy Goeglein. I 
commend Mr. Goeglein's article to the attention of my colleagues so 
that they may share in the glory of Mr. Kirk's legacy.

                         Russell Kirk's Legacy

                        (By Timothy S. Goeglein)

       This has been a sad week for American conservatives. One of 
     our brightest lights has been laid to rest.
       Russell Kirk passed away at his rural Michigan home ``Piety 
     Hill'' last Friday. He was 75. His illness was short, but his 
     achievement is lengthy. Mr. Kirk's was nothing short of a 
     brilliant career.
       American conservatism's self-described ``Bohemian Tory'' 
     had just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the publishing of 
     his landmark book ``The Conservative Mind'' last year. It is 
     now in its eighth printing.
       Unlike most of the books published in 1953, Mr. Kirk's 
     masterpiece is as relevant and as prescient today as it was 
     the week it was featured on the cover of Henry Luce's Time 
     magazine and lavishly reviewed in the New York Times.
       Along with William F. Buckley, Whittaker Chambers and James 
     Burnham, Mr. Kirk played one of the leading and pivotal roles 
     in making Anglo-American conservatism intellectually 
     respectable when liberalism seemed to stand unchallenged in 
     the groves of the higher learning in the early 1950s.
       Mr. Kirk never looked back after ``The Conservative Mind'' 
     became one of the most talked about books of the year. He 
     resigned his professorship at Michigan State College and 
     dedicated the rest of his life to the principles he outlined 
     in a letter to publisher Henry Regnery:
       ``Poverty never bothered me; I can live on four hundred 
     dollars cash per annum, if I must; time to think, and freedom 
     of action, are much more important to me at present than any 
     possible economic advantage. I have always had to make my own 
     way, opposed rather than abided by the time and the men who 
     run matters for us; and I don't mind continuing to do so.''
       Russell Kirk was that rarest of American phenomena: a 
     highly successful man of humane letters without a university 
     pedigree to sustain his work. In typically humble candor, 
     Mr. Kirk called himself ``the last leaf on the tree.''
       His penned 30 books in his seven decades, the two most 
     recent highly representative of his life's work.
       The first, ``The Politics of Prudence,'' is a wake-up call 
     aimed at young Americans who are concerned about the 
     direction of their country. Mr. Kirk urges prudence (one of 
     the four classical virtues) over ideology in navigating the 
     next American century.
       The second, ``America's British Culture,'' is the most 
     powerfully argued book yet written on the dangers of 
     multiculturalism and the subsequent importance of cultural 
     restoration.
       The common thread of both books is a strongly proactive way 
     of dealing with some of our most pressing concerns. It is 
     that thread that continues to make Mr. Kirk highly relevant.
       Instead of joining the growing ranks of conservatives who 
     proved adept at showing what they oppose instead of what they 
     favor, Mr. Kirk used his profound sense of right reason to 
     show young American that it pays to have a morally 
     imaginative program.
       He begins not by battling against the gains of the 
     multiculturalists--as legion reactionaries are wont to do--
     but by showing the need on the part of conservatives to 
     strengthen America's largely multiethnic, British culture. 
     Wrote Mr. Kirk:
       ``A culture is perennially in need of renewal . . . A 
     culture does not survive and prosper merely by being taken 
     for granted; active defense always is required, and 
     imaginative growth, too. Let us brighten the culture corner 
     where we find ourselves.''
       Mr. Kirk called on Americans to affirm and renew their 
     shaken culture shoring up the moral order and inveighing 
     against the multi-cultural attack:
       ``It is possible to exhaust the moral and social capital; a 
     society relying altogether upon its patrimony soon may find 
     itself bankrupt. With civilization, as with the human body, 
     conservation and renewal are possible only if healthful 
     change and reinvigoration occur from age to age. It is by no 
     means certain that our present moral and constitutional order 
     is providing sufficiently for its own future.''
       The argument, too, provides the theme of ``The Politics of 
     Prudence.'' This collection of essays, largely delivered at 
     the Heritage Foundation, where Mr. Kirk was a Distinguished 
     Fellow, is an action plan for those who want to find the 
     middle way between the active and thoughtful life propounded 
     by one of Mr. Kirk's chief political pin-ups, Edmund Burke.
       Mr. Kirk outlined 10 principles that should guide any 
     renaissance in coming social, economic and political battles. 
     He recommends 10 books that should guide the men and women 
     who want to be part of that renaissance. He concludes with a 
     wonderful exhortatory epilogue that asks: ``May the Rising 
     Generation Redeem the Time?''
       Mr. Kirk believed it might just be possible, but only if 
     the spiritual and political decadence of the present century 
     can be overcome. In this is his last hope:
       ``I have found it to be a real world, its vices 
     notwithstanding: a real world in which one still may develop 
     and exercise one's potential virtues of courage, prudence, 
     temperance, and justice; one's faith, hope, and charity. Do 
     not fail to remind yourselves that consciousness is a 
     perpetual adventure. Do not ignore the wisdom of the ages, 
     the democracy of the dead.''
       Americans, particularly young Americans, who want deeply to 
     preserve and enhance this inherited order of ours, complete 
     with its unique standards of justice, wisdom and beauty, must 
     feel conflicted by the immense challenge of restoration 
     before us.
       Russell Kirk's plea for cultural renewal and continuity 
     could not have been more forcefully written, or more timely. 
     We shall miss the way he led the charge to ``redeem the 
     time,'' in T.S. Eliot's words.
       But we shall carry on in the spirit of this humble, gifted 
     intellectual giant who gave so much back to the country he 
     loved. The fight is over nothing less than our individual 
     liberty and intellectual freedom.

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