[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 71 (Thursday, June 9, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
        HONORING ROBERT F. KENNEDY AND HIS COMMENTS ON VIOLENCE

  Mr. RIEGLE. Madam President, we can all recall the events of 26 years 
ago when this Nation lost a great voice for change and for hope with 
the death of Robert Francis Kennedy. We lost two great leaders in 
1968--Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy--I think that it is 
important to reflect, some two and a half decades later, on the 
challenges that still face us here in our Nation's Capital and around 
this country.
  Madam President, the day after Dr. King was killed, Senator Robert 
Kennedy--who was then a candidate for President--suspended his 
scheduled activities except for one event. That one event was a speech 
in Cleveland, OH. In addressing that crowd, Robert Kennedy gave a 
compelling speech that, tragically, rings equally true today.
  As we debate crime legislation, as we discuss bills that will impact 
our children's future, as we argue budget priorities and as we reflect 
on an increasing cynicism and distrust of our political system, it is 
proper that we reconsider these words that were delivered at a time of 
great turmoil and tremendous social upheaval.
  We still face the fact that we glorify violence through television 
and movies. We are still faced with the fact that unstable people 
obtain guns with ease, and we are still all too willing to excuse the 
building of one's life on the shattered dreams of others. Those were 
the concerns raised by Robert Kennedy on April 5, 1968. I think it is 
fitting that we reconsider this speech today and once again ask 
ourselves the same challenging questions he posed back then.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of Robert 
Kennedy's speech delivered on April 5, 1968, be inserted into the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

 Speech of Robert F. Kennedy Before the Cleveland City Club, April 5, 
                                  1968

       This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for 
     politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of 
     today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of 
     violence in America which again stains our land and every one 
     of our lives.
       It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of 
     violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, 
     famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human 
     beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one--no 
     matter where he lives or what he does--can be certain who 
     will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it 
     goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
       Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever 
     created? No martyr's cause can ever be stilled by an 
     assassin's bullet.
       No wrongs have ever been righted by riots or civil 
     disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an 
     uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of 
     madness, not the voice of reason.
       Whenever any American's life is taken by another American 
     unnecessarily--whether it is done in the name of the law or 
     in defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood 
     or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to 
     violence--whenever we tear at the fabric of life which 
     another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and 
     his children, the whole nation is degraded.
       ``Among free men,'' said Abraham Lincoln, ``there can be no 
     successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet' and those 
     who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the 
     costs.''
       Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that 
     ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization 
     alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian 
     slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and 
     television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy 
     for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons 
     and ammunition they desire.
       Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of 
     force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build 
     their lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans 
     who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at 
     home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their 
     very conduct invited them.
       Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but 
     this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression 
     breeds retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society 
     can remove this sickness from our soul.
       For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as 
     deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This 
     is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction 
     and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, 
     that poisons relations between men because their skin has 
     different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by 
     hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in 
     the winter.
       This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the 
     chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And 
     this too afflicts us all.
       I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies 
     nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline 
     we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and 
     fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man 
     because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he 
     pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you 
     threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you 
     also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as 
     enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to 
     be subjugated and mastered.
       We learn, at the last, to look to our brothers as aliens, 
     men with whom we share a city, but not community; men bound 
     to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn 
     to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat 
     from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement 
     with force. For all this, there are no final answers.
       Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice 
     among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs 
     we should seek to enact. The question is whether we find in 
     our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane 
     purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our 
     existence.
       We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among 
     men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for 
     the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that 
     our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes 
     of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither 
     be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
       Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be 
     done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our 
     land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor 
     with a resolution.
       But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those 
     who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us 
     the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, 
     nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and 
     in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they 
     can.
       Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, 
     can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at 
     least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely 
     we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds 
     among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and 
     countrymen once again.

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