[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 141 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      WHEN A CITIZENRY LOSES TRUST

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, recently, the Peoria Journal Star 
had an eight-point list of suggestions for citizens on how they can do 
a better and more responsible job.
  I've never seen an editorial like this, and it deserves wide 
dissemination.
  Their suggestions are everything from not asking for more than you 
can pay for to putting the Nation's interest above our own individual 
interest.
  This is a superb editorial, and I ask to insert it into the Record at 
this point.
  The editorial follows:

             [From the Peoria Journal Star, Sept. 12, 1994]

                      When a Citizenry Loses Trust

       U.S. Sen. Paul Simon tells the story of the constituent who 
     approached him at a town meeting and enumerated a dozen 
     additional services he wanted from government. Simon told the 
     man he'd see what he could do.
       ``And one more thing,'' the constituent said.
       ``What might that be?'' Simon asked.
       ``Cut my taxes.''
       Yesterday we reflected on the obligations of government to 
     the citizenry--specifically, the obligations of Congress and 
     the president. We suggested eight steps elected officials 
     might take to restore the trust Americans say they have lost 
     in Washington. Today, we offer eight steps American citizens 
     might themselves take. In a democracy, government is not a 
     ``they'' but a ``we.''
       1. We begin by suggesting--you guessed it--that Americans 
     not ask more of government than they are willing to pay for. 
     Funny, isn't it, how we expect to pay a hefty price to feed 
     the family, more if the family grows, and we acknowledge that 
     housing is expensive, more so if the house grows. But when it 
     comes to paying for new roads or schools, to keeping the 
     water clean and the parks open another year, we scream that 
     we'd be able to afford everything we want next year on last 
     year's taxes, if it weren't for the waste, fraud and abuse. 
     The result, on the federal level, is a $4.7 trillion debt.
       2. Educate yourself. Not just to get a good job but to be a 
     good citizen. Pay attention to what's going on. Read all 
     sides of an argument before making up your mind. Subscribe to 
     a newspaper--more than one, if you can afford it. Benjamin 
     Rush, an 18th-century Philadelphia doctor and freedom 
     fighter, was so convinced of the essential nature of 
     newspapers to a democracy that he proposed they travel the 
     mail, postage-free. (He also suggested that one-fourth of the 
     revenue being spent on the nation's capital be set aside for 
     a federal university and that only its graduates be permitted 
     to hold office.) We won't go quite as far as Rush, but we do 
     admire this sentiment: ``Let every man exert himself in 
     promoting virtue and knowledge in our country, and we shall 
     soon become good republicans.''
       3. Don't leave government to others. The genius of self-
     government is in the first half of the word. Join the League 
     of Women Voters. Go to a party meeting. Support candidates. 
     Run for office yourself. Be constructive; criticism comes far 
     too easy. Understand that our form of government does not 
     succeed untended, like a pine in the woods. It requires 
     participation, like a rose in a garden.
       4. Applaud leaders who listen to you, study an issue, give 
     it their best judgment--then do what they believe is right. 
     Support not just those legislators who always seem to agree 
     with you, but those who disagree wisely. Do not send a puppet 
     or a poll-reader to Congress. Do not be a one-issue voter.
       5. Celebrate and defend what Americans have in common. 
     Listen to what someone who disagrees with you has to say. He 
     might have a point; you could change your mind--of his. Heed 
     Thomas Jefferson's words: ``Every difference of opinion is 
     not a difference of principle.''
       6. Resist the separation of America into dueling interest 
     groups. Guard against the impulse to make other Americans 
     scapegoats for the nation's problems. Still appropriate is 
     the warning George Washington issued in his farewell address 
     about those who would ``make the public administration the 
     mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of 
     faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome 
     plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual 
     interests.'' Otherwise, he said, ``cunning, ambitious and 
     unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the 
     people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.''
       7. Put the country's interests above your own, and the 
     future above the present. Your leaders need your 
     encouragement to do likewise.
       8. The next time you lose faith in those you elect to 
     office, ask yourself if you'd have more faith in the leaders 
     of France or Italy or Russia or Canada or * * * you name the 
     country. Remember that Americans have been despairing over 
     their government since they first experimented with it.
       The answer, Jefferson said in 1801, was not to be found in 
     abandonment but in reaffirmation of ``our own federal and 
     republican principles, our attachment to union and 
     representative government.'' Jefferson begged ``the honest 
     patriot'' to recommit himself to a government that he 
     believed was still ``the world's best hope.'' That's still 
     pretty good advice.

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