[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 54 (Thursday, March 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H3578]]
                            BUILDING BRIDGES

  (Mr. GUTKNECHT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read this morning a poem 
from Bill Bennett's book of virtues. It is entitled ``The Bridge 
Builder.''

                           The Bridge Builder

                       (By Will Allen Dromgoole)

       This poem speaks of each generation's responsibilities to 
     its successors.

     An old man, going a lone highway,
     Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
     To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
     Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
     The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
     The sullen stream had no fears for him;
     But he turned, when safe on the other side,
     And built a bridge to span the tide.
     ``Old man,'' said a fellow pilgrim, near,
     ``You are wasting strength with building here;
     Your journey will end with the ending day;
     You never again must pass this way;

     The builder lifted his old gray head:
     ``Good friend, in the path I have come,'' he said,
     ``There followeth after me today
     A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
     This chasm, that has been naught to me,
     To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
     He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
     Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.''

  Mr. Speaker, balancing the budget is not some mean-spirited 
accounting exercise. It is about preserving the American dream for 
future generations.

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