[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 131 (Monday, August 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11727-S11729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 VIOLENCE AGAINST GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Guy Pence is a Federal employee and a public 
servant in the true sense of the word. He is a forest ranger.
  Mr. President, I became acquainted with Guy Pence about 3 or 4 years 
ago at this same time of the year when he took me on a pack trip into a 
place in Nevada called Table Mountain. It is a Forest Service 
wilderness area. There 

[[Page S 11728]]
may be places as nice, as beautiful, but no place is any more beautiful 
than Table Mountain.
  It is an area with alpine meadows, beaver dams, eagles floating 
through the sky, deer, elk, all kinds of wildlife.
  Mr. President, I came to Table Mountain as one person and left as 
another. I became more acquainted with a part of Nevada that I had only 
seen from the air. I became more acquainted with the problems of a 
Forest Service ranger, as to what should be done with grazing, what 
should be done with the infusion of elk into that area, what should be 
done in regard to mining operations, and the overuse and underuse of 
public lands. I learned a lot about that part of Nevada.
  But I learned as much about Guy Pence and those other rangers who 
were with us on the street. Guy Pence is truly a fine man in any sense 
of the word,
 he is the father of three young girls and a volunteer who has a 
program where he acquaints the people in the Carson City, NV, area with 
wildlife and the wild generally.

  The reason I mention Guy Pence's name this morning is because last 
Friday night, in the dark of the night, as Guy Pence was hundreds of 
miles away in the wilds of Nevada, leading another trip as he led me, a 
coward, or a number of cowards, in the middle of the night, came to his 
home and placed a bomb near his home. That bomb--I spoke to Guy Pence--
was 10 to 12 feet away from his wife and three children. The bomb blew 
up, totaled his car, blew out the windows of his house. But for the 
fact that his wife and children were making pickles they would have all 
been either dead or injured severely, because less than a minute prior 
to the explosion, around 10 o'clock at night, the buzzer went off in 
the kitchen, the mother said the pickles were ready and the children 
and mother went into the kitchen. Within seconds the explosion took 
place.
  In the dark of the night an unknown person or persons planted a bomb 
beneath his van as it sat about 10 feet away from his house, away from 
his wife and his children. I do not know who committed this crime or 
why it was committed. The facts are still being investigated.
  But whether it was related to the controversial job that Guy Pence, 
forest ranger, has to do, or whether it was unrelated, the timing of 
this act could not have been more prominent. This bombing--by whomever 
perpetrated it--comes at a time when our Federal land managers are 
under assault. Not in name only, but actually under assault. This 
bombing comes at a time when extremists are destroying the very fabric 
of our democracy. We have only to look at Oklahoma City to appreciate 
the threat of this extremism.
  The rule of law must apply to everyone. The alternative is anarchy. A 
red light at a corner is, at best, a useless decoration unless it is 
obeyed. There are those who think they are above or beyond the law, 
that they represent a cause so just that it justifies any harm to 
others. Those who stray from law to violence are people too unsure of 
their cause to believe they can sway the Nation, the State, or a 
county, by any means other than force. There is no difference, moral or 
philosophical, between the Weathermen of the 1960's, the Symbionese 
Liberation Army of the 1970's, the Pan American bombing terrorists of 
the 1980's, or the Oklahoma City bombers of the 1990's.
  There is no distinction, logical or analytical, between Lee Harvey 
Oswald, who killed President Kennedy, John Wilkes Booth, who killed 
President Lincoln, Sirhan Sirhan, who killed Senator Kennedy, Arthur 
Bremmer who tried to assassinate George Wallace, and whoever planted 
the bomb in Carson City. All were anarchists. Each was a coward wishing 
to substitute the power of tooth and claw for the rule of law. They 
wish to abolish the ability of the Nation to govern its citizens and 
instead permit the citizenry to settle its own scores on the spot, 
without regard to right or justice or principle. A coward is someone 
who has not the decency to stand up for what he believes: The stab in 
the back, the bullet in the night, the bomb on a doorstep of a woman 
and children's home--that is the way of a coward. When you combine 
anarchy and cowardice, you get what happened in Carson City.
  I grew up in a small town in southern Nevada, rural by any 
definition--no telephones, very few homes that had inside plumbing, no 
television. We were rural to the core. But the place where I was 
raised, people were friendly to one another. We depended on one 
another. Neighbors had a sense of community. That was part of our 
tradition.
  But the West that I loved my entire life has been sullied. There is 
now a pattern of lawlessness that has raised its ugly head in the 
Western United States. For the sake of debate, let us set aside the 
case of Guy Pence, even though it is hard for me to do. We do not know 
whether it will ever be solved or even whether it is connected with the 
rising tide of anti-Government rhetoric which is placing families like 
those of Ranger Pence in terrible circumstances.
  Let us address, instead, other instances that illustrate what I have 
called the ugly underbelly of a movement called County Supremacy.
  I will be the first to acknowledge that there are a wide variety of 
views about how we should manage the lands owned by the people of this 
country, lands available for a multitude of uses: cross-country skiing, 
skiing, grazing cattle, mining, off-road vehicle adventure, hunting and 
fishing, camping and hiking.
  The pressures in the rapidly growing West are enormous. I understand 
and appreciate the views of those who suggest that perhaps these lands 
should be turned over to the Western States. In Nevada, 87 percent of 
the land is owned by the Federal Government. Some in our State feel 
that we need more. Some less. But I would also point out that the 
Federal Government has been flexible in meeting Nevada's needs.
  Recently, I participated in a ceremony where we turned over to 
Boulder City, NV, more than 100,000 acres. Public land is now part of 
Boulder City. I introduced a bill that eventually gave Mesquite, NV, 
4,400 new acres to develop their airport and a golf course. I was city 
attorney in Henderson, NV, now the third largest city in Nevada, when 
it got over 100,000 acres of Federal land.
  So it is not as if there is not land being turned over to the private 
sector. But I do not agree with the wholesale turnover of some of the 
most scenic lands in our country, owned by all Americans. Land in 
Nevada that is public in nature is owned by people in Idaho, owned by 
people in Minnesota, owned by people in Nevada. I do not agree that 
these scenic lands should be turned over wholesale to what inevitably 
would turn out to be a sweetheart deal for developers, where only the 
most wealthy could own and lock up streams, valleys, mountains, 
meadows--the outdoors that we all cherish so much. I do not agree with 
the ultimate end advocated by the County Supremacist Movement and I am 
not afraid to say so.
  I am not here to suggest that all those with strongly held views in 
the anti-Federal movement advocate violence. They do not. Over the 
weekend in Nevada a person who is a member of one of these groups--I 
believe there were probably others, but I read where there was one 
person, and I appreciate that--spoke out that she did not believe in 
violence after the bombing of Guy Pence's home and van.
  Any movement must be concerned about the fringe elements within it--
in this case, fringe elements who live a paranoid life of conspiracy, 
who threaten revolution, who threaten violence as a means to achieve 
their agenda.
  Eric Hoffer said,

       When cowardice is made respectable its followers are 
     without number, both from among the weak and the strong. It 
     easily becomes a fashion.

  And it has.
  Madam Chiang Kai-shek, who recently was here in the United States, 
said,

       Every clique is a refuge for incompetence. It fosters 
     disruption, disloyalty, it begets corruption and cowardice, 
     and consequently it is a burden upon and a drawback to the 
     progress of the country. Its instincts and actions are those 
     of the pack.

  And they are.
  In the Western United States, Federal land managers have been 
threatened and attacked. In California, a Forest Service employee was 
shot at. In Oregon, a Bureau of Land Management employee was assaulted. 
In Nevada, the day the bomb severely damaged the office of the Forest 
Service, the Forest Service supervisor received a call saying he was 
next. 

[[Page S 11729]]

  Two years ago, a Bureau of Land Management building in Reno, NV, was 
blown apart, the roof blown off, among other things. Gate and fee 
collection boxes have been booby-trapped with explosives in the West. 
Agency employees were told by a man that they could have his guns, he 
just wanted to pull the trigger one more time--at them.
  In my county, a group of armed citizens stood by as a Forest Service 
employee helplessly tried to stop the illegal opening of a road with a 
bulldozer. A county official later said publicly that if the Forest 
Service officer had reached for his gun, 50 people would have shot him.
  In Garfield County, MT, a group called The Free Men set up their own 
county government, declared the existing one illegal, and offered a 
cash bounty for the arrest of legitimate law enforcement officials.
  In New Mexico, a Fish and Wildlife employee was told that he would 
have his head blown off. The manager of the Malheur National Wildlife 
Refuge in Oregon was threatened with death, and his family was 
harassed.
  In the West, antigovernment activity has spread like a prairie fire. 
Property rights activists in Nevada, New Mexico, Montana, and Idaho 
regularly drown out Federal officials who speak at public meetings. Yet 
these same activists illegally graze cattle on Federal lands.
  Worried Government agents such as Tom Dwyer, a U.S. Forest Service 
official, whose encounter with a property rights leader ignited a court 
battle, said, ``There are times when I was driving back from being out 
of town when I wondered if my house would still be there.''
  Yes, Mr. President, Guy Pence wonders also.
  Mr. President, this is not the America that we believe in. It is as 
if some sickness has swept our country, as if we are living in a 
different age, as if we have been transported in a time warp back to 
the barbarism and violence of previous civilizations like ``Back to the 
Future,'' I guess.
  I am here today to denounce violence and extremism in any form, 
whether it is clinic violence at an abortion office, or whether it is 
domestic violence in a home. It does not matter who committed an act 
against Guy Pence, it is violence, and we have to speak out against it.
  Acts like this, and others which have been cited, have been 
legitimized by anti-Government rhetoric of those in positions of 
responsibility who should know better.
  In my own State, elected officials have rejected the authority of 
Federal land managers to do their job on public lands--not land owned 
by the counties or the States, but land owned by all the people, 
including the urban residents of Reno and Las Vegas.
  Mr. President, we must speak out. We must recognize that some Members 
of this body and in the other Chamber have all but advocated violence 
against established law and order and sympathize and apologize for gun-
threatening supremacists. There is legislation pending in both Houses 
of Congress that enshrines and advocates some of these principles.
  One of the problems in our society today is that people are unwilling 
to speak out, are unwilling to speak out against violence, are 
unwilling to speak out against sexual depravity conveyed to our 
children through the mass media, and are unwilling to speak out against 
lawlessness, generally.
  I am speaking out. I call upon my colleagues in this Chamber, the 
elected officials of the country and the Western United States, and the 
peaceful advocates of the county supremacist movement to decry 
violence. I would challenge the leaders of this movement to write their 
members, to speak out publicly, to let everyone know that while they 
may disagree with the policies of the Federal Government that they do 
not advocate violence.
  We must get the message out that, while they may not like certain 
Federal policies, they do not advocate violence against innocent people 
whose job it is to enforce it.
  Teddy Roosevelt said, ``No man is above the law, and no man is below 
it.'' He also said, ``Nor do we ask any man's permission when we 
require him to obey the law.'' We must obey the law.
  Mr. President, I also would like to express publicly my appreciation 
to my friend from Minnesota for allowing me to go out of order.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me just say to my colleague from 
Nevada before he leaves that, after having heard his statement, it was 
really kind of my pleasure to defer to the Senator from Nevada. That 
was a very, very courageous, and powerful statement.
  I would like to join him in condemning this extremism and violence. 
Murder is never legitimate. Attempted murder is never legitimate. There 
is no place for this in this country.
  I think the Senator's statement is national in significance. I think 
what he said today on the floor of the Senate is needed to be said. 
There comes a point in time when silence is betrayal. And the Senator 
from Nevada clearly is not silent. I thank him for his courage. Mr. 
President, my understanding is I have 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 9 minutes and 46 seconds.

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