[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 25, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E304-E305]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING ALICE SACHS HAMBURG

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RONALD V. DELLUMS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 25, 1997

  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker, on February 22, 1997, Alice Sachs Hamburg 
received a well-earned recognition for her decades of work on behalf of 
world peace and disarmament. Long a resident of the ninth California 
District, Ms. Hamburg has been a tireless advocate on behalf of a cause 
that I hold close to my heart as well. She has been an important 
supporter and colleague on these issues, and I am indebted to her 
leadership, tireless energy, and deep-seated commitment to the issues 
of peace and disarmament.
  Obviously our community shares this view as well, and it is in this 
spirit that she is being honored by the Jane Addams Peace Association 
of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [WILPF].
  She has been on the frontlines of progressive activism in the bay 
area for a half-century. Nurtured by her Lithuanian Jewish immigrant 
parents on a drought-plagued North Dakota homestead, she came to know 
the meaning of struggle and the cycles of the land. Her connection with 
the land ripened during her marriage to the late Sam Hamburg, an 
innovative California farmer.
  In explaining her activism with WILPF against the United States war 
effort in Vietnam, she said: ``It was like breathing or feeding your 
children. We didn't think there was any alternative.'' As the mother of 
three children, Ms. Hamburg's family life and activism, were 
intertwined.
  Inspired to make their lives better by building a better community 
and bringing reconciliation among nations, she became active in efforts 
to integrate Berkeley's public schools, participated in demonstrations 
against atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that poisoned the milk her 
children would drink, organized public vigils to bring the Vietnam war 
to an end and to halt the war effort in Nicaragua, and to oppose a 
rising tide of animosity against programs dedicated to bringing equal 
opportunity to all of our Nation's people.
  Ms. Hamburg has worked for decades with countless local and national 
coalitions, but her base of operations has long been WILPF, Women for 
Peace, and the Agape Foundation for Nonviolent Social Change. The key, 
she

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says, is to ``walk, talk, demonstrate, lobby, meet with our 
representatives, circulate petitions, and write letters, telegrams, 
faxes, and e-mail''--a veritable laundry list of the activities the 
framers protected in the first amendment to our Constitution.
  Her decades of commitment have set an example and drawn numerous 
honors and awards. At one such ceremony, Nobel Peace Prize winner Linus 
Pauling said of Alice: ``Down through the years I have been aware of 
and inspired by your strong commitment and contributions to world peace 
and justice. This strength will grow and grow so that our future 
generations may not have to sacrifice their security or lives.''
  I commend this history of activism to my colleagues and, on behalf of 
all of the residents of the ninth District, offer my thanks and 
appreciation for all that Alice Sachs Hamburg has done on behalf of my 
community and our Nation.

                          ____________________