[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1158-H1159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CIVILITY AND THE BIPARTISAN RETREAT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Sawyer] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SAWYER. Mr. Speaker, I come to join my colleagues today who are 
taking this opportunity to speak on behalf of the retreat that took 
place 10 days ago or so. I do so in a way that we really did not have 
time to do at the retreat itself.
  What I would like to do today is to share with my colleagues in 
substance an article that was published 9 years ago in The Atlantic. It 
was the cover story. It was entitled ``Why Study History?'' It begins 
with a recollection of the election of 1892, over a century ago, in 
which the author, Paul Gagnon, describes the election as one of 
exchanges between Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison, which were 
notably superficial, sometimes unsavory, and avoided most of the 
toughest questions facing America at the time.
  It probably sounds familiar to many Americans. Cleveland and Harrison 
were not simpletons, but like most political leaders, as the author 
points out, they knew more than they dared to say and worried more than 
they dared to show.
  The Committee of Ten, organized in that year to elevate the level of 
public debate, put civic education at the top of the school agenda 
because they saw a need to raise the level of political debate in the 
country.
  We still need to do it. Not much has changed since then, and it was 
that which was a motivator behind the retreat itself.
  The author pointed out in that article in 1988 that it takes a real 
understanding, a bone-deep understanding of democracy, to know how hard 
it is to preserve civilization or to better human life. And in 
describing what it takes, he touched on the kind of thing that I think 
we need to understand as a product of the retreat we undertook.
  As he pointed out, the kind of work we do is difficult because it 
asks people to accept the burdens of living with tentative answers and 
with unfinished and often dangerous business. It asks us to accept 
costs and compromises, to take on responsibilities as eagerly as we 
claim rights, to honor the interests of others while pursuing our own, 
to respect the needs of future generations, to speak the truth and do 
the right thing when falsehood and the wrong thing would be more 
profitable, and generally to restrain our appetites and expectations. 
All this while working to inform ourselves on the multiple problems and 
choices of our Nation.

                              {time}  1745

  It is easy enough to lay out these kinds of wholesome values when 
things are going well, to remember the attitudes that we learned in 
classroom lessons and repeat over and over throughout our lives, and it 
is not even so hard to practice them provided that a certain level of 
morale prevails. There is no trick to virtuous behavior when things are 
going well. Most people will hold ethical attitudes, without much 
formal instruction when they feel themselves to be free, secure, and 
justly treated.
  The truly tough part of all of this is to prepare us for the more 
difficult times. The question is not whether we will remember the right 
phrases but whether we will turn words into practice when we feel 
wrongly treated or fear for our freedom or security. It is particularly 
difficult when we see others in the public or private sector appear to 
flout every value that we would hold highly for one another. The 
chances for democratic principles to survive such crises depend on the 
number of representatives and indeed the number of citizens who 
remember how free societies have responded to these kinds of times in 
the past, how we have acted to defend ourselves and emerge from the bad 
times. Citizens need to tell one another, and we need to tell one 
another, and we need to tell those that we represent before it is too 
late what struggles have had to be accepted, what sacrifices borne and 
comforts given up, to preserve freedom and justice.
  I can think of no single commentary that more completely strikes the 
recognition that we faced in Hershey, that it will not solve all of our 
problems of personal acrimony within the Congress, but it was never 
intended to do that. The retreat helped remind us that we can disagree 
with one another on matters of philosophy and belief while treating one 
another with respect personally. There will always be partisan 
differences, there should always be partisan differences.
  The retreat was not intended to end them, but really to serve as a 
starting point, to build understanding among Members of the House and 
understanding that each of our personal outlooks has validity. Even if 
they do not agree, it will help reduce tensions. It is a baseline from 
which to build and the dialog that began in Hershey has provided the 
foundation for the rebuilding of civility within the institution, to 
understand where we all have been and where we all are going.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our distinguished 
colleagues, Congressman David Skaggs and Congressman Ray LaHood, for 
reserving this special order. I was among Members of this legislative 
body who traveled to Hershey, PA, earlier this month for the bipartisan 
congressional retreat. I am pleased to share the success of this 
undertaking with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
  In short, the bipartisan congressional retreat provided us with the 
opportunity to engage in candid discussions of how we can improve the 
working environment of the House. We focused on how Members currently 
deal with differences of opinion and how improvements can be made in 
this area.
  Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, this was the finest retreat that the 
House of Representatives has held during my entire tenure in Congress. 
While we are accustomed to having House Democrats gathered for retreats 
and Republicans holding separate retreats, I can say that the Hershey 
retreat was truly bipartisan. More than 200 Members of the House, and 
an equal number of family members were in attendance at the Hershey 
retreat. In my case, I was pleased to have my wife, Jay, my daughter 
and her husband, as well as two of

[[Page H1159]]

our grandchildren, join me at the retreat. The retreat afforded the 
opportunity for Members of Congress, many of whom have only spoken to 
one another in passing, to commune with one another and have dialog in 
order to learn more about each other. The retreat provided our families 
this same opportunity. When we saw our children and grandchildren 
playing together, it encouraged us to come together. Our bipartisan 
retreat also included excellent breakout sessions. The small group 
setting allowed us to have informal discussions without the uncivility 
that we have experienced in the House. Further, the occasion to have 
breakfast, lunch, and dinner together provided an opportunity at each 
session to visit with someone whom we had not visited with before. By 
the time we were ready to return home, it was obvious that all who 
attended the retreat felt a sense of kinship.
  Mr. Speaker, those of us who attended the retreat also came away with 
a much greater understanding of the history and traditions of the 
House. As Members of Congress, we belong to the finest legislative 
institution in the world. All of us have an obligation to treat it in 
that manner.

                          ____________________