[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 51 (Friday, April 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S3737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              LOYALTY DAY

 Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, on July 18, 1958, through Joint 
Resolution 479, the Senate and the House of Representatives designated 
the first day of May of each year as Loyalty Day. On this special day, 
Americans celebrate the reaffirmation of their loyalty to the United 
States of America in recognition of America's unmatched heritage of 
freedom. I would like to join Americans across the land in this 
celebration, particularly the fine Americans of Climax Springs VFW 
Memorial Post 3600 in Climax Springs, MO. Post 3600 will have their 
12th annual Loyalty Day parade on May 3, 1997.
  On this important day of reaffirming our loyalty to America, we must 
reflect on what it truly means to be an American. Thomas Jefferson 
identified the ideals so important to us when he said that all men are 
``endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among 
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' Even in a time 
of great national trauma, Abraham Lincoln could echo these sentiments 
by stating that America is a nation ``conceived in liberty and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,'' and 
``that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom * * * 
that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not 
perish from this Earth.''
  The fundamental principle in these two statements by these two great 
Americans is the significance of liberty in the American experience. 
This historical commitment to freedom, most clearly seen in the lives 
of those who have fought and died for our country, deserves not only 
our loyalty but a celebration of that loyalty. That is the essence of 
Loyalty Day and I urge all Americans throughout this great land to join 
Climax Springs VFW Post 3600 in the celebration of the freedoms God has 
blessed us with in America.

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