[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 55 (Thursday, May 1, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E812-E813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO BERTRAM GROSS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RONALD V. DELLUMS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 1, 1997

  Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the memory, as well as to 
celebrate the life of Bertram Gross, who I designated a national 
treasure in 1995 on behalf of my constituents, for his lifetime of work 
and dedication to achieve full employment for the people of this 
Nation, for his writings, and for his teaching.
  Among Bertram Gross' many achievements, I have special reason to 
acknowledge his work as the primary author of the first full employment 
act introduced in 1945, and passed in 1946, and the second full 
employment act introduced in 1976 and passed in 1978 by the U.S. 
Congress. My district and I are particularly indebted to him for his 
work as the primary author of the third bill, A Living Wage, Jobs for 
All Act, which was first introduced in 1993, in the 103d Congress, and 
has been reintroduced in the 104th, as well as in this, the 105th 
Congress.
  Bert was born in 1913 and, when he became a young man in the 1930's 
in spite of hard-working, supportive parents, and his own capabilities 
could not find work, like one-half of the American labor force at that 
time. His personal experience, his knowledge of the misery of so many 
other Americans provided his earliest social education. These lessons 
in the fear generated by the destructiveness of joblessness was the 
marrow, the foundation of his life work.
  Like Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Thomas Paine, and William Jefferson, 
Bert believed profoundly in the dignity of each human being. He fought 
against the momentum that only those who inherited wealth, or possessed 
large blocks of capital should have access to the wealth of our society 
and Nation. Fundamental to this belief was that we all must have the 
right to work at adequate wages to support ourselves and our children. 
Bert Gross believed that one of our national legacies was our sense of 
our basic right to a life of dignity and, that this basic right 
incorporated a right to work, to adequate housing, food, health care, 
and education. A legacy that Americans had earned and achieved through 
the Depression of the thirties and full employment in the forties and 
that we now appear to have forgotten and lost.
  Bert Gross designed A Living Wage, Jobs for All Act, not only as a 
full employment bill; because the act incorporates basic elements of 
our economic life and provides specific remedies for many of these 
ills, this bill can be truly considered a party platform. A platform 
that is diametrically opposed to the destructiveness of the recent 
Contract With America.
  I designated Bert a national treasure because of the passion that he 
brought to his life work to have the Nation consider full employment as 
a fundamental principle. He wrote, talked, cajoled, led, persuaded, and 
taught all who came into contact with him, with humanity, with humor, 
with great intelligence and most of the time, with great patience and 
appreciation for the possession of similar qualities in his students 
and audience.
  In the last 3 years, Bert worked on a daily basis with members of my 
staff and with my constituents promoting A Living Wage, Jobs for All 
Act; to hone the bill so that it could be read as prose for a wider 
readership; to develop strategies to gain support for the ideas 
reflected in the bill, and to work toward our rediscovery of our lost 
heritage.
  Bertram Gross, being wise, knew he was mortal. For the many of us who 
benefitted from his work, his wisdom, and his passionate commitment, we 
can best remember him by

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continuing the work that he began so magnificently.

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