[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 102 (Thursday, July 17, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H5472-H5478]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              A MESSY DAY IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, it has been a messy day here in the House of 
Representatives. Today is July 17. We are certainly midway through the 
work of this first year of the 105th Congress, and it was most 
unfortunate that we started the day by pulling a bill which would have 
reauthorized vocational education assistance, and stopped the forward 
movement of that bill because there was an amendment on the bill which 
called for a retention of provisions in the bill which would have 
encouraged local governments and local education agencies to continue 
to emphasize vocational-technical education for women.
  It was most unfortunate that with the overwhelming support that that 
amendment seemed to have, which merely wanted to continue what was 
going on already, that it led to the majority suddenly pulling the bill 
from the floor and refusing to let the House work its will on a bill 
which would have provided fair treatment for women in vocational 
education and technical education programs. In an era when technical 
education is very much in order, and women certainly can do as well as 
men in some of the high tech areas that offer the most opportunities 
for the future, the highest pay, we are not willing to have our own 
Vocational Education Assistance Act reflect the fact that we want 
maximum opportunities for women.
  So that was an unfortunate start of the day. It has been an 
unfortunate week in that same manner.
  Two days ago we refused to allow the House to work its will on a 
vote, up or down, on the National Endowment for the Arts. The National 
Endowment for the Arts seems to upset a small band of Members in the 
House of Representatives. They insist on harassing and pursuing the 
National Endowment for the Arts, despite the fact that the overwhelming 
majority of the American people support the National Endowment for the 
Arts and support the National Endowment for the Humanities, 
overwhelmingly.
  And the Members of Congress, if given a chance to vote yes or no on 
the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, would certainly 
keep its funding at the present level. We were not allowed to do that. 
This is a week that the majority chose to use its overwhelming powers, 
because it is the majority, to manipulate the process, and by one vote 
we lost on a procedural vote that would have given us the opportunity 
to vote up or down on that important matter.
  Later on today we also experienced the intense annoyance and anger of 
the minority, the Democrats in the minority of the House, because in 
the agricultural appropriations bill that was about to come up, the 
same kind of treatment we had received in some other bills this year 
and in the NEA vote was being manifested. The ranking member of the 
agriculture subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, the 
ranking Democrat was not allowed by the Committee on Rules to present 
an amendment that she had requested.
  The power of the majority is certainly great enough to stop on this 
floor most of what they want to stop and to promote and push what they 
want to push, past it, but we ought to at least have the opportunity to 
go on record on certain votes, and we are being denied that. So we had 
a very messy end to the day, at a point where really we do not have 
much time left before we adjourn on August 1st.
  We are moving to pass appropriations bills. Appropriations bills are 
the most important bills, probably, that we pass, in that they are the 
ones that provide the funding to keep our government activities going, 
and we are going to be rushing through those things in the next 10 
working days of Congress.
  We also have in the background negotiations going on which are very 
important, vitally important negotiations on the expenditure plan that 
was passed by both Houses, negotiations on the tax package. That is 
ongoing.
  We know that those important processes are in the works, and worry 
about the fact that we are going to be pushed against the wall and 
stampeded at the last minute on those packages if we do not change the 
way this House operates. The majority does not, again, respect the will 
of the minority.
  There is another problem also beyond the procedural questions, and 
that is, I lament the fact and a number of my colleagues lament the 
fact that the tax and expenditure package, the appropriations bills, as 
they come up are zeroing out or refusing to even discuss and consider 
certain important matters that ought to be on the agenda. In this 105th 
Congress, when we enter a situation where we started out with a lot of 
talk about bipartisan cooperation, especially in the area of education, 
I suppose one of the most disappointing absences is the fact that the 
education initiatives that have been proposed have been watered down so 
and some are not even on the agenda.
  The most important, disappointing absence, in my opinion, is the one 
related to the school construction initiative. That is not even in the 
tax package or the expenditure plan which the President and the two 
Houses are negotiating now. We are grateful for the fact that the 
President at least has kept the school construction initiative alive by 
listing it among his priorities. The trouble is that the President has 
a long, long list of priorities, and we wonder how high on the list the 
school construction initiative will be.
  We also wonder about the fact that the empowerment zones which mean 
so much to our urban areas, since nothing else has been offered in the 
last 10 years to deal with very pressing problems in our urban areas, 
the empowerment zones were considered to be a reasonable answer because 
both parties would support it since it was a combination of the private 
sector, the government sector and there was a lot of talk about this is 
the way of the future, but empowerment zones are not in the package 
either at this point, except for the President's priority list.
  So I guess we will have to be grateful for the President at least 
keeping these things in the discussion. They are not in the House bill 
or the Senate bill. Therefore, they would not be on the conference 
table. So the fact that the President has tax incentives for school 
construction on the list of items for his tax cut proposals, and he has 
deductions for K through 12 computer donations on his list, and he has 
brownfields empowerment zones and enterprise zones, expansion of these 
in his package, we are grateful for that. We are holding on by a 
thread.
  These are very important matters and I think to shift to the most 
important area, that is the area of education, not only the most 
important but the

[[Page H5473]]

most universally approved area, the area that everybody agrees we need 
some forward movement on by the Federal Government, that area also has 
been pushed into the background. It is almost a certainty that very 
little is going to happen except in the area of higher education, 
because the President has made that his highest priority and certainly 
something very new, however inadequate it might be, is going to happen 
with respect to higher education.
  Our concern for K through 12, however, grows greater because we see 
less and less discussion or talk about how to move to provide more 
Federal Government encouragement of the improvement of schools, even in 
the area that the President, this administration has staked out great 
interest, and that is telecommunications, education technology and 
computers.
  Even in this area the present movement is kind of feeble. They are 
going to allow deductions for K through 12 computers. The President has 
in his list an allowance for deductions by corporations and businesses 
for K through 12 computer donations. About $300 million is proposed to 
be allowed over a 5-year period. That is a far cry from what is needed 
in this area.

                              {time}  1800

  In other words, education, I had great hopes for because there was 
great agreement between the two parties that education should be a 
priority. So I thought the fact that education is considered a priority 
by both parties would mean that it would be reflected in the tax 
package and also in the expenditure package, and it really is 
discouraging to find that that is not the case.
  Maybe we should not give up hope. In fact, I will not say maybe. I 
want to urge all of those who care about education, which is the 
overwhelming majority of the American people, not to give up hope, 
because we were in worse shape, probably in July 1995 when proposals 
were being made that the Department of Education be totally abolished.
  At that time proposals were being made to cut certain federally 
funded education programs by as much as almost $4 billion. So we held 
on, we persevered, we insisted that the will of the people, that the 
polls showing the will of the people be honored. And finally, in the 
election year 1996, there was a turnaround and education did get a 
great deal of attention. Instead of the $4 billion cut that had been 
proposed in 1995, there was a $4 billion increase in 1996.
  Some people might say, if they are listening, that they have heard me 
say this many times before. I cannot say it too often. It was an 
amazing feat that the party in power decided in an election year, but 
before the election of 1996, to increase funding for education by $4 
billion. It was an amazing feat because it represented the triumph of 
common sense.
  We had been talking all along about the fact that we needed to give 
more attention and more funding and more support for education. The 
polls had shown it all along, but the leadership, those who were in 
charge, refused to recognize it until they were faced with the 
possibility of losing an election. And, of course, it is to their 
credit that they understood that at the last minute they had to turn 
around.
  So we had an increase of $4 billion for education programs in the 
fall of 1996, which leads me to encourage my colleagues to hold on. 
Because in the fall of 1998 we may witness the same kind of 
resurrection of an understanding of what the priorities are. We may 
witness the Republican majority being born again in 1998. In order to 
do that, we have to be diligent. We have to persevere.
  We never let up in 1995 and 1996 on the issue of education. We 
followed the issue right through the proposals to cut the school lunch 
programs, all the way down to the various proposals to cut Head Start, 
to cut title I. We brought the issue to the public again and again in 
order to let the public know what was happening, and they responded 
with common sense that got through to the majority and they turned 
around.
  Let us stay on the message of the need for a school construction 
initiative. Let us stay on the message that it is a small amount 
compared to the total need. Five billion dollars is what the President 
proposed. Five billion dollars was under discussion for school 
construction, mainly in loans, low-interest loans that go to localities 
and States. It was not adequate, but it was at least a beginning.
  To have that beginning snuffed out is not acceptable. So keep it in 
mind. It is a matter of common sense that the deteriorating schools 
represent one of our greatest problems. The physical deterioration of 
schools is not just a New York problem.
  I have talked before about the fact that in New York it is 
astonishing that we still have almost 300 schools that burn coal. They 
have coal furnaces, and the coal is spewing smoke and substances into 
the air, which are toxics, of course, and New York has a high rate of 
asthma among young children.
  We have a clear correlation between something that is being done by 
government-owned buildings, and in this case government-owned buildings 
that are a part of a program to help children, which are very 
detrimental to the health of children. We have at least 300, almost 300 
of 1,000 schools in New York that still have coal-burning burners.
  There is an initiative, which I have just read about in the New York 
State Legislature, which I want to applaud, to float a bond issue for 
school construction. I hope that that moves beyond talk in the 
legislature. It is not as much as is needed, but it may be that the 
States can prime the Federal Government.
  We cannot go it alone. Most States and localities cannot go it alone. 
But if there are some initiatives at the State level, it might 
embarrass the Federal Government, it might embarrass the majority here 
in the House and Senate in order to make them begin to reconsider and 
move forward.
  But the public, the voters, the people with common sense must 
continue to hold on and understand the seriousness of the situation. 
There are schools, of course, that have lead poisoning problems, there 
are many schools which have asbestos contamination, and there is a 
great space problem, which I have enumerated many times here in 
connection with New York City. And what happens in New York City is not 
so different from other big cities.
  The fact that these things are pushed aside is very disturbing, 
because it is not a matter of it costs too much money. The $5 billion 
over a 5-year period, when compared to other programs, does not amount 
to much money. They are almost not even arguing the issue of it is too 
much money anymore.
  There are philosophical arguments offered, like the fact that if the 
Government gives help to States and localities for school construction, 
it is an unprecedented intervention and an intolerable intervention 
into the local and State government matters. I think that is 
ridiculous. Education is not merely a local and State government 
matter. Education impacts on everything, including our national 
security.
  We have gone through those arguments, and we have had a great deal of 
involvement of the Federal Government in the jawboning about school 
improvement. It is time we continue to increase the resources that are 
provided by the Federal Government.
  There is no need to worry about the Federal Government taking over 
education. At this point the Federal Government only spends between 7 
and 8 percent of the total expenditure for education overall. That 
includes higher education. So the percentage of the Federal 
Government's involvement in local education is less than 5 percent. And 
if it was increased greatly, even to 15 percent, it certainly would not 
mean that the Federal Government could control what happens in terms of 
decisions, or even up to 25 percent.
  I advocate strongly that we move in the next 5 years toward a 25-
percent involvement of the Federal Government in education funding. 
That would be a radical increase, but it is necessary. Even if we had 
25 percent of the expenditures, and 25 percent of the funds were 
provided by the Federal Government, it still leaves 75 percent to be 
provided by the States and the local governments.
  If we want to divide power along the lines of money, that means that 
the State and local governments would still have 75 percent of the 
power to make decisions. If they have 75 percent of the power to make 
decisions, they

[[Page H5474]]

would not have to worry about anybody else. So I do not think the 
argument that the Federal Government's involvement in providing 
resources means that they would take over or be a detriment to 
decision-making at the local level holds any water at all.
  What it is, unfortunately, at the other end, is kind of an 
abandonment of the issue of the problem of education, abandonment of 
schoolchildren, while, at the same time, we are spending enormous 
amounts of money for other kinds of things that are far less necessary.
  For example, the B-2 bomber. One of the votes that took place last 
week, which would be upsetting to most of us, common sense would 
dictate that we did the wrong thing, was a vote on the B-2 bomber. The 
B-2 bomber is not needed, according to the President. The B-2 bomber is 
not needed, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The B-2 bomber is 
not needed, according to the head of the Air Force. The person in 
charge of the Air Force says we do not need it, the President says we 
do not need it, the Joint Chiefs of Staff say we do not need it. Still, 
we come to the floor and disregard all of that and vote to keep funding 
a B-2 bomber, the cost of which will escalate as they move into 
production, and it increases.
  My colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], stood on 
the floor and outlined how we are talking about $28 billion that will 
be needed more in the budget in future years at a time when the budget 
will be set. And if we are to balance the budget, that means that $28 
billion worth of other programs would have to come out of the budget in 
order for the B-2 bomber to be accommodated. Despite the fact that we 
clearly understood the mathematics and the arithmetic, the B-2 bomber 
was voted for continued funding.
  So it is not a matter of money, it is a matter of attitudes. And 
those attitudes are what we have to confront. The attitudes have 
nothing to do with common sense. The attitudes have nothing to do with 
scientific reasoning, certainly. They have nothing to do with logic. 
Logic would dictate we do not continue to build bombers that military 
authorities do not want.
  But of course there are some Neanderthal considerations, like the 
fact that contracts are given out to factories and manufacturing firms 
and so forth who produce the B-2 bombers and they have spread around 
the production of the parts in various States and localities. Everybody 
sees themselves as having a piece of the pie. Whether the pie is good 
for America or not, they have their piece so they vote to continue the 
funding of the B-2 bomber, while we do not fund or refuse to provide 
even a measly $5 billion over a 5-year period for school construction.
  Two weeks ago, I think it was June 28, there was a documentary on 
television. It was not national, unfortunately. I think it was a local 
television station in New York, Channel 7. I wanted to congratulate 
Channel 7 on that excellent documentary. It was just a 30-minute 
documentary about Class 104. Class 104 is in some school in New York, 
an actual school.
  I want to congratulate the board of education for letting Channel 7 
come in and film what was going on in the school. It is a first grade 
class that is overcrowded, 42 children in a first grade class, and they 
were documenting the dilemma or the problems faced by a teacher of 42 
children in a first grade class.
  Just to move around the room was a problem. And then, of course, they 
very sensitively zeroed in on three children, to talk to their parents, 
and to get an example of what does it mean to be in this class with 42 
children competing for the attention of one teacher.
  And it was an excellent production and I urge that my colleagues 
contact Channel 7, which is an ABC affiliate in New York, and maybe 
they will send a copy of the documentary on Class 104 and what it means 
to have children in an overcrowded situation who are that young.
  There was one very sensitive young man who was totally lost and 
beginning to hate school despite the fact that he had a high IQ, very 
intelligent. He was off to the wrong start and beginning to hate 
school.
  There was another young lady who was very aggressive, and she was 
only becoming more aggressive because of the fact that in order to get 
the teacher's attention she had to be aggressive and do things that 
forced the teacher to pay attention to her. She was doing much better 
than the sensitive young man who was not aggressive.
  Children should not be put into a position where they have to fight 
for the attention of a teacher. That kind of abandonment represents a 
kind of institutionalized brutality, a child abuse that is 
institutionalized. We know if we put 42 children in a first grade class 
it means that children will be kind of brutalized and yet we do it.
  I want to make a connection here at this point with another issue, 
and that is the issue of the apology that I talked about some time ago 
that received a lot of very intense response. The apology that was 
proposed by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] in a resolution that the 
Congress apologize for slavery. It caused a lot of furor.
  These issues that are taking place right now in terms of 
appropriations and budgeting, of tax expenditures, the abandonment of 
certain areas, certain populations, the abandonment of certain 
programs, the willingness to run and vote for a B-2 bomber while we 
cannot find it possible to vote for school construction, while we 
cannot find it possible to vote for empowerment zones. It all relates 
to the fact that we have sort of stumbled and lost our way at this 
point in America.
  There is a connection between the furor, and there was a lot of upset 
people about the proposal by the gentleman from Ohio that we apologize 
for slavery, that Congress apologize for slavery. I have connected the 
two.
  And I was shocked to find that a poll cited on ``Nightline'' stated 
that more than 60 percent of whites were angry about the idea and said 
there should not be an apology for slavery. At the same time more than 
60 percent of the blacks said, yes; it was a good idea. Even though it 
was not originated by blacks and the Black Caucus is not the sponsor, 
it is the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] and a group of well-meaning 
individuals, who deserve to be applauded for what they have done.
  It is not a power play, but a very sensible kind of approach to 
providing healing and reconciliation in a situation that needs more 
healing and reconciliation. But it set off a furor. And the fact that 
60 percent of whites in America, their first reaction, and I hope that 
that reaction will change, I hope that was the first reaction and that 
they will stop and consider and that that will not be the reaction a 
few weeks from now, or certainly a few months from now, after more 
thought is given to the power of the apology exercise. But the fact the 
initial reaction was that way is part of the problem in terms of 
decision-making here in the Congress.

                              {time}  1815

  This is a reaction which tells me that people are ready to move to 
forget anything related to a special sector of the population. Anything 
that you attach to the descendants of slaves, the African-Americans, 
anything you attach to them gets hostility. And that is an even greater 
argument for having the apology exercised, for having a discussion of 
it, because we still are getting this automatic, almost instinctive 
hostility:
  Why should we do it for the blacks, for the African-Americans? Why 
should we have a school construction initiative which is primarily 
going to benefit the inner-city communities where African-Americans go 
to school? It may not be the indication, but that is the reasoning. Why 
should we have a welfare program which really provides jobs and 
training and moves people along the road to establishing some dignified 
connection with the mainstream economic system? Why should we have that 
if it is going to blacks?
  That is the underlying current there that needs to be dealt with, 
that we still think that there are deserving Americans and undeserving 
Americans. And anything that relates to African-Americans, the first 
reaction is that they are undeserving Americans; they do not deserve 
empowerment zones, they do not deserve school construction initiatives 
that might benefit them in education, they certainly do not deserve an 
apology. Apology means we have got to recognize the problem.
  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] did not talk about reparations or 
anything complicated, just a apology. But

[[Page H5475]]

the instinctive reaction means that they understand the apology needs 
recognition, they recognize that there was a problem, and if they have 
a problem, they might have the obligation to seek a solution.
  Well, so be it. Apology does mean that we recognize that there was 
something that happened in the past that ought to be recognized as a 
problem. The impact of that on people in the present is something we 
can debate. As we debate it, we may come up with an obligation to seek 
a solution to the fact there was a great impact.
  Two hundred thirty-two years of slavery had an impact on the 
descendants of slaves. I mentioned before that the first impact is that 
none of them could inherit anything. Two hundred thirty-two years, from 
one year to another, one generation to another, nothing was handed 
down.
  We know from studies that have been documented that most wealth is 
accumulated from inheritance. Big millionaires and lucky guys who find 
gold mines and oil fields, that is something else. Most wealth in the 
world is generated by one generation passing on to another, handing 
them down, sometimes in small amounts. Small amounts accumulate. People 
have capital and then invest it.
  But if we go back in the genealogy, trace economic genealogy of 
people, we will find that those who have the benefit of this, which is 
just about all Americans except two categories, they have been the 
beneficiaries of inheriting property, inheriting pots and pans, of 
accumulating enough to use that as a jump-off point for something else; 
and that is the way wealth in America has moved, and most nations have, 
moved in the same way. It is passed down from one generation to 
another.
  The native Americans, of course, who owned the land when the 
Europeans arrived here, that is not the case. It was kind of a 
reversal. The land was taken away from them in many cases and they 
could not pass it down. Certainly the African-Americans whose ancestors 
were born in chains against their will, and then they were forced into 
labor and the accumulation of wealth, none of that wealth was shared 
with them. They were not paid for their labor.
  So nothing was passed down for 232 years by African-Americans, the 
descendants of a people who, in the long chain of the Nation, could not 
pass down that kind of wealth. So it means that we arrive at this point 
in history with a deficit that has to be recognized.
  All these kinds of complicated issues would not be put on the table 
if we recognized that there was a great criminal enterprise called 
slavery and it generated these kinds of problems. We can have a search 
for a solution now, however, in an atmosphere which is not so tense and 
stressful.
  We could not propose such an apology after the end of the Civil War. 
We could not propose it even 100 years later as we moved into the fight 
to end legalized segregation and Jim Crow. But why can we not propose 
it now? Why can we not entertain a discussion of apology for slavery 
and the implications of it at this point of history?
  We are sort of at a pinnacle right now. Consider what is happening 
right now in 1997 in America. The stock market, Dow Jones Industrial 
index at 8,000, unprecedented activity on the market. The dollar is 
stronger than ever before against the yen and mark. We are rated 
against our competitors economically, doing much better. Our economy is 
outperforming. We have licked inflation. Employment is moving forward 
despite the low inflation.
  We are on a mountaintop. America is on a mountaintop. We do not have 
an evil empire to fight anymore. Peace might exist for many decades to 
come or maybe even for hundreds of years. This is a point in our 
history where we should not be squabbling about the NEA's funding or 
about vocational education not having a provision which takes care of 
women and peculiar problems that they have had in the vocational 
education area. We should not be squabbling about those things.
  We should not be passing legislation which obligates us for billions 
of dollars for B-2 bombers, while we at the same time cannot conceive 
of the fact that we should have more money available for education in 
the form of school construction.
  We ought to be able to relax, to use our reason to its maximum. We 
ought to be able to relax and have the leaders in Congress listen to 
the people. The polls out there show that the people, with their common 
sense, still think education is the high priority. I do not think that 
they have defense as high as education at this point on the polls.
  Nobody is more familiar with the polls than the people who are in the 
political leadership here, or we politicians in general. We know what 
polls are all about. We listen to polls. And yet the polls that clearly 
show the popularity of education and the Federal Government's 
involvement in education are being ignored systematically all the time. 
Only at election time in 1996 did they bother to listen in order to 
save their skins at the polls.
  Now that we are a year and a half away from an election, nobody wants 
to deal with the problems of education that the rest of the American 
people overwhelmingly want to deal with. So we are at a pinnacle, we 
are at a very advantageous spot.
  Why can we not listen to the polls, listen to the mind of the 
American people? Why can we not entertain and even invite a discussion 
of very controversial issues that might open the door for 
reconciliation and healing?

  The whole matter of the apology for slavery is one of those things 
that might open the door that takes us forward into the 21st century 
with a new kind of mind-set. The present mind-set, as I said before, is 
unfortunate when we have 60 percent of whites who automatically think 
it is a bad idea.
  It is all right for the Germans to apologize to the rest of Europe 
for what was done in World War II. It is all right for the Swiss to 
apologize to the Jews for their conspiracy with the Nazi government to 
take their gold and their deposits away from them. It is all right for 
the Japanese to apologize for what they did in Asia. But suddenly the 
idea of apologies upsets us a great deal.
  I want to just drive this home by reading a very disturbing article 
that I read, by a top-flight columnist for the New York Times. I have 
read other columnists who also thought the idea of the apology was 
ridiculous and attacked it with great passion and vehemence.
  Mr. Russell Baker's column of July 1, 1997, in the New York Times 
follows in the same vein. Mr. Baker is a brilliant writer, and although 
I often do not agree with him, his writing is always entertaining. Mr. 
Baker is extremely competent, intelligent, knowledgeable; and that is 
why his article is even more disturbing.
  I am just going to read a few quotes from Mr. Baker's article about 
apologizing, because I find it very, very interesting about these 
people who get upset and outraged by the notion that they are being 
asked to apologize. I do not know what kind of family values they have 
or what kind of upbringing they have.
  But I remember very well my mother once told me, after I had stepped 
on a little girl's foot as I was rushing to get, I think it was a 
church picnic and they had ice cream. I was rushing and stepped on a 
little girl's foot and she started crying. I hurt her foot, and my 
mother said, ``Go apologize.'' Well, my first thought was, apologizing 
is something that is not going to help her. I stepped on her foot. It 
is hurting. My apology will not help her at all. I said to my mother, 
``I'm sure she's all right. Why should I apologize?'' She said, ``Go 
apologize.''
  If I had not gone and apologized, I probably would have been sort of 
slapped across the mouth or roughed up a little bit, because my mother 
would want her child to acculturated in that way to understand 
apologizing is part of the process of being a civilized human being. It 
is not a time to get into the logic of apologizing will not help her 
foot, apologizing will not ease her pain.
  But here arguments are saying apologizing will not ease pain, so it 
is ridiculous. Do we raise our children that way? But the argument 
comes across from a number of columnists that it is ridiculous because 
it cannot go back and undo the hurt.
  Anyway, let me just do Mr. Baker the honor of quoting from his 
article, straight from the New York Times, July 1, 1997. It is entitled 
``Sorry About That,'' which is already a little sarcasm introduced. It 
is arguing that

[[Page H5476]]

apologizing for slavery would show great sensitivity. ``Why anyone 
would propose such an aimless exercise, except to demonstrate great 
sensitivity, is hard to say.''
  Now, if I had said to my mother, ``Why should I go back and 
apologize? All I am doing is demonstrating great sensitivity,'' she 
would have thought that she made a great error in the way she raised 
me, or she would have thought it was time to get to work disciplining 
me to show great sensitivity, part of being a human being. Why do we 
want to say it is an aimless exercise? But that is what Mr. Baker says 
here. ``Why anyone would propose such an aimless exercise, except to 
demonstrate great sensitivity, is hard to say.''
  To continue quoting Mr. Baker: ``Both parties to the slave and owner 
relationship being long dead, there could be nothing more grotesque 
than the generation of white yuppies apologizing for the sins of long-
buried ancestors.''
  I do not know where he got the ``generation of white yuppies.'' The 
U.S. Congress is not a generation of white yuppies. We are the 
government. We are representatives of the government. Everybody is the 
government, but we are the spokespersons for the government; the 
government that was there in 1776, however different it might have 
been; the government that was there in 1865, when the Emancipation 
Proclamation was signed. I mean not the Emancipation Proclamation, when 
the Civil War ended. This government was there when the 13th Amendment 
that freed the slaves was passed. We are still part of the same 
government, so I do not know why we suddenly have become white yuppies.
  But to continue quoting from Mr. Baker: ``Surely, no sensible 
descendant of slave forbearers look on such a spectacle without disgust 
for the hypocrisy of it.'' Again, ``Surely, no sensible descendant of 
slave forbearers look on such a spectacle without disgust for the 
hypocrisy of it.''
  Well, Mr. Baker is clearly wrong. Sixty percent of the descendants of 
slaves said they thought apologizing was a good idea. According to the 
polls that had been reported, 60 percent of the slave descendants, I 
being one, see nothing wrong with apologizing.

                              {time}  1830

  We do not look upon it with great disgust. We do not consider it 
hypocritical.
  But continued Mr. Baker, ``No sensible white American could 
countenance it without feeling embarrassed by its shabby 
theatricality.''
  He may be right, because after all I just told you 60 percent of 
white Americans said we should not apologize. I do not know whether 
they were worried about shabby theatricality or something else, but he 
says it is shabby theatricality that they are worried about.
  To continue quoting Mr. Baker, ``Apologizing for the country's past 
can only gratify the apologizer's desire to feel good about himself. It 
invites the audience to compare his moral tone to that of his 
ancestors, so derelict in their respect for humanity, and come out a 
winner.''
  I do not know what is wrong with having anybody feel good about 
themselves if that is the only benefit. I think there are many other 
benefits but feeling good about yourself is a first step toward feeling 
good about others and reacting to others in a positive way. I have no 
quarrel with people feeling good about themselves.
  Continuing with Mr. Baker's article, ``It not only enhances the 
apologizer's self-esteem, it doesn't cost him anything. This is an 
important consideration nowadays when government's chief goal is to 
avoid spending money on life's losers so the rest of us will have more 
to spend on ourselves.''
  I agree with Mr. Baker wholeheartedly. Apologizing does not cost 
anything. All the more reason of why we should not hesitate to do it in 
my opinion. But he is saying that because it does not cost anything, we 
should not do it. There is a lot of contradiction and conflicts here. 
We should do things that do cost money. The whole Congress is running 
away from doing things that do cost money. I suspect that a lot of 
people are afraid to apologize because they think the next step is that 
somebody will want some compensatory programs or reparations or those 
kinds of things, but not Mr. Baker. If all we did was apologize, of 
course, it would be kind of hypocritical, but why not take the first 
step and we will take our chances. Let the Congress go forward with the 
resolution of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] and vote to apologize. 
Let there be a first step. It would not hurt.
  Continuing with Mr. Baker's article, ``Like every country, the United 
States has a lot of history to apologize for. After apologizing for 
slavery, we could move ahead to apologizing for what our forebears did 
to the Indians.''
  I am quoting Mr. Baker. I agree, Mr. Baker, why not go ahead and 
apologize for what was done to the Indians? Who would it hurt?
  ``Was it genocide? No, the word hadn't been invented until it was all 
over,'' according to Mr. Baker. ``The words that had Americans 
spellbound back then were `manifest destiny.' Destiny had given us a 
continent to populate. The Indians were in the way. Destiny demanded 
their removal. Such was the argument, anyhow. With that nasty history 
now far behind, would an apology not be civilized? Would it not show 
modern Indians how much nicer than our forefathers we are?''
  ``Sorry, folks, for the brutality of our morally inferior ancestors. 
If it had been us in charge with our enlightened new age sensitivity, 
instead of those immoral old-timers, it would never have happened.''
  ``Couldn't we garnish the apology with some substance?''
  ``Come on, guys. Be reasonable. It's too late to give it back. 
Anyhow, we gave you a legal crack at the gambling rackets.'' He is 
talking to the Indians now.
  ``Few will quarrel with the government for apologizing to Americans 
of Japanese ancestry who were put in concentration camps during World 
War II. Since many who had suffered this monstrous assault are still 
alive, the apology was not just another piece of posturing.''
  In other words, he has introduced the idea of apologizing to the 
Indians. Then he ridicules the idea of apologizing to the Indians 
because, after all, the people who did the terrible things to the 
Native Americans are now dead and we have at least given them a crack 
at the gambling rackets through the casinos so why do we not just 
forget it.
  I think it is most unfortunate that Mr. Baker in this little three 
paragraphs is ridiculing the whole idea of diplomacy and negotiations, 
the fact that our ancestors might have taken a different route. There 
was plenty of land and plenty of everything. The Indians, the native 
Americans did not have to be treated the way they were in order for 
America to be great. Maybe there is a lot that would have been 
different if we had the same sensitivity then that we do have now. Let 
us not trample or trivialize our present state of morality and our 
sense of what is right and what is wrong, how different it is now from 
then. Unfortunately, it came too late in the case of the slaves. It 
came too late in the case of the native Americans. But understand that 
there was a different option, a different route and the fact that our 
ancestors did not follow that route is something that might be worthy 
of apologizing for.
  We can apologize, however, for the Japanese and the concentration 
camps because some of them are still alive. That is kind of weird 
reasoning. These things stay alive in the conscience of a people 
forever. They never go away. I am going to point that out in a few 
minutes from his own examples.
  To get back to quoting Mr. Russell Baker, ``Many others are still 
alive who lived in that time and admired Franklin Roosevelt, the man 
who authorized those camps.''
  My father thought Franklin Roosevelt was the greatest man in the 
world, that ever lived, except for Jesus Christ, I guess, and I almost 
place Franklin Roosevelt in a similar category. I still think he is a 
great man, the greatest of all American Presidents. But he made some 
mistakes. That was one of the mistakes that he made. Anybody who had to 
make so many decisions for such a long period in such a critical and 
stressful situation would make mistakes. Franklin Roosevelt made a 
mistake. We should apologize as we did officially apologize to the 
Japanese Americans for what happened in World War II. That, we can be 
proud of.

[[Page H5477]]

  ``For those of us who in 1942 patriotically accepted the camps as 
necessary for the country's defense, the apology forced us to admit 
that even we can be terribly wrong when being tossed around by the 
storms of history.''
  That is the kind of reasoning that Mr. Baker applies to the apology 
to the Japanese for the concentration camps in World War II. Why can we 
not take the same logic and the same argument and apply it to any 
mistake that is made in history and that we as a matter of hindsight 
can see was a mistake? What is wrong with saying that slavery was a 
grave mistake, a very costly mistake, a very dehumanizing mistake, a 
very deadly mistake, but it was a mistake that is worthy of at least an 
apology.
  Going back to Mr. Baker, ``Where history is concerned, saintly 
judgment is rarely possible until a century or two has passed.''
  Again I agree with Mr. Baker. ``Where history is concerned, saintly 
judgment is rarely possible until a century or two has passed.''
  Now he is contradicting himself in a wholesale manner, because if 
saintly judgement is only possible after a century or two has passed, 
then you can only apologize with integrity, with great vision, after 
people are dead for a while. He began his argument by saying why 
apologize for something that people did years ago and all of the 
victims and all of the oppressors are dead. Now he says you can only 
judge after a century or two has passed.
  A century or two has passed. Slavery lasted for 232 years but it has 
been over for more than a century, almost two centuries. Now it is time 
to reflect and to look at the mistakes and to look at the residue of 
problems that were caused by the mistakes and to deal with it in a 
forthright, scientific, logical, reasonable manner. But he says that on 
the one hand because everybody is dead, why deal with it and on the 
other hand, you can only pass reasonable judgment until they have been 
dead for a century or two.
  ``England may be infected, too, with the apologizing fad.'' Now he is 
back to his sarcasm and his reductio ad absurdum. Apologizing now is 
going to be a fad.
  ``England may be infected, too, with the apologizing fad. There is 
talk there of apologizing for Britain's indifference to starvation in 
Ireland during the 19th century potato famine.''
  Why not apologize for the indifference of a government? The 
government made a mistake. A lot of people suffered and died as a 
result. So why not apologize.
  ``Tony Blair,'' according to Mr. Baker, ``the new Prime Minister has 
suggested something of the sort might improve relations with Ireland. 
Yes, it sounds ridiculous. Northern Ireland is a place where one of the 
most passionate events of every year is the celebration of a battle 
fought in 1688 between Protestants and Catholics. The Protestants won 
and have never for an instant dreamed of apologizing. Ireland seems an 
unlikely country to relinquish its hatreds after a dose of feel-your-
pain sensitivity.''
  In other words, he is saying if Tony Blair, the new Prime Minister, 
should decide to apologize to Ireland for the conduct of the British 
Government during the potato famine, then it is ridiculous because the 
Irish would never accept it. They do not believe in apologizing. That 
is why in Northern Ireland the Catholics are at the necks of the 
Protestants and this conflict between Protestants and Catholics rages 
on and on.
  I would take the opposite approach and say maybe we can break the 
cycle if Mr. Blair would apologize first and if it would encourage the 
Catholics to apologize to the Protestants or the Protestants to 
apologize to the Catholics, maybe you would end this bloodbath in 
Northern Ireland. Maybe you would begin to have healing and 
reconciliation in the place of violence.
  Ireland defies all logic. Northern Ireland defies all logic. All 
these people are white and they are at each other's throats. All of 
them are of the same nationality, they are all Irish, and they are at 
each other's throats. All of them belong to the same religion. They are 
Christians. Why does the fighting go on and on in Northern Ireland? 
Probably because no one has dreamed of apologizing. Probably because 
the old Neanderthal caveman reaction that you must forever and ever 
consider your enemy an enemy, you must get revenge, you must seek 
justice, probably because that dominates the thinking of the leadership 
so much that they cannot entertain another approach.
  In South Africa, 25 million blacks were dominated by 4 or 5 million 
whites. The blacks have now taken over. They are the majority. They 
have control of the government. They chose a different path. Instead of 
trying to punish, instead of seeking justice and retribution, they have 
a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Their society is taking a very 
positive movement forward because they are refusing to go for the old 
Neanderthal caveman reaction of I must punish those who did wrong to 
me. The whole Judeo-Christian tradition of moving in a different manner 
has been accepted in South Africa but not in some other places, like 
Northern Ireland.
  In Haiti, they have chosen not to go for revenge and justice but to 
go for reconciliation. Therefore, Haiti is not adding on top of its 
other many economic problems the problem of a new kind of violence 
between those who had the upper hand before and those who have the 
upper hand now.
  To get back to quoting Mr. Baker, to end his article, ``Apologies for 
slavery, famine, the Indian wars, can these have any purpose beyond 
asserting, in a smugly self-congratulatory way, that we are better 
people than our ancestors? They surely cannot undo the past. A lot of 
every nation's past is terrible, atrocious, barbaric, but there it is, 
inescapable, monumental, the work of our dead ancestors many of them no 
doubt hateful, a few perhaps almost as genteel and high-minded as you 
and I. Apologizing for them would be as useless and absurd as shaking a 
fist at the Atlantic Ocean. It is painful to see them patronized by the 
pious sensitivity crowd.''
  Anybody who wants to apologize is now a part of a pious sensitivity 
crowd. The pious sensitivity crowd is engaged in a fad of apologizing. 
This does not take us anywhere but back into the caves. It does not 
move our civilization forward at all. Reconciliation is more important 
than revenge. That is the lesson that they are learning and South 
Africa is illustrating. Haiti. In Bosnia we will not have any forward 
movement until they also accept the principle that reconciliation is 
more important than revenge. Reconciliation is even more important than 
justice. Revenge and justice usually require more conflict and more 
bloodshed. Reconciliation and healing require that victims and injured 
parties accept the losses of the past and the present as a way of 
fertilizing the future with promise and hope.
  Of course in the case of slavery, if we do not recognize anything was 
done wrong in the past, we cannot complete the healing process. There 
is an understanding that is not stated in our culture, in our national 
life, that accepts the fact that slavery was wrong. We fought a great 
Civil War, and the lives of many white men were lost in the process of 
setting the slaves free. We recognized that it was wrong and that 
Abraham Lincoln, under his leadership and those who fought in the Civil 
War, we have corrected that great national wrong.

                              {time}  1845

  But on the surface we still need to have greater recognition and 
discussion of it and not just bury it in our subconscious.
  If the descendants of the victims of injured parties can accept their 
losses, then certainly those who were the oppressors ought to accept it 
and move toward healing and reconciliation. Surely the descendants of 
oppressors who inflicted the injuries and the atrocities should be able 
to move on to seek reconciliation and healing.
  Let me just conclude by saying when Jesus of Nazareth declared that 
if a man strikes you on one cheek you should turn the other cheek he 
introduced a radical formula for human behavior. Many Christians insist 
that this is one instruction they find it hard to follow. It is 
unnatural, it is a demand or a command for extreme discipline. Turn the 
other cheek is an acceptance of suffering that mutilates one's 
masculinity. It destroys one's normal concept of dignity. This is 
exalted advice that must have come from outside the Earth, for it 
requires that

[[Page H5478]]

honor and common sense be surrendered, traded in for a profile of 
pacifist courage which will probably be labeled as cowardly weakness. 
The man strikes you on the cheek, then turn the other cheek; we are not 
asking that kind of activity, that you engage in that kind of activity 
and you have to suffer when you apologize. It is far easier to 
apologize than to suffer being struck on the cheek or to carry 
someone's bag an extra mile when they ask you to carry baggage the 
extra mile.
  Instead of Mr. Baker's opposition to apologizing, I propose that in 
the style of a Vietnam Memorial Wall we should erect a wall that is 
called the International Monument of Apologies. In the past we have 
glorified great warriors and conquerors. Now let us lift up and pay 
homage to all those who apologize. Let us usher in a new era of 
civilization with ceremonies of apologies.
  Yes, it is true that most of the apologies will be emotional 
symbolism. However, symbols and symbolism are life and death matters 
among human beings.
  Perhaps at the top of this International Monument of Apologies the 
Greeks, who have left us so many other symbols, could lead off with an 
apology. Let the Greeks begin by apologizing to the ghost of a Trojan 
nation that no longer exists. The Greeks assembled vast war mongering 
states, and they marched into Troy, they wrecked the place, and when 
they could not win the battle, they abandoned all international 
conventions and standards of diplomacy and they tricked the Trojans 
into getting inside the wall, and then they massacred the women and the 
children, especially all the males, and they ought to apologize for 
that. It may be only mythology, it may be fiction, but still it would 
symbolically lead off the apologizing.
  Let the Italian Government apologize for the destruction of the 
ancient land of the Jews and dispersal of their population by the 
Romans. Let the Italian Government apologize for what Nero and the 
citizens of ancient Rome did to the early Christians. Let the Spanish 
and Portuguese apologize for their initiation of the Atlantic slave 
trade, African slave trade. Let all the nations who participated in 
slave trade apologize. Let the British apologize for the open war 
against the Chinese. Let the Japanese apologize for Pearl Harbor. All 
the nations of ages.
  You know, why not go forward and build a new kind of civilization on 
apologizing? There is nothing wrong with having a great wall of 
international apologies for us to come and contemplate what our 
Governments have done in the past and are willing to own up to in the 
present.
  Let us take our civilization to a new dimension. We readily go to 
Mars and we land on Mars and applaud the technology and science and how 
radical that is. Let us in the area of human behavior strike in a new 
direction. Let us follow the precepts of Judeo-Christian religion. Let 
us look at that turn the cheek proposition. Let us look at it and build 
on it and understand that reconciliation and healing are more important 
than revenge and justice. Let us understand what the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Hall] is trying to do. He is trying to open the door a little 
wider. Apology comes first, and after that acknowledgment, recognition, 
more reconciliation and more healing.
  Our society as a whole and our whole decision making process are on 
social issues and critical educational issues will all benefit if we 
recognize that nothing is lost by beginning with a process of 
apologizing. We have conquered overwhelming external enemies, and now 
it is time to grow again in America. The stock market and the evidences 
of prosperity are at an all time high. This is a time for us to strike 
out for a new moral high ground, a new moral high ground which would be 
beneficial to all of us in America and to the whole world.

                          ____________________