[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 21, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H5963-H5965]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 URGING MEMBERS TO STUDY THE ARTICLE ``STATESMANSHIP AND ITS BETRAYAL''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BARR of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, very infrequently I come across an 
article written by a person that rises so far above and beyond the 
normal, mundane literature we read daily in newspapers and see and hear 
visually and

[[Page H5964]]

verbally on television that it bears special attention.
  I rise today to share with my colleagues an article which appeared in 
the Wall Street Journal on July 2 by Mark Helprin entitled 
``Statesmanship and Its Betrayal.''
  Mr. Speaker, I will read just a few eloquent passages of Mr. 
Helprin's exposition on statesmanship, and then urge all of my 
colleagues, indeed, all who peruse the Congressional Record, to do 
likewise.
  He speaks, in part, as follows:

       We had men of integrity and genius: Washington, Hamilton, 
     Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. These were men who 
     were in love with principle as if it were an art, which, in 
     their practice, they made it. They studied empires that had 
     fallen, for the sake of doing what was right in a small 
     country that had barely risen, and were able to see things so 
     clearly that they surpassed in greatness each and every one 
     of the classical models that they had approached in awe.
       Now. . . when we desperately need their high qualities of 
     thought, their patience for deliberation, and their unerring 
     sense of balance, we have only what we have.
       Which is a political class that in the main has abandoned 
     the essential qualities of statesmanship, with the excuse 
     that these are inappropriate to our age. They are wrong. Not 
     only do they fail to honor the principles of statesmanship, 
     they fail to recognize them, having failed to learn them, 
     having failed to have wanted to learn them.
       In the main, they are in it for themselves. This 
     constitutes not merely a failure, but a betrayal, and not 
     only of statesmanship and principle, but of country and kin.
       And why is that? It is because things matter. Even though 
     it be played like a game, by men who excel at making it a 
     game, our life in this country, our history in this country, 
     the sacrifices that have been made for this country, the 
     lives that have been given to this country, are not a game. 
     My life is not a game. My children's lives are not a game. My 
     parents' lives were not a game. Your life is not a game.
       Yes, it is true, we do have great accumulated stores of 
     power and wealth and decency--against which those who pretend 
     to lead us can draw when as a result of their vanity and 
     ineptitude they waste and expend the gifts of previous 
     generations. The margin of error bequeathed to them allows 
     them to present their failures as successes.
       They say, ``As we are still standing, and a chicken is in 
     the pot, what does it matter if I break the links between 
     action and consequence, work and reward, crime and 
     punishment, merit and advancement?'' I myself cannot imagine 
     a military threat (and never could), so what does it matter 
     if I weld shut the silo hatches on our ballistic missile 
     submarines? What does it matter if I weld shut my eyes to 
     weapons of mass destruction in the hands of lunatics who are 
     building long-range missiles? Our jurisprudence is the envy 
     of the world, so what does it matter if now and then I 
     perjure myself, a little? What is an oath? What is a pledge? 
     What is a sacred trust? Are not these things the province of 
     the kinds of people who were foolish enough to do without all 
     their lives, to wear the ruts into the Oregon Trail, to brave 
     the seas, to die on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima and 
     on the battlefields of Shiloh and Antietam, for me, so that I 
     can draw from America's great accounts, and look good, and be 
     presidential, and have fun, in all kinds of ways?

  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Helprin goes on at some length to use words that 
conjure up, as few in American history, perhaps only most recently 
President Reagan could, to reach down into the soul of America, to 
remind us once again, we are and were and should and must be a Nation 
of principle, personified by statesmen, not crass political leaders 
looking only for themselves, only for today, and forgetting not only 
the great history of an America past, but looking forward to a great 
history of America future.
  I commend Mark Helprin's article, which appeared in the Wall Street 
Journal on July 2 of this year, entitled ``Statesmanship and Its 
Betrayal,'' to be read and reread by my colleagues and by every 
American who cares about this great country, its history, and its 
future.
  The article referred to is as follows:

                     Statesmanship and Its Betrayal

                           (By Mark Helprin)

       When Marco Polo entered Xanadu, the capital of the Great 
     Khan, he crossed ring after ring of outer city, each more 
     splendid and interesting than the one that had come before. 
     He was used to greatness of scale, having traveled to the 
     limits of the ordered world and then twice as far into the 
     unknown, where no European had ever set foot, over the Hindu 
     Kush and beyond the Pamir, and through the immense empty 
     deserts of Central Asia. And yet after passing through the 
     world's most ethereal regions he was impressed above all by 
     Xanadu, a city of seemingly infinite expanse, the end of 
     which he could not see no matter in which direction he 
     looked.
       For almost 1,000 years, this city floated at the peak of 
     Western imagination. Unlike Jerusalem, it had vanished. 
     Unlike Atlantis, someone had actually seen it. Even during 
     the glory of the British Empire, Coleridge held it out for 
     envy. But no more. Now it has been eclipsed, with ease, by 
     this, our country, founded not as a Xanadu but with the 
     greatest humility, and on the scale of yeomen and their small 
     farms, and as the cradle of simple gifts.
       This country was not expected to be what it became. It was 
     expected to be infinite-seeming in its rivers, prairies and 
     stars, not in cities with hundreds of millions of rooms, 
     passages, halls, and buildings a quarter-mile high. It was 
     expected to be rich in natural silence and the quality of 
     light rather than in uncountable dollars. It was expected to 
     be a place of unfathomable numbers, but of blades of grass 
     and grains of wheat and the crags of mountains, rather than 
     millions upon millions of motors spinning and humming at any 
     one time, and wheels turning, fires burning, voices talking 
     and lights shining.
       But this great inventory of machines, buildings, bridges, 
     vehicles and an incomprehensible number of smaller things, is 
     what we have. A nation founded according to a vision of 
     simplicity has become complex. A nation founded with disdain 
     for power has become the most powerful nation.


                        the essential qualities

       When letters took a month by sea and the records of the 
     U.S. government could be moved in a single wagon pulled by 
     two horses, we had great statesmanship. We had men of 
     integrity and genius: Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, 
     Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Monroe. These were men who were 
     in love with principle as if it were an art, which, in their 
     practice, they made it. They studied empires that had fallen, 
     for the sake of doing what was right in a small country that 
     had barely risen, and were able to see things so clearly that 
     they surpassed in greatness each and every one of the 
     classical models that they had approached in awe.
       Now, lost in the sins and complexity of a Xanadu, when we 
     desperately need their high qualities of thought, their 
     patience for deliberation, and their unerring sense of 
     balance, we have only what we have.
       Which is a political class that in the main has abandoned 
     the essential qualities of statesmanship, with the excuse 
     that these are inappropriate to our age. They are wrong. Not 
     only do they fail to honor the principles of statesmanship, 
     they fail to recognize them, having failed to learn them, 
     having failed to have wanted to learn them.
       In the main, they are in it for themselves. Were they not, 
     they would have a higher rate of attrition, falling with the 
     colors of what they believe rather than landing always on 
     their feet--adroitly, but in dishonor. In light of their vows 
     and responsibilities, this constitutes not merely a failure 
     but a betrayal, and not only of statesmanship and principle 
     but of country and kin.
       And why is that? It is because things matter. Even though 
     it be played like a game, by men who excel at making it a 
     game, our life in this country, our history in this country, 
     the sacrifices that have been made for this country, the 
     lives that have been given to this country, are not a game. 
     My life is not a game. My children's lives are not a game. My 
     parents' lives were not a game. Your life is not a game.
       Yes, it is true, we do have great accumulated stores--of 
     power, and wealth, and decency--against which those who 
     pretend to lead us can draw when as a result of their vanity 
     and ineptitude they waste and expend the gifts of previous 
     generations. The margin of error bequeathed to them allows 
     them to present their failures as successes.
       They say, ``As we are still standing, and a chicken is in 
     the pot, what does it matter if I break the links between 
     action and consequence, work and reward, crime and 
     punishment, merit and advancement? I myself cannot imagine a 
     military threat (and never could), so what does it matter if 
     I weld shut the silo hatches on our ballistic missile 
     submarines? What does it matter if I weld shut my eyes to 
     weapons of mass destruction in the hands of lunatics who are 
     building long-range missiles? Our jurisprudence is the envy 
     of the world, so what does it matter if, now and then, I 
     perjure myself, a little? What is an oath? What is a pledge? 
     What is a sacred trust? Are not these things the province of 
     the kinds of people who were foolish enough to do without all 
     their lives, to wear the ruts into the Oregon Trail, to brave 
     the seas, to die on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima and 
     on the battlefields of Shiloh and Antietam, for me, so that I 
     can draw from America's great accounts, and look good, and be 
     presidential, and have fun, in all kinds of ways?


                            Blood Onto Sand

       That is what they say, if not in words then, indelibly, in 
     actions. They who, in robbing Peter to pay Paul, present 
     themselves as payers and forget that they are also robbers. 
     They who, with studied compassion, minister to some of us at 
     the expense of others. They who make goodness and charity a 
     public profession, depending for their election upon a well-
     mannered embrace of these things and the power to move them 
     not from within themselves or by their own sacrifices but, by 
     compulsion, from others. They who, knowing very little or 
     next to nothing, take pride in eagerly telling everyone else 
     what to do. They who believe absolutely in their recitation 
     of pieties not because they believe in the pieties but 
     because they believe in themselves.

[[Page H5965]]

       Nearly 400 years of America's hard-earned accounts--the 
     principles we established, the battles we fought, the morals 
     we upheld for century after century, our very humility before 
     God--now flow promiscuously through our hands, like blood 
     onto sand, squandered and laid waste by a generation that 
     imagines history to have been but a prelude for what it 
     itself will accomplish. More than a pity, more than a shame, 
     such a thing is despicable. And yet, this parlous condition, 
     this agony of weak men, this betrayal and this disgusting 
     show, are not the end of things.
       Principles are eternal. They stem not from our resolution 
     or lack of it but from elsewhere, where in patient and 
     infinite ranks they simply wait to be called. They can be 
     read in history. They arise as if of their own accord when in 
     the face of danger natural courage comes into play and honor 
     and defiance are born. Things such as courage and honor are 
     the mortal equivalent of certain laws written throughout the 
     universe. The rules of symmetry and proportion, the laws of 
     physics, the perfection of mathematics, even the principle of 
     uncertainty, are encouragement, entirely independent of the 
     vagaries of human will, that not only natural law but our own 
     best aspirations have a life of their own. They have lasted 
     through far greater abuse than abuses them now. They can be 
     neglected, but they cannot be lost. They can be thrown down, 
     but they cannot be broken.
       Each of them is a different expression of a single quality, 
     from which each arises in its hour of need. Some come to the 
     fore as others stay back, and then, with changing 
     circumstance, those that have gone unnoticed rise to the 
     occasion. Rise to the occasion. The principle suggests itself 
     from a phrase, and such principles suggest easily and flow 
     generously. You can grab them out of the air, from phrases, 
     from memories, from images.
       A statesman must rise to the occasion. Even Democrats can 
     do this. Harry Truman had the discipline of plowing a 
     straight row 10, 12 and 14 hours a day, of rising and 
     retiring with the sun, of struggling with temperamental 
     machinery, of suffering heat and cold and one injury after 
     another. After a short time on a farm, presumptions about 
     ruling others tend to vanish. It is as if you are pulled to 
     earth and held there.
       The man who works the land is hard put to think that he 
     would direct armies and nations. Truman understood the grave 
     responsibility of being the president of the United States, 
     and that it was a task too great for him or for anyone else 
     to accomplish without doing a great deal of injury--if not to 
     some, then to others. He understood that, therefore, he had 
     to transcend himself. There would be little enjoyment of the 
     job, because he had to be always aware of the enormous 
     consequences of everything he did. Contrast this with the 
     unspeakably vulgar pleasure in office of President Clinton.
       Truman, absolutely certain that the mantle he assumed was 
     far greater than he could ever be, was continually and 
     deliberately aware of the weight of history, the 
     accomplishments of his predecessors, and, by humble and 
     imaginative projection, his own inadequacy. The sobriety and 
     care that derived from this allowed him a rare privilege for 
     modern presidents, to give to the presidency more than he 
     took from it. It is not possible to occupy the Oval Office 
     without arrogantly looting its assets or nobly adding to 
     them. May God bless the president who adds to them, and may 
     God damn the president who loots them.
       America would not have come out of the Civil War as it did 
     had it not been led by men like Lincoln and Lee. The battles 
     raged for five years, but for 100 years the country, both 
     North and South, modeled itself on their characters. They 
     exemplified almost perfectly Churchill's statement that 
     ``public men charged with the conduct of the war should live 
     in a continual stress of soul.''
       This continual stress of soul is necessary as well in 
     peacetime, because for every good deed in public life there 
     is a counterbalance. Benefits are given only after taxes are 
     taken. That is part of governance. The statesman, who 
     represents the whole nation, sees in the equilibrium for 
     which he strives a continual tension between victory and 
     defeat. If he did not understand this, he would have no 
     stress of soul, he would be merely happy--about money 
     showered upon the orphan, taken from the widow. About 
     children sent to day care, so that they may be long absent 
     from their parents. About merciful parole, of criminals who 
     kill again. Whereas a statesman knows continual stress of 
     soul, a politician is happy, for he knows not what he does.
       It is difficult for individuals or nations to recognize 
     that war and peace alternate. But they do. No matter how long 
     peace may last, it will end in war. Though most people cannot 
     believe at this moment that the United States of America will 
     ever again fight for its survival, history guarantees that it 
     will. And, when it does, most people will not know what to 
     do. They will believe of war, as they did of peace, that it 
     is everlasting. The statesman, who is different from everyone 
     else, will, in the midst of common despair, see the end of 
     war, just as during the peace he was alive to the 
     inevitability of war, and saw it coming in the far distance, 
     as if it were a gray wave moving quietly across a dark sea.
       The politician will revel with his people and enjoy their 
     enjoyments. The statesman, in continual stress of soul, will 
     think of destruction. As others move in the light, he will 
     move in darkness, so that as others move in darkness, he may 
     move in the light. This tenacity, that is given to those of 
     long and insistent vision, is what saves nations.
       A statesman must have a temperament that is suited for the 
     Medal of Honor, in a soul that is unafraid to die. 
     Electorates rightly favor those who have endured combat, not 
     as a matter of reward for service, as is commonly believed, 
     but because the willingness of a soldier to give his life is 
     a strong sign of his correct priorities, and that in the 
     future he will truly understand that statesmen are not rulers 
     but servants. It seems clear even in these years of squalid 
     degradation that having risked death for the sake of honor is 
     better than having risked dishonor for the sake of life.


                         Hunger for a Statesman

       No matter what you are told by the sophisticated classes 
     that see virtue in every form of corruption and corruption in 
     every form of virtue, I think you know, as I do, that the 
     American people hunger for acts of integrity and courage. The 
     American people hunger for a statesman magnetized by the 
     truth, unwilling to give up his good name, uninterested in 
     calculation only for the sake of victory, unable to put his 
     interests before those of the nation. What this means in 
     practical terms is no focus groups, no polls, no 
     triangulation, no evasion, no broken promises and no lies. 
     These are the tools of the chameleon. They are employed to 
     cheat the American people of honest answers to direct 
     questions. If the average politician, for fear that he may 
     lose something, is incapable of even a genuine yes or no, how 
     is he supposed to rise to the great occasions of state? How 
     is he supposed to face a destructive and implacable enemy? 
     How is he supposed to understand the rightful destiny of his 
     country, and lead it there?
       At the coronation of an English monarch, he is given a 
     sword. Elizabeth II took it last, and as she held it before 
     the altar, she head these words: ``Receive this kingly Sword, 
     brought now from the altar of God and delivered to you by us, 
     the Bishops and servants of God, though unworthy. With this 
     Sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the 
     holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, 
     restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the 
     things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, 
     and confirm what is in good order; that doing these things 
     you may be glorious in all virtue; and so faithfully serve 
     our Lord.''
       Would that we in America come once again to understand that 
     statesmanship is not the appetite for power but--because 
     things matter--a holy calling of self-abnegation and self-
     sacrifice. We have made it something else. Nonetheless, after 
     and despite its betrayal, statesmanship remains the 
     manifestation, in political terms, of beauty, and balance, 
     and truth. It is the courage to tell the truth, and thus 
     discern what is ahead. It is a mastery of the symmetry of 
     forces, illuminated by the genius of speaking to the heart of 
     things.
       Statesmanship is a quality that, though it may be betrayed, 
     is always ready to be taken up again merely by honest 
     subscription to its great themes. Have confidence that even 
     in idleness its strengths are growing, for it is a 
     providential gift given to us in times of need. Evidently we 
     do not need it now, but as the world is forever interesting 
     the time will surely come when we do. And then, so help me 
     God, I believe that, solely by the grace of God, the corrupt 
     will be thrown down and the virtuous will rise up.

                          ____________________