[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 2 (Thursday, January 7, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E52-E53]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE WORLD WAR II GENERATION

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. BOB BARR

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 6, 1999

  Mr. BARR of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to share with my 
colleagues a commencement speech delivered at the University of 
Georgia, entitled ``Reflections from the World War II Generation,'' by 
former Attorney General and retired Federal appellate judge Griffin B. 
Bell, on December 19, 1998. I hope each Member of the House of 
Representatives will take a moment and read this inspiring document.

              Reflections From the World War II Generation

       I am from the World War II generation. My youth was in the 
     Great Depression, which tempered all who lived it.
       The discipline of military service, indeed, the service 
     itself in World War II, had a marked effect on some 14 
     million Americans who served. Following our service, our 
     country educated many of us under the GI Bill of Rights. Ours 
     was the first generation of Americans to include substantial 
     numbers of people who had graduated from college.
       The electronic revolution had its genesis in World War II 
     and has continued to develop at a rapid rate until this day. 
     Much of it was developed in the vast defense and space 
     enterprises, which followed World War II and in the Cold War 
     with the Soviet Union.
       Some of our generation had to participate in the Korean War 
     along with many other Americans who had not been in World War 
     II.
       We sent our sons to Vietnam if our sons wanted to serve. 
     Vietnam was the first of our peculiar wars where almost 
     anyone could dodge service and, if all else failed, could run 
     away to Canada. This meant that the Armed Forces during the 
     Vietnam War were made up of poor people who did not know how 
     to escape and those Americans who were patriotic enough to go 
     even though they could have escaped.
       The Vietnam War was the beginning of the sharp divisions in 
     our country between those who served and those who did not or 
     who did not support the war effort. It was during this era 
     that we began to question values that had served us well for 
     generations. Patriotism, to some, meant protest. The idea 
     sprung up that there was no such thing as absolute truth; 
     that truth was a relative term and therefore depended on the 
     circumstances. We learned that there was such a thing as 
     situational ethics; that ethics depended on the particular 
     setting.
       Our own children, known by some as the Yuppie Generation, 
     were badly split over Vietnam and social mores. Many turned 
     to drugs and the hippie life.
       Our World War II generation had a large role in the civil 
     rights revolution of the 60's. Many of the Yuppie Generation 
     participated as well, thus a joint effort which reached 
     across the two generations. The revolution was momentous in 
     the history of our country. It stands as one of the nation's 
     highest achievements--a revolution engaged in under law and 
     contained within the law.
       The Yuppie Generation has never had to face hard problems 
     of war or depression. Its problems are smaller but still 
     important. Our education system is in disrepair despite 
     prosperous times, ill serving substantial numbers of people 
     who are in the public schools. We experimented with leaving 
     the neighborhood school concept and let the federal 
     government into local education. We seem to have either lost 
     the ability to manage the schools and the system or have lost 
     the will to correct the problem. The school problem is 
     exacerbated by poverty.
       We are turning into a sound bite people. We catch the 
     television news or hear the kibitzing on the radio. We are 
     not readers. We are losing the ability to write well.
       Politicians have learned to use the television and radio as 
     a means of spinning the news to suit their purposes. A 
     gullible populace seems to be taken in by the spinners. This 
     is much like the medicine shows which passed through the 
     small towns during my youth. As Oliver Goldsmith said in his 
     poem, The Deserted Village, referring to the village 
     schoolmaster when he spoke on the village square: ``Amazed 
     the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed and 
     still the wonder grew, How one small head could hold all 
     he knew.''
       We must ask: Have we lost our capacity to govern in a 
     representative government? Have the pollsters and polls taken 
     over? Is there a need for us to have representatives or are 
     representatives mere rubber stamps to obey the will of the 
     polls? Pure democracy was a form of government rejected by 
     the Founding Fathers. We must remember Jefferson's words that 
     our representatives owe us their best judgment, not their 
     votes. Their judgment is important.
       During this period has come an era of bad manners--
     incivility and rancor in our private and political life, 
     extremism in entertainment and sensationalism in the arts and 
     in the media. How can we improve our discourse? What has 
     happened to old fashioned courtesy? Nowhere is conduct worse 
     than among the too-clever-by-half lawyers where the smart 
     aleck and ill-mannered so-called advocate is destroying the 
     nobility and high calling of the law, and perhaps the last 
     vestige of good manners as taught us under the English Common 
     Law practice. Sir Matthew Hale, a British judge who died in 
     1676, in writing on ethics, gave us a rule that would serve 
     us well today. This was his rule: In all my actions, I will 
     seek to know and follow my better instincts, never my worst; 
     the nobler course, never the baser; [I will seek to know and 
     follow] the high purpose, never the meaner.
       I suggest this as a good rule for all people of good will 
     and good manners. We should expect no less from our leaders, 
     whether public or private; that they take the high road.
       Our country is passing now into your hands. We call you 
     Generation X, and we wonder what your values will be and what 
     your aspirations will be for our country and for your fellow 
     citizens.
       Based on my observations of my own grandchildren, I believe 
     that Generation X will be one of our greatest. Your values 
     will increasingly be in the public interest. You will accept 
     the challenge of doing something about the poor public 
     schools and about the fifteen percent of our population who 
     live below the poverty level. You are our hope--our highest 
     hope. How will you deal with our greatest failure: the 
     scourge of drugs? Poor education and poverty will weaken our 
     country, but drugs can destroy it. The prisons are filled, 
     largely because of drugs. Using drugs is unpatriotic, but our 
     leaders do not put the problem in those terms.
       You have received a good education and are in a better 
     position to serve others than many Americans. I hope that you 
     will adopt the standard of noblesse oblige--``To those to 
     whom much is given, of them is much expected.''
       Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell may have been the 
     greatest Southerner of this era--and certainly among the 
     greatest Americans. On the occasion of his death, the 
     Richmond, Virginia Times-Dispatch, in an editorial of his 
     life, quoted him as having written, ``As to values, I was 
     taught--and still believe--that a sense of honor is necessary 
     to personal self-respect; that duty, recognizing an 
     individual's subordination to community welfare, is as 
     important as rights; that loyalty, which is based on the 
     trust-worthiness of honorable men, is still a virtue; and 
     that work and self-discipline are as essential to individual 
     happiness as they are to a viable society. Indeed, I still 
     believe in patriotism--not if it is limited to parades and 
     flag-waving, but because worthy national goals and 
     aspirations can be realized only through love of country and 
     a desire to be a reponsible citizen.''
       There is a chapter in Sandberg's Life of President Lincoln 
     entitled ``A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down.'' This 
     chapter includes many of the tributes paid to President 
     Lincoln after his assassination. One of the tributes was by 
     the great Russian writer, Tolstoy, who, when asked by Russian 
     tribesmen to tell them about President Lincoln, responded, 
     ``Lincoln was a great man. He was greater than Alexander the 
     Great and greater than George Washington. The reason he was 
     great was his values. Everything that he did was rooted in 
     four great values: humanity and justice, truth and pity.''
       Truth is important. It is the bedrock of our legal system, 
     and the legal system is the bedrock of our country.
       I speak of a legal system as being different from justice. 
     Justice is that which is rendered in the legal system. It is 
     the redeeming virtue of our country; that no person is above 
     the law and no person is below the law; we are all equal 
     before the law. you must take care to see that no fellow 
     citizen is ever denied justice. You must also take care to 
     see that there are no preferred citizens in the sense that 
     the rich and well-to-do can have a different kind of justice. 
     I direct your attention to the latterday style of trial

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     where the witnesses or prosecutors or judges are attacked by 
     packs of lawyers using the media as a way to avoid guilt, 
     although the guilt is never denied. This will not do in a 
     great country. It will not do among free people.
       Humanity and pity are the two other values mentioned by 
     Tolstoy. A strong feeling of humanity would make us evermore 
     attentive to problems of poverty and education, and to seeing 
     that every American is treated fairly and has a fair chance. 
     Pity is more for the individual basis, but is a mark of 
     decency--a standard to which we can all repair.
       I hope that as you leave this great institution, you will 
     take with you, as a part of your education, love of country 
     and love of your fellow citizen. Even with its blemishes, 
     ours is a great country; the greatest. I have always said 
     that I am proud to be a Southerner, but am proudest of all to 
     be an American.
       And now ends your last lecture.

       

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