[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 12, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5181-S5182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                      ON THE CITADEL'S GRADUATION

 Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, early on in this decade The 
Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina was challenged and lost the fight 
for the admission of women to the Corps of Cadets. It was a stormy 
event, but on Saturday last with dignity and prestige the first woman 
cadet, Nancy Mace, a gold star honor student, was graduated. The 
commentator, Pat Buchanan, rendered the graduation address. It was a 
challenge not only to the graduating class, but for the Nation as well. 
I ask that the Buchanan address be printed now in the Record.
  The address follows:

                       A Republic, Not an Empire

                        (By Patrick J. Buchanan)

       General Grinalds, distinguished guests, and friends of the 
     Citadel. It is truly an honor to address this last graduating 
     class of the 20th century--and a truly unique class it is, of 
     an institution whose name is synonymous with patriotism, 
     courage, and a code of honor.
       I must tell you, I was profoundly moved by yesterday's 
     parade, and the Scottish bagpipes playing ``Auld Lang Zyne'' 
     to the Class of '99. I was moved, in part, because we 
     Buchanans are of Scotch ancestry. Indeed, an historian once 
     told me the Buchanans were a Highland warrior clan that had 
     fought at Agincourt, where England's Henry V achieved 
     immortality.
       And as I was basking in the reflected glory of my 
     ancestors, however, the historian added, ``Unfortunately, 
     Pat, the Buchanans all fought on the side of the French.''
       Now, as my two great grandfathers on the Buchanan side were 
     from Mississippi, and fought with the Confederacy, we 
     Buchanans have an established tradition of Lost Causes. 
     Unfortunately, in 1992 and 1996, I made my own contributions 
     to that family tradition.
       My wife Shelley tells me that if I don't win this time, she 
     is going to pack it in--and run for the Senate from New York.
       This is not my first trip to the Citadel; in 1995, I was 
     invited to address the student body in its lecture series on 
     the great issues of the day. On the bookshelf in my living 
     room, if you come to visit, you will find in a place of honor 
     what is known as the Brick--a miniature replica of the 
     original Citadel.
       Friends of the Citadel, we live in an age of self-
     indulgence where the values embodied in your code of honor--
     ``A cadet does not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those 
     who do,'' are considered by some to be out of fashion.
       But all over this troubled country of ours, people hunger 
     for a restoration of the values which I believe will soon be 
     both relevant and respected again. For this country is not 
     only about to cross over into a new century, we are entering 
     upon a new and potentially dangerous decade.
       Indeed, as this era that the historians have already 
     designated ``the American Century,'' approaches an end, it 
     may be instructive to look back to the close of the 19th 
     century, when the British empire was the world's preeminent 
     power.
       For the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, Rudyard Kipling 
     was asked to pen some verses to the greatness and glory of 
     his nation. As he wrote of Britannia's ``(d)ominion over palm 
     and pine,'' Kipling struck a note of unease, of apprehension, 
     that the mighty empire on which the sun never set might 
     itself also pass away. Let me recite a few lines from his 
     poem ``Recessional'':
     ``Far-called our navies melt away--
     On dune and headland sinks the fire--
     Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
     Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
     Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
     Lest we forget, lest we forget.''
       Kipling proved prophetic. In two decades, the British 
     empire was fighting for its life on the fields of France. In 
     half a century, that empire had vanished from the earth.
       And so it was with all the great nations that had strode so 
     confidently onto the world's stage at the start of this 
     bloodiest of centuries--all except America. The Austro-
     Hungarian, German, Russian, and Ottoman empires perished in 
     World War I. Japan's was

[[Page S5182]]

     destroyed in World War II; the British and French expired 
     soon after.
       When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, in that triumph of 
     human freedom and American perseverance, the empire of Lenin 
     and Stalin collapsed, leaving the United States as the 
     world's sole superpower. In the phrase of our foreign policy 
     elite, we have become the world's ``indispensable nation.''
       But it is just such hubristic rhetoric that calls forth 
     apprehension, for it reflects a pride that all too often 
     precedes a great fall.
       Long ago, Teddy Roosevelt admonished us: ``Speak softly and 
     carry a big stick.'' Today, we have whittled down the stick, 
     even as we raised the decibel count.
       My apprehension is traceable, too, to a belief that our 
     republic has begun to retrace, step by step, the march of 
     folly that led to the fall of the British and every other 
     great empire.
       Today, America has become ensnared in a civil war in a 
     Balkan peninsula where no U.S. army ever fought before, and 
     no president ever asserted a vital interest. Daily, we plunge 
     more deeply in.
       Our motives were noble--to protect an abused people--but 
     most now concede that we failed to weigh the risks of 
     launching this war.
       Among the lessons America should have learned from Vietnam, 
     said General Colin Powell, is that before you commit the 
     army, you must first commit the nation. We did not do that.
       Now, it is said that as the credibility of NATO cannot 
     survive defiance by tiny Serbia, we must do whatever needs to 
     be done to win, even if it means ordering 100,000 U.S. ground 
     troops into the Balkans. This sentiment was expressed by a 
     columnist at the New York Times:
       ``It should be lights out in Belgrade; every power grid, 
     water pipe, bridge, road . . . has to be targeted. Like it or 
     not, we are at war with the Serbian nation . . . and the 
     stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is 
     another decade we will set you back by pulverizing you. You 
     want 1950. We can do 1950. You want 1389. We can do 1389 
     too.''
       One cannot read that passage without recalling to mind the 
     phrase, ``the arrogance of power.''
       Now, Milosevic is a tyrant and a war criminal. But does 
     America have the right to ``pulverize'' a nation that never 
     attacked the United States? Did the Founding Fathers dedicate 
     their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the cause of 
     liberty, so that the republic they would create could emulate 
     the empire they overthrew? Is it America's destiny to be the 
     policemen of the world?
       In his Farewell Address, our greatest president implored us 
     to stay out of Europe's endless quarrels: ``Why quit our own 
     to stand upon foreign ground?'' Washington asked. ``Why . . . 
     entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European 
     Ambition, Rivalship, Interest, Humour, or Caprice?''
       When the Greeks rose in rebellion against the Ottoman Turks 
     in a Balkan war, John Quincy Adams, our greatest Secretary of 
     State advocated America's non-intervention.
       ``Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has 
     been or shall be unfurled,'' said Adams, ``there will 
     [America's] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But 
     she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.''
       Now that America is at war, all of us pray for the success 
     and safe return of the men and women we have sent into 
     battle. They are some of the best and bravest of our young. 
     And no matter our disagreements, those are our sons and our 
     daughters out there. But all of us, as citizens of a 
     republic, must debate the decisions as to when, where, and 
     whether to put their lives at risk.
       This Balkan war is not the first time America has heard the 
     siren's call to empire. A century ago, we heeded it, and 
     annexed the Philippines. In the fall of 1898, leaders from 
     Grover Cleveland to Sam Gompers implored us to resist the 
     temptation.
       ``The fruits of imperialism, be they bitter or sweet,'' 
     said William Jennings Bryan, ``must be left to the subjects 
     of monarchy. This is one tree of which citizens of a republic 
     may not partake. It is the voice of the serpent, not the 
     voice of God, that bids us eat.''
       America did not listen. And hard upon the annexation of the 
     Philippines came the declaration of an Open Door policy in 
     China, that plunged us into the politics of Asia, out of 
     which would come war with Japan, war in Korea, and war in 
     Vietnam.
       Today, this generation is facing the same question. Quo 
     vadis, America? Whither goest thou, America?
       Will we conscript America's wealth and power to launch 
     utopian crusades to reshape the world in America's image? Or 
     shall we again follow the counsel of Washington and Adams, 
     and keep our lamp burning bright on the Western shore?
       Every citizen needs to take part in deciding the destiny of 
     this republic, for we have now undertaken foreign commitments 
     that no empire in history has ever sustained. We have assumed 
     the role of German empire in keeping Russia out of Europe, of 
     the Austrian empire in policing the Balkans, of the Ottoman 
     empire in keeping peace in the Middle East, of the Japanese 
     empire in containing China, of the British empire in 
     patrolling the Gulf and maintaining freedom of the seas.
       How long can America continue to defend scores of countries 
     around the world on a defense budget that has fallen to the 
     smallest share of the U.S. economy since before Pearl Harbor?
       As we see a limited air war in the Balkans stretch U.S. 
     power to where F-16s are cannibalized for spare parts, our 
     Air Force runs low on laser-guided munitions, our Apache 
     helicopters take weeks to be deployed, and our Pacific fleet 
     is stripped of carriers, it is clear: The long neglect of 
     America's military must come to an end.
       We must restore this nation's military power, or we are 
     headed for humiliations such as have marked the fall of every 
     great nation that has ever embarked on the imperial course we 
     now pursue.
       America must retrench; and America must rearm. To make up 
     for this lost decade, let us restore America's defenses to 
     what they were when the decade began. Let us make our 
     country, again, invincible on land, sea, and air, and build 
     the missile defense that a great president, Ronald Reagan, 
     sought as his legacy to America.
       To be prepared for war, Washington reminded us, is the best 
     guarantee of preserving peace.
       But if there is cause for apprehension over what lies 
     ahead, there is also cause for confidence and hope. That 
     confidence, that hope, rests not only on the boundless 
     resources of this providential land, but on the almost 
     infinite capacity of the American people to rise and overcome 
     any challenge with which history confronts them.
       We, after all, are the heirs of the heroes who launched the 
     world's first revolution for liberty. We are the sons and 
     daughters of the great generation that brought us through the 
     Depression and crushed fascism in Europe and Asia. We are the 
     men and women who persevered and triumphed in a half century 
     of Cold wAr against the most monstrous tyranny mankind has 
     ever known.
       Now the time of testing is coming for you. The America that 
     this Class of '99 shall inherit is rich and prosperous and 
     powerful, but also envied and resented.
       And whether America retains into this new century what she 
     carries out of this old on, depends now on your generation. 
     Fifty years from now, at the end of your lives, you will look 
     back, and say one of two things: Yes, we, too, made our 
     contribution to the preservation of the greatest republic the 
     world has ever seen. Or you will say that it was during your 
     custodianship that the lamp began to flicker, that we began 
     to follow inexorably in the footsteps of all the other great 
     nations, down the staircase of history.
       All, then, will come to depend on the character, and 
     courage of this generation, for, as Churchill said, courage 
     is the greatest of all virtues, because it alone makes all 
     the others possible.
       Last night at dinner, General Grinald's wife told me that 
     when members of the graduating classes are asked what they 
     will take away from the Citadel, almost invariably they say, 
     ``After going through the Citadel, I believe that I can do 
     anything.''
       That is the spirit the Citadel instills, and that is the 
     spirit America needs. Because you have gone through this 
     Citadel that has always cherished duty, honor and country, 
     you are more prepared than most of your generation for what 
     lies ahead.
       And the debt you owe the Citadel, the debt you owe your 
     parents, the debt you owe your teachers, and all those who 
     have gone before, is to be able to say, at the end of your 
     lives: We, too, were faithful to the Citadel; we, too, did 
     our duty; we, too, gave over to our children and their 
     children the greatest country the world has ever known.
       God bless the Citadel, and God bless the Class of 
     '99.

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