[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 96 (Thursday, July 1, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8201-S8203]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            INDEPENDENCE DAY

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I take this time to call the attention of 
our colleagues and our viewing audience to the forthcoming Independence 
Day, July 4.
  What is July 4 all about? The Declaration of Independence in U.S. 
history was a document that proclaimed the freedom of the Thirteen 
Colonies from British rule. It was the first formal pronouncement by an 
organized body of people of the right to govern by choice.
  On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in 
Philadelphia, approved Richard Henry Lee's motion for independence, and 
on July 4--which later came to be celebrated as Independence Day--it 
approved the declaration. Signing of the declaration took place over 
the course of several months, beginning August 2. Ultimately, the 
signatories numbered 56.
  The Declaration of Independence, written primarily by Thomas 
Jefferson, and modeled largely on the theories of John Locke, have 
affirmed the national rights of man and the doctrine of government by 
contract, which Congress insisted had been repeatedly violated by King 
George III.

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  Specific grievances were listed in support of the contention that the 
Colonies had the right and the duty to revoke. The declaration was paid 
little attention to at the time, but it proved influential in the 19th 
century, and in the United States has enjoyed an esteem second only to 
the Federal Constitution.
  Mr. President, all across the United States and in U.S. embassies 
around the world, lawns are being mowed and outdoor furniture is being 
hosed off as Americans prepare to celebrate our biggest open air 
holiday, Independence Day. The fireworks stands have been doing brisk 
business selling everything from smoky uncoiling snakes to dazzling 
sparklers to rockets and fountains that shriek and pop as they dispense 
multicolored bursts of flame and sparks.
  The one great constant in our national lexicon, it seems, is the 
Fourth of July. With some variations in the side dishes, the core menu 
reliably consists of juicy hamburgers and crisp-skinned hotdogs 
slathered in ketchup and mustard, served with creamy potato and 
macaroni salads, potato chips, onions, sweet corn on the cob dripping 
with butter, and icy, icy, icy, icy watermelon wedges that provide the 
ammunition for seed spitting contests. How great it is.
  Whether eating with friends or family at a picnic site, in one's 
backyard, or tailgate style, the feasts are followed by games to fill 
the endless wait until the skies darken and become a fitting backdrop 
for the big show of the day--the fireworks displays.
  The sight of fireworks, those great blossoming stars of sparks that 
burst and then fall like rain from the sky, never fails to remind me of 
the words of the Star Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Key 
after witnessing the artillery bombardment of Fort McHenry during the 
War of 1812: ``. . . and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in 
air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. . . 
.'' Francis Scott Key was being held by the British, having sailed out 
to their fleet, staged off Baltimore, in an attempt to free a local 
doctor taken hostage earlier. The British officers did finally agree to 
free the doctor, but decided that Key and his companions had seen too 
much to be released before the attack began.
  The beauty and excitement of the fireworks that many of us will see 
this weekend, therefore, evoke for me the great battles that were 
fought to make our Nation free and to defend her from harm in those 
dangerous early years of the republic. It is when I see fireworks that 
I most fully appreciate the great risks hazarded by our forefathers 
when they declared independence from the Crown. They risked 
everything--their lives, their fortunes, their lands, their families, 
their sacred honor.
  I recall Nathan Hale, who responded to the call of George Washington, 
the commander of the armies at Valley Forge. George Washington wanted 
someone to volunteer to go behind the British lines and draw pictures 
of the breastworks and bring them back to him, George Washington. It 
was a dangerous undertaking. It meant risking one's life. And so Nathan 
Hale, who was a schoolteacher, volunteered. He went behind the British 
lines. He succeeded in what he had gone there to do, but the night 
before he planned to return to the American lines he was discovered and 
the papers were discovered on him, and the next morning he was brought 
before the scaffold. The British officer, whose name was Cunningham, 
and who denied Nathan Hale's last wish, his wish for a Bible, said to 
him: Have you anything to say?
  Well, there at the foot of the scaffold, Nathan Hale could see the 
rough-hewn wooden coffin in which his body would soon lie. He said, ``I 
only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.'' Think of 
that. ``I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my 
country.''
  That is the kind of patriot who gave this country its independence, 
and many of us can't even give our country one vote on election day. 
What a pitiful example we sometimes set as a people on election day 
when we don't bother to go to the polls. Whether we are Democrats or 
Republicans or Independents, we should owe that much, that much to our 
country and to the memory of Nathan Hale.
  I talk to our young pages here and sometimes I borrow a history book 
from those who are here when they are attending school. I want to see 
what kind of history books they are reading in this day and time. When 
I was talking with these young pages a few days ago, I said, Who was 
Nathan Hale? Who here knows, who can tell me about Nathan Hale?
  Well, sorrowfully, many of the history books today don't even mention 
Nathan Hale's name. Those are not history books. They are social 
science textbooks. Nathan Hale; and so he said, ``I only regret that I 
have but one life to lose for my country.''
  Those men and women risked everything, as I say--their lives, their 
fortunes, their lands, their families, their sacred honor, even the 
populations in the States they represented--when they boldly inked 
their names on the Declaration of Independence.
  In the percussive thuds and whistling screams of today's fireworks I 
can hear--Can you hear?--the distant thunder of cannons and the crack 
of flintlocks as the first major land battle of the Revolutionary War 
was pitched at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. When I see the great 
fireworks displays put on here in the Nation's capital, I see the 
shadows of the Capitol dome consumed in flames, as it was in August 
1814. If I look out on the wide Potomac dotted with pleasure craft 
bobbing gently at anchor as still more people enjoy the fireworks, I 
can easily imagine General George Washington and his ragged Army 
struggling to cross the Delaware River for their daring Christmas day 
raid in the bitter cold of December 1776. And when I catch the scent of 
black powder drifting by as the night sky grows cloudy with the smoke 
from the explosions, I get the tingling sensation of fear and nerves 
that must have accompanied every soldier awaiting advancing Redcoats at 
Lexington and Concord.

  What courage and what bravery were displayed by the people of this 
fledgling Nation, when first they undertook to break away from Great 
Britain. What great good fortune I, and everyone else who is listening, 
have, to be able to enjoy the fruits of their boldness, their courage, 
their willingness to give their lives. From coast to coast this 
weekend, we are able to freely gather, to celebrate, to rejoice, and, 
yes, to watch fireworks in a peaceful imitation of those perilous days 
over twenty decades ago. In this great land and its marvelously 
balanced Constitution, we have inherited a treasure beyond price. It is 
a treasure that we honor with our service and which we defend with our 
blood if need be.
  So, while I enjoy the parades and picnics and fireworks of this happy 
holiday, I will also be offering my thanks to all those through the 
years who are responsible for struggling and winning the battles to 
secure our more perfect union, that we might be free to pursue health, 
happiness, and the blessings of liberty. My thanks also go to those men 
and women who today guard our freedom and who offer hope to others who 
fear the loss of their liberty, their lives, and their families.
  I thank Nathan Hale who died on September 22, 1776, and who willingly 
would have died many times for his country.
  We are a great and prosperous nation. We ought to thank God for his 
watchfulness over us, for the blessings he has showered upon our great 
country from its beginning, even before the Republic was instituted.
  Just this week we have learned anew how prosperous we are, as the 
administration heralded new long-term estimates that paint a very 
bright economic picture of rising surpluses and falling debt. I must 
confess I am pretty wary of economic estimates. That is a science even 
far less exact than weather forecasting or even, it seems, astrology. 
It does seem clear that for the near term, at least, we may expect a 
small on-budget surplus that was not previously anticipated. I urge 
that we Senators support an effort to designate a substantial portion 
of these newly found resources to the Department of Veterans Affairs in 
order to support veterans health care. I have talked to my good friend 
and colleague, Mr. Stevens, the chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee, and we are in agreement. But the fact that we are in 
agreement does not mean that the matter is settled. We have a tough 
uphill battle before us.

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  Veterans health care, a promise of lifetime care made to everyone who 
serves faithfully and well in the defense of our Nation, faces a 
funding crisis that threatens the quality and continuity of the health 
care that these men and women have come to depend upon. Veterans 
service organizations and others knowledgeable about the needs of 
America's veterans have pointed out that the fiscal year 2000 budget 
request for veterans health care is far below what is needed to meet 
demand and to allow the Veterans Administration to respond to new 
requirements levied by Congress. The budget resolution conference 
report adopted by the Congress earlier this year made a commitment to 
provide additional funds for veterans health care, but a budget 
resolution is a nonbinding document. Platitudes, good intentions, and 
fireworks do not pay doctor's bills. The funding caps passed by 
Congress have left the Appropriations Committee hamstrung, unable to 
provide more funding for this and other worthy causes. But now, if 
additional surpluses not associated with Social Security become 
available, I believe that we should try hard to honor our commitment 
made in the budget resolution, and honor our debt to the veterans who, 
in the spirit of those patriots of the Revolution, dared much, risked 
much, and sacrificed much that we might enjoy the blessings of freedom. 
They treasure our country and honor it with their service and their 
blood. I feel certain that my colleagues share with me a commitment to 
our Nation's veterans that is stronger and deeper than any allegiance 
to an arbitrary budget figure or cap that is based on a very different 
set of economic assumptions.
  Mr. President, I have been fortunate to have traveled across the 
globe. I have seen many other lovely and ancient places, from Rome to 
Cairo to London to Tokyo to Moscow to that great crossroads of east and 
west that is Istanbul. I met warm and charming people in all these 
places and more. But, like Americans who will gather in far flung 
outposts around the globe next Monday to toast their homeland, and on 
Sunday to fly that flag in front of our homes, I am always glad to come 
home. No spot on earth calls to me like the mountains of my home, West 
Virginia, where the ground rises to meet my feet and the trees spread 
dappled umbrellas to shade me from the Sun; where glittering rivulets 
of clear, cold water flash like gems set in a verdant tapestry of 
ferns; and where birdsongs chime the hours away. In a gentle eternal 
symphony, raindrops hitting leaves provide the timpani and wind through 
the tossing branches serves as strings. The woodwind notes of mourning 
doves gently welcome the Sun each morning and whippoorwills pipe its 
setting in the evening. It is music for the heart as well as for the 
ears.
  Nowhere are the people more dear to me than in West Virginia, where 
church doors are always ready to welcome the traveler and where in 
grocery stores there are clerks who still greet me by name and ask 
about my family. West Virginians are a proud people, proud of their 
heritage, proud of their home State. Wherever you may find them around 
the world--and I have found them in Afghanistan, in India, all across 
the globe--they are always proud to proclaim themselves Mountaineers.
  I close with a favorite poem of mine by Henry van Dyke, ``America for 
Me'':
     'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
     Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
     To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings,--
     But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

     So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
     My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
     In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
     Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of 
           stars.

     Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
     And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
     And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study in 
           Rome
     But when it comes to living there is just no place like home.

     I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
     I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains 
           filled;
     But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
     In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!

     I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
     The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
     But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free,--
     We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

     Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
     I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling 
           sea,
     To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
     Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of 
           stars.

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