[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 54 (Thursday, May 4, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H2514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW AND CUBA

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, the Mason Dixon Line is the southern border 
of my district. For decades in the 19th century, the citizen of my 
district helped slaves escape to freedom aboard the Underground 
Railroad, and every person who did so, committed a Federal crime.
  In 1793, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, and any person who 
helped a slave escape was fined and jailed.
  Mr. Speaker, Cuba is a slave state. It is not a Communist theme park. 
The people who live there have no freedoms. Parents have no rights. 
Children are the property of the government.
  More than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall which brought 
elements of freedom to the rest of the Communist bloc, only the likes 
of North Korea and Cuba persist in persecuting their people, espousing 
revolution, and exporting terrorism.
  In America we believe in freedom. Every war we have ever fought was 
fought for freedom, and no one knows the price or value of freedom 
better than ex-slaves, and no one can describe what a slave state is 
like better than ex-slaves, not tourists.
  If Juan Miguel Gonzalez was not being guarded by dozens of Cuban 
officials and police, if his parents were not under house arrest and 
his 6-year-old son were not being held, he would probably say the same.
  As the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts), the Republican Conference 
chairman, said, ``If you and your child were enslaved, and there was 
only one ticket left on the Underground Railroad . . . wouldn't you 
want your child to have it?''

                          ____________________