[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 86 (Friday, June 30, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6298-S6299]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE FOURTH OF JULY

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, in a few short days, our Nation will 
celebrate for the 224th time the signing of the Declaration of 
Independence. For some, the occasion will take on an unwarranted 
special significance because there are people who have been led to 
believe--in some cases misled, I would say--that this is the first 
Independence Day of the new millennium. For them, the celebration 
requires extra fanfare, even more spectacular displays of fireworks, 
and an even bigger party, akin to the gala bashes of last New Year's 
Eve. However, in reality, the millennial Independence Day celebration 
coincides with the 225th anniversary of the signing next year, in 2001. 
So I, at least, will reserve my extra sparklers and Roman candles for 
next year.
  I will not, however, let any confusion over the new century/new 
millennium stand in the way of one of my favorite holidays. The Fourth 
of July is a standout. It is one of the few holidays still celebrated 
on the actual anniversary of the day, as opposed to being appended to a 
weekend for convenience's sake. Though sales may beckon from nearby 
shopping malls, the holiday is not obscured beneath any major sporting 
event.
  There are no 4th of July college football championships, no 
basketball finals, no baseball World Series games to divide families 
into the camps of the spectators and the ignored. The 4th of July is 
instead, typically, celebrated by families and friends in the great 
beauty of the outdoors.
  Some years, the weather is perfect, with blue skies, moderate 
temperatures and low humidity, when the American flags are fanned by 
gentle breezes--the kind of a day that fills me with a sense of 
exhilaration and anticipation. Other years, the weather is almost 
unbearably hot and sticky, the flag hangs limply from the pole, and sun 
screen mingles with sweat to turn picnickers into melting human 
popsicles. But even these sweltering days can be relieved by mimicking 
childrens' refreshing runs through a water sprinkler arcing manmade 
rainbows across the yard, or by dousing the heat with gallons of tart 
lemonade and sweet watermelon chilled in a tub of ice. On summer days 
like these, people still resort to rocking chairs on porches and paper 
fans waved lazily before faces, much as they did when I was a boy in 
the days before air conditioning.
  The highlight of the day, is, of course, the fireworks. My favorite 
time of this holiday comes as the temperatures cool and the skies 
darken, and the fireflies' display hints of the light show to come. I 
cannot wait to see my little great-granddaughter Caroline's expression 
as she is presented with the mysteries of smoke worms, sparklers, and 
Roman candles. I hope that she will not be so afraid of the explosive 
booms of the big fireworks that she cannot enjoy the fiery display, the 
cascades of red, blue, green, and golden sparks drifting down over our 
heads.
  It is alright for her to be afraid, of course. After all, those 
fireworks, so festive now, recall the great battles fought by our young 
nation to gain its independence from mighty Britain. Two-hundred and 
twenty-four years ago, on a similar hot summer night, little Caroline's 
patriotic forbearers might have feared for their lives as the cannons 
boomed and the flintlocks cracked. The parades we watch today are a 
faint reminder of the lines of troops that may have tramped with grim 
faces through colonial towns on their way to battle with the redcoats. 
So it is, perhaps, good to be a little afraid when watching 4th of July 
fireworks. It may be the closest many of our children come to reliving 
this important time in the history of our Republic.
  Probably most children watching 4th of July fireworks do not fully 
understand the link between the holiday and this day in our nation's 
past. That our children know little about history is not news. Poll 
after poll in recent years has alerted us to huge gaps in historical 
knowledge among our nation's schoolchildren. Once again, a recent test 
of young peoples' knowledge of history, in this case, the history of 
our own nation, has demonstrated a sorry--and if I may add--scandalous 
ignorance. What is disconcerting about this most recent report is that 
it reflects the knowledge base of college seniors from some of the best 
colleges and universities in the nation, not younger children with many 
years of learning still ahead of them. If those who do not learn from 
history are truly doomed to repeat it, then I shudder to think how much 
our future might resemble that silly movie, ``Groundhog Day.''

  The test, sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, 
and administered by the University of Connecticut, consisted of asking 
college seniors at 55 top colleges and universities some 34 questions 
from a high school-level American history test. I was very sorry to 
read that nearly 80 percent of those tested earned only a ``D'' or an 
``F.'' A mere 23 percent could identify James Madison as the principal 
framer of the Constitution. More than a third did not know that the 
Constitution established the division of powers in American government. 
Just 60 percent could correctly select the 50-year period in which the 
Civil War occurred.
  Imagine that. Just 60 percent could correctly select--in other words, 
40 percent could not correctly select--the 50-year period in which the 
Civil War occurred--not the correct years, or even the correct decade, 
but the correct half century! A scant 35 percent could correctly name 
the President in office at the start of the Korean War. It was, for the 
record, President Truman.
  But, 99 percent of these college seniors correctly identified Beavis 
and Butthead as television cartoon characters. That is a sorry 
commentary, indeed. Years of experts advising parents to limit and 
monitor their children's time in front of the television, and to 
encourage their children to stretch their minds by reading or their 
muscles by playing outdoors, have come to this--a nation of 
increasingly overweight children who spend increasing numbers of hours 
watching moronic and scatological so-called humor on television and who 
do not learn the history behind some of the most fundamental tenets 
underlying our system of government. It is a disgrace--a colossal 
disgrace. Perhaps we should attempt to restrict books and learning, in 
order to make them more desirable ``forbidden fruits'' in our 
children's eyes.
  I do not want to put the blame for this sad state of affairs entirely 
on parents or even on our lowest-common-denominator-seeking 
entertainment industry. Another recent review, this time, of high 
school textbooks by the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, slammed biology and science textbooks, in particular, as 
missing the big picture behind the four basic ideas driving today's 
cutting edge research. Not one of the two dozen biology texts reviewed 
by the group, which are aimed at grades 9-12, were considered excellent 
or satisfactory. Other reviews in the past of history books have 
illustrated similar deficiencies. I fear that we are nowhere close to 
answering the century-plus old prayer by Charles Kingsley--``I hope 
that my children, at least, if not I myself, will see the day when 
ignorance of the primary laws and facts of science will be looked upon 
as a defect only second to ignorance of the primary laws of religion 
and morality.'' We are, instead, closer to fulfilling the prediction by 
Robert A. Heinlein that ``A generation which ignores history has no 
past--and no future.''
  In light of this dismal knowledge of our national history, I have 
today offered an amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services 
Appropriations Bill to provide $50 million--just a little seed corn--to 
the Secretary of Education to award grants to states to develop, 
implement, and strengthen programs that teach American history as a 
separate subject within school curricula.
  It doesn't mean social studies. That is about all they have today. 
Some people look upon social studies and claim that is history. I have 
nothing against social studies, except it is not history. What I am 
suggesting here by way of this $50 million amendment is that the

[[Page S6299]]

Secretary of Education award grants to States to develop, implement, 
and strengthen programs that teach American history--not social 
studies. The schools may, if they wish, teach social studies. But this 
is American history as a separate subject within the school curriculum. 
The importance of American history is too often undervalued in our 
nation's classrooms. As I have already indicated, poll after poll in 
recent years has alerted us to huge gaps in historical knowledge among 
our nation's schoolchildren. It is my hope that this amendment will 
encourage teachers and students to take a deeper look at the importance 
of our nation's past.
  A Supreme Court ruling just a few days ago would take prayer out of 
our school functions, about which I will have more to say on a future 
day. It seems that knowledge is already in short supply there. The 
early patriots who established our great nation, and who inscribed on 
the Liberty Bell a quotation from Leviticus 25:10, ``Proclaim liberty 
throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof,'' would surely 
be surprised at this sad turn of events. Trained in the classics, 
steeped in history as surely as that tea was steeped in Boston Harbor's 
waters, they readily mingled faith and learning, and valued both.
  I hope that on this 4th of July, some few imaginative parents might 
encourage their children to see, not the smoke of the backyard grill, 
but the smoke of battle; to hear, not the explosions of fireworks but 
the percussive thunder of cannons; and to spark in these young minds 
not a taste for firecrackers but a taste for history.
  Our Founding Fathers gambled so much for our freedom. They invested 
their lives, their families, their fortunes, and the best of their 
intellects, in winning our freedom and then protecting it with a 
marvelously thought-out system of government. For 224 years, it has 
withstood the tests of history. Our Constitution, our government, our 
nation, has bested every effort to bring it down. It has proved capable 
of stretching to cover millions more acres, millions more people, and 
millions of new circumstances, the likes of which Thomas Jefferson, 
James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and 
their peers could not have dreamed. If we are to appreciate their gift, 
if we are to carry on their legacy, we must learn about it, care about 
it, and share it with our children. I would not wish to visit upon our 
children, through ignorance, the fate of the protagonist Philip Nolan 
in ``Man Without a Country.''
  I believe it was written by Edward Everett Hale. I read it many years 
ago. It would be well if our schoolchildren and even our adults would 
read it today.
  Philip Nolan's sentence in ``Man Without a Country,'' for wanting to 
renounce his country, was to forever sail upon the high seas never 
again hearing news from home, not even the name of the homeland that he 
finally comes to realize that he loves. Our children should recognize 
the gift that is their birthright, and they deserve sufficient 
knowledge of their history to appreciate and protect the liberties that 
they enjoy.
  I know that my knowledge of our Nation's history, and my study of the 
documents and lives that shaped it, only deepen my love for my Nation. 
I have been fortunate. I have been blessed by the Creator, blessed by 
the God who reigns over the destinies of nations--blessed to live a 
full life with many opportunities for travel, but always, I share the 
sentiments in the poem by Henry Van Dyke, ``America for Me.''

                             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 [travel] for a day
     In friendly [West Virginia hills] 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.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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