[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 150 (Thursday, December 7, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2141-E2142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       TRIBUTE IN MEMORY OF FORMER CONGRESSMAN HENRY B. GONZALEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 5, 2000

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise to pay 
tribute to the remarkable life and career of our trusted former 
colleague, the Honorable Henry Gonzalez of Texas. Dogged, brilliant, 
committed, indefatigable, a champion for the destitute--such was our 
Chairman of the Banking Committee. During my early years in the 
Congress, as a member of that committee, I had the great pleasure of 
serving with this able gentleman. He served in the tradition of 
Franklin Roosevelt, a man who believed in opportunity for all Americans 
and dedicated his life to that cause.

[[Page E2142]]

  On the Banking Committee, his work in improving housing for people 
from all walks of life and incomes is legendary. In him ticked a strong 
democratic heart. Every corner of America is better because of his 
service. He stood up for human rights here at home and abroad, no 
matter what the cost. He was unflinching when he knew his cause was 
just.
  Recently, as we broke ground for the dedication of the new World War 
II Memorial in our Nation's capital, I especially named Henry Gonzalez 
as a key figure in congressional efforts to pass legislation to bring 
that element to full life as a part of our Nation's history. He was a 
gentleman with many facets, and many concerns. He was a son of the 
World War II generation that preserved liberty for modern times, and 
his selfless dedication grew from that experience and his own humble 
beginnings. I include here those remarks for the Record.
  In extending deepest sympathy to his family, including his son 
Charles who has succeeded him in this Congress, I am mindful that those 
of us who have been influenced by his great mind and soul have been 
lifted to service above self. May he rest in peace and the good works 
that he fashioned inspire others for generations to come. Truly he was 
a man both ahead of his time, and a pioneer to the future.

    Remarks by the Honorable Marcy Kaptur at World War II Memorial 
               Groundbreaking Ceremony, November 11, 2000

       Reverend Clergy, Mr. President, Honored Guests All. We, the 
     children of freedom, on this first Veterans' Day of the new 
     century, gather to offer highest tribute, long overdue, and 
     our everlasting respect, gratitude, and love to Americans of 
     the 20th century whose valor and sacrifice yielded the modern 
     triumph of liberty over tyranny. This is a memorial not to a 
     man but to a time and a people.
       This is a long-anticipated day. It was 1987 when this 
     Memorial was first conceived. As many have said, it has taken 
     longer to build the Memorial than to fight the war. Today, 
     with the support of Americans from all walks of life, our 
     veterans service organizations and overwhelming, bipartisan 
     support in Congress, the Memorial is a reality. I do not have 
     the time to mention all the Members of Congress who deserve 
     thanks for their contributions to this cause, but certain 
     Members in particular must be recognized. Rep. Sonny 
     Montgomery, now retired, a true champion of veterans in the 
     House, and Senator Strom Thurmond, our unfailing advocate in 
     the Senate, as well as Rep. Bill Clay, of Missouri and two 
     retired Members, Rep. Henry Gonzalez and Senator John Glenn. 
     At the end of World War I, the French poet Guillaume 
     Apollinaire declaring himself ``against forgetting'' wrote of 
     his fallen comrades: ``You asked neither for glory nor for 
     tears.''
       Five years ago, at the close of the 50th anniversary 
     ceremonies for World War II, Americans consecrated this 
     ground with soil from the resting places around the world of 
     those who served and died on all fronts. We, too, declared 
     ourselves against forgetting. We pledged then that America 
     would honor and remember their selfless devotion on this Mall 
     that commemorates democracy's march.
       Apollinaire's words resonated again as E.B. Sledge 
     reflected on the moment the Second World War ended: ``. . . 
     sitting in a stunned silence, we remembered our dead . . . so 
     many dead . . . Except for a few widely scattered shouts of 
     joy, the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed, trying to 
     comprehend a world without war.''
       Yes. Individual acts by ordinary men and women in an 
     extraordinary time--one exhausting skirmish, one determined 
     attack, one valiant act of heroism, one digged determination 
     to give your all, one heroic act after another--by the 
     thousands--by the millions--bound our country together as it 
     has not been since, bound the living to the dead in common 
     purpose and in service to freedom, and to life.
       As a Marine wrote about his company, `` I cannot say too 
     much for the men . . . I have seen a spirit of brotherhood . 
     . . that goes with one foot here amid the friends we see, and 
     the other foot there amid the friends we see no longer, and 
     one foot is as steady as the other.''
       Today we break ground. It is only fitting that the event 
     that reshaped the modern world in the 20th century and marked 
     our nation's emergence from isolationism to the leader of the 
     free world be commemorated on this site.
       Our work will not be complete until the light from the 
     central sculpture of the Memorial intersects the shadow cast 
     by the Washington Monument across the Lincoln Memorial 
     Reflecting Pool and the struggles for freedom of the 18th, 
     19th, and 20th centuries converge in one moment.
       Here freedom will shine. She will shine.
       This Memorial honors those still living who served abroad 
     and on the home front and also those lost--the nearly 300,000 
     Americans who died in combat, and those millions who survived 
     the war but who have since passed away. Among that number I 
     count my inspired constituent Roger Durbin of Berkey, Ohio, a 
     letter carrier who fought bravely with the Army's 101st 
     Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge and who, because 
     he could not forget, asked me in 1987 why there was no 
     memorial in our nation's Capitol to which he could bring his 
     grandchildren. Roger is with us spiritually today. To help us 
     remember him and his contribution to America, we have with us 
     a delegation from his American Legion Post, the Joseph Diehn 
     Post in Sylvania, Ohio, and his beloved family, his widow 
     Marian his granddaughter, Melissa, an art historian and 
     member of the World War II Memorial Advisory Board.
       This is a memorial to heroic sacrifice. It is also a 
     memorial for the living--positioned between the Washington 
     Monument and Lincoln Memorial--to remember how freedom in the 
     20th century was preserved for ensuing generations.
       Poet Keith Douglas died in foreign combat in 1944 at age 
     24. In predicting his own end, he wrote about what he called 
     time's wrong-way telescope, and how he thought it might 
     simplify him as people looked back at him over the distance 
     of years. ``Through that lens,'' he demanded, ``see if I 
     seem/substance or nothing: of the world/deserving mention, or 
     charitable oblivion . . .'' And then he ended with the 
     request, ``Remember me when I am dead/and simplify me when 
     I'm dead.'' What a strange and striking charge that is!
       And yet here today we pledge that as the World War II 
     Memorial is built, through the simplifying elements of stone, 
     water, and light. There will be no charitable oblivion. 
     America will not forget. The world will not forget. When we 
     as a people can no longer remember the complicated 
     individuals who walked in freedom's march--a husband, a 
     sister, a friend, a brother, and uncle, a father--when those 
     individuals become simplified in histories and in family 
     stories, still when future generations journey to this holy 
     place, America will not forget. Freedom's children will not 
     forget.

     

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