[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 26 (Wednesday, March 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H814-H818]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REWRITING AMERICAN HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Carter). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, as I sit and listen to my colleagues 
discuss the events in Haiti, I cannot help but think about the fact 
that although they are quite concerned about the recent events and that 
Mr. Aristide has been ousted, it is important I think for us all to 
recognize that it is the people of Haiti that ousted Mr. Aristide; and 
whether our colleagues in the House of Representatives do not like that 
or not, it is really irrelevant.
  He was, in fact, a socialist and rather incompetent administrator; 
and it is not surprising that his regime came to an end.
  At any rate, let me pose a question, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, would 
you believe that in the textbook in a school district in New Mexico, an 
introduction to that textbook which is, by the way, called ``500 Years 
of Chicano History In Pictures,'' states that, and remember, this is a 
textbook in a public school in the United States of America, 
specifically now in New Mexico. And this is not a question being posed. 
What I am going to read here is not what somebody just suggests.

                              {time}  1945

  This is what the textbook purports to be true. It said that this 
textbook was written ``in response to the bicentennial celebration of 
the 1776 American Revolution.'' You think good, nice idea, ``and it's 
lies.'' Its stated purpose is to ``celebrate our resistance.'' Who are 
they talking to here? Celebrate our resistance to being colonized and 
absorbed by racist empire builders?
  The book describes defenders of the Alamo as slave owners, land 
speculators and Indian killers, calls Davey Crockett a cannibal, and it 
said that the 1857 war on Mexico, not war with Mexico, war on Mexico 
was an unprovoked U.S. invasion.
  Chapters include headings like Death to the Invader. This is the 
chapter

[[Page H815]]

heading: U.S. Conquest and Betrayal. Here is another chapter heading: 
We Are Now a U.S. Colony in Occupied America, and They Stole the Land.
  Now this is a textbook. This is what has been printed. This is what 
has been adopted. This is what is being used in schools in New Mexico. 
I do not know how widespread this is. I do not know how many other 
schools have adopted it. I do not know whether it is on anybody's 
recommended reading list for children, but I do know that, as bizarre 
as all of this sounds, it is not unique. This is not an aberration. 
This kind of revisionist history, this kind of venomous descriptions of 
the United States is not unique.
  That should concern us all, I think, and it is what I want to talk 
about to some extent this evening: What is happening to the teaching of 
our history, our culture and the heritage we call Western civilization, 
and why I think it is important to address this issue in this body.
  There was an old chant during the 1970s, I think it was, maybe late 
1960s, early 1970s. College campuses in reference to maybe Ho Chi Minh. 
Students would chant Ho Ho Ho, Western Civ has got to go. I remember 
that on my campus as a matter of fact, and it has gone by the way. It 
has gone. Seventy percent of all of the elite institutions of higher 
education in this country have dumped it from their course list and 
from the curriculum. They will not teach Western civilization anymore, 
and quite frankly, if this is a reflection of the way Western 
civilization is taught to students, not just in high schools but 
colleges, which of course it is, then I am glad they are not teaching 
it anymore because they are not teaching Western civilization. They are 
teaching a hatred for Western civilization and a hatred for everything 
we are as a Nation because, Mr. Speaker, we are a reflection of that 
civilization, a Judeo-Christian heritage about which we can be very 
proud, the story of which we should pass on to the children who come 
into our schools and the immigrants who come into this country.
  Let us go through some other interesting examples of what we have 
found in the textbooks of America and why today at 10 o'clock across 
the street I and several other Members gathered to announce that we 
have introduced a resolution into this body. Simply put, the resolution 
says that children graduating from schools in this country should be 
able to articulate an appreciation for Western civilization. That is 
it. That is it. Does not mandate anything on schools. Does not demand 
that we change textbooks. Does not do anything. It just says that we 
think, as a body, that children graduating from our schools should be 
able to articulate an appreciation for Western civilization.
  Would you think, Mr. Speaker, that that is a contentious amendment or 
resolution? Would you think that that is something where people would 
respond vitriolically and say how dare you? But they did. But they did.
  The National Education Association thinks it is deplorable. By the 
way, there were similar press conferences held throughout the country 
today by State legislators or press releases they sent out saying they 
were introducing similar resolutions in their State legislature. We 
have probably, I do not know, 10 or 15 State legislatures that have 
agreed to take on this challenge. We have hundreds of individuals who 
have gone to our Web site on their own. I mean, it was amazing that 
even before we announced this today, we had all kinds of folks who had 
gone to the Web site, www.house.gov/tancredo, pulled up, and when the 
pop up came up, it is called Our Heritage, Our Hope. They went to that 
page, and they saw the resolution. They saw the resolution that the 
State legislature was going to introduce, and they saw a resolution 
they could bring to their school board, a similar resolution, asking 
that the board actually prepare students who would be able to 
articulate an appreciation for Western civilization. There is plenty of 
opposition to this. It is just amazing but there is.
  People ask me why did I do this, why did I find it necessary to 
actually take this action and introduce a resolution. Well, Mr. 
Speaker, my colleagues know that I spend a great deal of time on the 
floor of this House and talking to you and other Members about 
immigration related issues and my concerns that our country is being 
divided up, it is being balkanized, that we are not encouraging 
assimilation, that we are encouraging this fragmentation of America by 
telling people who come here that they should not become part of the 
American experience; there is nothing really good about it; that they 
should keep their own languages. We should teach those languages in the 
school instead of English. We should encourage them to stay separate. 
We should encourage them actually to even keep their own political 
affiliation with the country they came from. We tell them they can 
become dual citizens. We send all kinds of messages to them that there 
is nothing good about America. Why would they want to attach themselves 
to this kind of a country?

  We tell them this and we tell their children that when they come to 
school, and we wonder why we are having a hard time actually creating a 
homogenous society. We really wonder what is happening to us. This is 
one reason why I address this issue, because I believe that we are 
telling our children and the children of immigrants that there is 
nothing of value in Western civilization or in the United States of 
America.
  I went to a school in my district about 2 or 3 weeks ago when we were 
on break. It was a high school, brand new high school, good principal, 
good teachers, as far as I could tell certainly, kids that had been 
relatively well-schooled in math maybe and reading. I do not know. I 
cannot tell you that I saw their CSAT scores or anything, but it seemed 
like a good school. Brand new, all the best accoutrements of education, 
and all these kids came to talk in an auditorium with me, and we had a 
really great kind of discussion, and then they started sending 
questions up to me.
  One question that was posed to me was this. They said, what do you 
think is the most severe problem we face in this country, and I said, 
let me ask a question here, and then I can tell you what I think that 
problem is. I said how many people here in this auditorium, 150 I would 
say, 150 to 200, I am not sure how many, I said how many people here 
would say that you believe you live in the best country in the world. 
Simple question. There was a pause. A few hands began to go up. Maybe 
two dozen eventually raised their hand out of 150 to 200 people. I 
said, well, let me ask you about Western civilization. Do you realize 
you are a product of that and do you think by and large it is a good 
thing? Are you proud of that? Well, of course, no response to that one 
really. I said, well, then I can answer your question about what I 
think is the biggest problem we face. This is it.
  Now, there were other kids in that room, Mr. Speaker, that I felt 
wanted to say, yes. You could tell that they were. I have been a 
teacher, was a teacher for years, and I have seen that look on their 
face. It is, I put my hand up, he may call on me, and I will be able to 
actually defend this proposition. That was the feeling I got that held 
them back, not necessarily that they did not like America, they did not 
think it was a good country, the best country to live in. It was, they 
could not defend it, they could not defend that proposition.
  You wonder why. You wonder how it could be that by the time a child 
gets to high school that they would feel uncomfortable with saying, 
yeah, yeah, man, this is great, it is a country of freedom and we have 
got the Bill of Rights and just some things that you maybe reel off 
that you think are pretty good things and the reason why you live here, 
but they could not.
  Not too long thereafter I met with a whole group of teachers. These 
were teachers from the Cherokee Creek schools. They were all social 
studies teachers. It was one of those in-service days. They were all 
supposed to come and hear me speak as part of their in-service. Some of 
them boycotted, would not come, because I was the speaker, 
understandable, but I would say again maybe 75 to 100 teachers.
  I brought this issue up, and I told them what had happened in the 
other school. I said, do you believe it? Do you believe it? Again, 
maybe a couple of dozen, and I thought to myself, no wonder, of course. 
It is not a surprise then if the teachers in this room do not believe 
that they live in the best country

[[Page H816]]

in the world, why would they teach their children that? Why would they 
teach students that? But what they teach them is to be critical of 
everything.
  I want to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, I do not want us to tell children 
that all of our history is of glory and promise and hope. Certainly 
that is not true. Certainly there are many things we have done wrong, 
but let me suggest, Mr. Speaker, there is something absolutely unique 
about this country that deserves to be told, a story that deserves to 
be told and it is this.
  Of all the countries on this planet, one, just one, started on the 
basis of ideas and ideals back in the 1700s. Every other country came 
about because somebody carved it up, conquered it, drew the lines or 
whatever, but we started the whole concept of starting a country with 
an idea. And where do these ideas come from? They are the ideas of 
Western civilization. They are the products of literally thousands of 
years of human development, starting with the Greeks and the Romans.
  Certain concepts are uniquely Western. No other civilization can 
claim them. How about the concept of the rule of law as opposed to the 
rule of man? Uniquely Western. It is ours. It is good. It is a good 
thing. We are trying our best to right now plant those seeds in far off 
lands and are spending treasure, both monetary and human, in pursuit of 
that goal. The rule of law over the rule of man, not a dictator, not 
Saddam or Qusay or Uday, but the rule of law. That is what we are 
trying to do.
  It is a noble cause. The men and women who are trying to plant those 
seeds are being fired on every day, some losing their lives, seems like 
every day.

                              {time}  2000

  But it is for a noble cause, Mr. Speaker. I believe that.
  But how long would I believe those things if I had been taught every 
single day things like this: in a textbook called ``Across the 
Centuries,'' which is used for seventh grade history, and, boy, I have 
to put the word history in quotation marks there. That is my editorial 
comment. The book defines the word jihad as, ``To do one's best to 
resist temptation and overcome evil.'' So now this is what children are 
taught the word jihad means.
  When this child watches a program on television and this word is 
used, and it is a word used in conjunction with someone who has just 
blown himself or herself up, and a lot of other innocent human beings 
around them, this kid is supposed to think that that is what somebody 
is doing in order to resist temptation and overcome evil. And if we 
condemn jihad against the United States, then we are condemning someone 
who is just simply trying to overcome evil. This is what we tell our 
children?
  In 2002, the ``New Guidelines for Teaching History'' in New Jersey's 
public schools failed to even mention America's Founding Fathers, the 
Pilgrims, or the Mayflower. In the Prentice Hall history textbook, used 
by students in Palm Beach County high schools, titled ``A World 
Conflict,'' the first five pages of the World War II chapter focus 
entirely on topics such as gender roles in the Armed Forces, racial 
segregation and the war, internment camps, and women and the war 
effort.
  This is the way we introduce World War II to the students. It is all 
about this stuff, and not about trying to save civilization from a dark 
age; not about trying to stop a psychopathic killer who would have in 
fact destroyed the world. No, no, World War II was what do we think 
about the gender roles in the Armed Forces.
  We have this list and many, many others on our Web site; and again I 
am going to say, Mr. Speaker, that it is www.house.gov/tancredo, and 
one can go to ``Our Heritage, Our Hope.'' Mr. Speaker, there are people 
who can help us out there. They can sign up and help us take a 
resolution to their school board. It is all on there, and we will give 
them all the help they want.
  Now, here is McDougal's textbook. And, by the way, I used a textbook 
30 years ago by McDougal that is completely different from this one 
when I taught seventh, eighth, and ninth grade civics at Drake Junior 
High in Arvada, Colorado.
  Here is what this one says about American history. It teaches that 
Sitting Bull had strength of character while Custer was a fool and rode 
to his death. Now I am not saying Sitting Bull did not have strength of 
character and purpose; but, again, look at the way all these things are 
presented. It discusses U.S. soldiers killing Indian women and children 
in Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, but fails to mention the Indian 
killings and the kidnapping of white women and children the summer 
before Sand Creek.
  It devotes 180 lines of text to discrimination in the United States 
in the late 1800s and 1900s, 180 lines of text. It notes in the context 
of the Nazi Holocaust that George Custer used the term ``final 
solution.'' It devotes 107 lines to the racist internment of Japanese 
during World War II, but nothing on the Japanese rape of Nanking or the 
1942 Bataan death march. Not a word. It claims that anybody who opposes 
unlimited immigration is influenced by racism; that they were 
influenced by racism, especially in the 1920s, and were anti-immigrant.
  Further, it editorializes that George W. Bush's conservative 
administration and policies are extreme. This is a textbook. It states 
that the Reagan-Bush ``conservative agenda'' limits advances in civil 
rights for minorities and that the conservatives' bid to dismantle 
Great Society social programs could be compared to abandoning the 
Nation.
  I am telling you, Mr. Speaker. I mean, yes, I expect that here on the 
floor of the House. I expect to hear that from our opponents. 
Understandably, this is the place where this kind of tussle goes on. I 
expect to see it on the editorial pages of the papers in my district. 
They are all pretty liberal. I expect to see it by commentators in 
those newspapers, in the Wall Street Journal, in the New York Times, 
and The Washington Post. Yes, I expect to see all of this. But in a 
textbook? In a history textbook?
  It also states that communism had potential totalitarian 
underpinnings. Potential? It contrasts Chiang Kai-Shek's repressive 
rule in China with Mao Zedong's benevolence toward peasants in the 
1940s. It fails to mention the death of about 65 million Chinese after 
Mao came to power in 1949.
  It classes sex roles in marriages with slavery as instances of 
inequality. It states that sex roles in marriage and in the family 
foster discrimination and inequality.
  The Prentice Hall textbook ``America: Pathway to the Present'' 
contains references to Ngo Dinh Diem's repression in South Vietnam, but 
no references to the purge by Communists in North Vietnam from 1951 to 
1956, which killed about 50,000 Vietnamese.
  It states that Bush's 1,088 ads attacking Dukakis created a nasty 
contest, alienating some voters and contributing to low voter turnout.
  It discusses the introduction of Old World diseases into the New 
World in the Colombian Exchange, but it does not discuss American 
diseases brought back to Europe. In fact, a lethal strain of syphilis, 
probably from America, killed many Europeans in the early 1500s.
  Now, all these things are factual. And I am not suggesting for a 
moment that we should not talk about the problems that happened when 
Columbus came and the clash of civilizations. Would it be, I wonder, 
chauvinistic here and too one-sided to suggest that in the course of 
world history that whenever two civilizations clash the one with the 
greater technology is almost always, in fact always is the victor. And 
in the case of the clash of civilizations here on this continent, the 
fact is that the greater technology, the civilization with the greater 
technology, was the victor.
  It does not excuse all of the problems that were inherent in that 
time frame and in that manifest destiny that we were pursuing. It does 
not excuse it and should not be overlooked. But is it the only story? 
Is that the only way to project American history and Western 
Civilization? Is that the only context we can actually think of to 
discuss this in for students? Is there anything that has happened here 
worthy of note from a positive standpoint?

  The same ``Pathways to the Present'' argues that traditional sex 
roles deny women full equality because it does not empower them to 
perform as men. It

[[Page H817]]

fails to mention in the brief reference it has to Thanksgiving that the 
Pilgrims were thanking God.
  Now, there is Holt Rinehart Winston's ``American Nation in the Modern 
Era.''
  And why I want to go through these, Mr. Speaker, I know it is 
lengthy, but I want to show the things I have pointed out were not 
aberrations. They were not just radical examples of this radical 
multiculturalist philosophy that actually permeates our system and our 
schools. It is the norm.
  I talked yesterday to an editor at the Rocky Mountain News about this 
issue, and he said, well, you know, I do not know. I look at my kid's 
textbook and, admittedly, she is in a private school, so I am not sure 
it is the same thing, but I do not see a lot of this stuff. But he 
said, I do notice they are just not being taught American history, not 
any kind. Not this kind, but not any kind.
  That certainly may be the case, that the problem here is there is 
simply a lack of American history or Western Civilization being taught 
all together. Whatever is the problem, whether it is this kind of 
revisionist history that is being taught, whether it is these kinds of 
skewed examples of who we are and what we are, or the fact that there 
is nothing at all, there is a problem. There is a problem because when 
we ask children, as I did, if they believed in who we are and what we 
are, they could not defend it. This is problematic, and it is something 
we should try to address.
  Holt Rinehart Winston's ``American Nation in the Modern Era'' 
includes an exercise calling for students to criticize but not to 
defend nativists' support for immigration restrictions in the 1800s.
  Again, could it be possible that some people during that period of 
time were concerned about things other than the race of the people 
coming in to the United States? Could it possibly be?
  This links anybody who is opposed to immigration reform as racist and 
discriminating. It associates immigration restrictions with intolerance 
and discrimination.
  I am surprised I did not get a mention in this book, but it is a 
little too early, I guess, for me.
  It contains the theme that the only cause of violence in America, 
especially in the South in the Reconstruction area, were white racists. 
No other objection to radical reconstructionism. It devotes 1,456 lines 
to social protests by ethnic and other groups from the 1950s to the 
1970s, but far fewer lines to U.S. involvement in World War I and II.
  These things are not unique to just textbooks, by the way. At our 
colleges and universities there are a lot of awards that are given 
every year, called the Pollys, and they are for outrageous activities 
or behaviors or whatever on college campuses. They are as follows:
  These are some of the events on college campuses: University of 
California at Berkeley. Student radicals broke into a Berkeley student 
office, stole the entire 2,000 press run of a conservative newspaper, 
the California Patriot, then threatened the editors with death when 
they filed a police report. It is believed the crime was committed by 
members of MeChA, a Mexican liberation group at Berkeley.
  At Tufts University, hooded leftists assaulted a conservative 
student. The university let the attackers off with only a warning.
  At San Diego State and at the University of North Carolina, campus 
administrators blame campus patriots and America for the terrorist 
attacks on September 11.
  That was 2002.
  The University of Oregon. Elements of the so-called Animal Liberation 
Movement specializes in ``liberating lab animals and destroying private 
property through vandalism and arson'' have an office at the University 
of Oregon in Eugene. Their newspaper, paid for by student fees, is The 
Insurgent. The December 8 issue, which contained an 8-page insert 
titled ``The ALF Primer: Your Guide to Economic Sabotage and the Animal 
Liberation Front''. It talks about arson and what else you can do to 
push this particular idea and agenda. A simple way to burn a vehicle is 
to place a sheet or blanket on top or underneath and soak it with a 
flammable liquid.
  The university does not go after this group. They let them stay on 
campus.

                              {time}  2015

  The textbooks, of course, and professors at universities, things that 
are said about America and our involvement in Iraq, it is all 
absolutely incredible and absolutely one-sided. So that certainly does 
not help.
  What one would hope is that children coming out of high schools in 
this country would have what is often referred to in the parlance in 
edu-speak as critical thinking skills. That is what we are supposed to 
teach children, critical thinking skills, so they are able to look at 
two sides of an argument and make some intelligent decision about which 
side is correct. But you can only have critical thinking skills if you 
are taught both sides of an issue, if you are shown there are two sides 
to these issues.
  When children come out of our high schools and into these kinds of 
institutions, and we have literally scores of examples of things that 
happen and are stated on campuses all over the United States, it is no 
wonder that we see strange and bizarre reactions. For example, Antonin 
Scalia, a noted jurist speaking recently at an ivy league college 
almost was not allowed to speak. The students and professors protested 
the fact that he was allowed to speak on a college campus. They had big 
demonstrations outside. He is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court, a 
noted jurist; and we had people in our country at institutions of 
higher education, and I have to put that in quotes, too, saying that he 
could not speak because what he said they did not agree with. It did 
not fit the model, this radical multiculturalist model that they had 
been force-fed for years. It is intolerance that we are, in fact, 
promulgating; intolerance for any other kind of idea other than that 
pushed by the radical left and the cult of multiculturalists out there.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe it is problematic, and I believe there are 
things that we can and should do about it. If nothing else, we should 
simply start a debate about this. I hope that our resolution today 
helps generate some discussion and does help generate a debate about 
what exactly it is we expect from the students that are in our schools 
and what we expect from people coming into this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I had occasion to talk to a bishop, a Catholic bishop in 
Denver, Colorado, named Bishop Gomez. We had a breakfast meeting awhile 
back. During the course of the discussion which naturally revolved 
around the issue of immigration, and I say naturally because that seems 
to be the issue I find myself discussing more and more often, Bishop 
Gomez said something to me and the other people at the table that I 
thought was quite incredible. He said, Congressman, I do not know why 
you are worried about the Mexicans coming into this country. He said, 
They do not want to be Americans. That was his comment.
  I said, Bishop, that is the problem, of course. That does not make me 
feel good. If you think I am relieved by the fact that we have people 
coming into the country by the millions who do not want to be 
Americans, combined with the fact that everywhere they go in our 
society we tell them they should not be, if you believed what was in 
the textbooks that I just quoted, why would you want to connect with 
this country? You would want to take the benefits of a good job and 
send money back home, but you would not want to connect with it 
emotionally or politically. You would say, no, I think I will keep my 
citizenship in my country of origin. And between 5 and 10 million, huge 
numbers of people, are claiming dual citizenship in this country, which 
never happened before.
  There are several great books, of course, but one is called ``The 
Clash of Civilizations'' by Samuel Huntington. I found it to be quite 
profound and quite provocative, and I certainly recommend it. But I 
harken back to another book I read a long time ago. It is called ``The 
Disuniting of America,'' and the author was a guy by the name of James 
Schlesinger, Jr. Mr. Schlesinger is not known as a conservative pundit 
or author, and he is not. He is a liberal. But the book was, I thought, 
quite compelling. Again, I recommend it to anyone. It is a great book, 
``The Disuniting of America.'' He talks in

[[Page H818]]

ways far more articulate than I, and he talks about this phenomenon. He 
talks about dividing this country and what we are doing to ourselves 
and what is happening to us. Why is it so hard for us to think about 
America and Western Civilization as a place and a civilization 
respectively of value? Is it because we are afraid to be patriots or to 
teach children to be patriots?
  There is a fascinating article by Donald Kagan in ``The 
Intercollegiate Review'' in the spring 2002 called ``Terrorism and the 
Intellectuals.'' He says, ``Free countries like our own have had even 
more powerful claim on the patriotism of their citizens than do others, 
and our country has an even greater need of it than most. Every country 
requires a high degree of cooperation and unity among its citizens if 
it is to achieve the internal harmony that every good citizen requires. 
Unity and cooperation must rest on something shared and valued in 
common.
  ``Most countries have relied upon the common ancestry and traditions 
of their people as the basis of their unity, but the United States of 
America can rely on no such commonality. We are an enormously diverse 
and varied people, almost all immigrants or the descendants of 
immigrants. We come from every country on the face of the Earth. Our 
forebears spoke, and many of us still speak, many different languages. 
And all the races and religions of the world are to be found among us. 
The great strengths provided by this diversity are matched by great 
dangers. We are always vulnerable to divisions among us that can be 
exploited, to set one group against another and thus to destroy the 
unity that enables us to flourish.
  ``We live in a time when civic devotion has been undermined and 
national unity is under attack. The individualism that is so crucial a 
part of our tradition is often used to destroy civic responsibility. 
The idea of a common American culture, enriched by the diverse elements 
that compose it but available equally to all, is under assault. 
Attempts are made to replace our common culture with narrower and 
politically divisive programs that are certain to set one group of 
Americans against another.''

  Mr. Speaker, it is called the textbooks of American public education.
  He continues, ``The answer to these problems and our only hope for 
the future must lie in education, which philosophers have rightly put 
at the center of the propagation of justice and the good society. We 
rightly look to education to solve the pressing current problems of our 
economic and technological competition with other nations, but we must 
not neglect the inescapable political and ethical effects of education. 
We in the academic community have too often engaged in miseducation. If 
we encourage separatism, we will get separatism and the terrible 
conflicts in a society that it brings. If we encourage rampant 
individualism to trample on the need for a common citizenship, if we 
ignore civic education, the forging of a single people, the building up 
of a legitimate patriotism, then we will find ourselves a Nation of 
selfish individuals heedless of the needs of others. We will have the 
war of all against all, and we will have no common defense.
  ``The civic sense America needs can come only from a common 
educational effort. In telling the story of the American political 
experience, we must insist on the honest search for truth. We must 
permit no comfortable self-deception or evasion, no seeking of 
scapegoats; but the story of this country's vision of a free, 
democratic republic and of its struggle to achieve it need not fear the 
most thorough examination. Our country's story can proudly stand in 
comparison to that of any other land, and that story provides the basis 
for a civic devotion we so badly need.
  ``In spite of the shock caused by the attacks on New York and 
Washington and the discovery of anthrax in the mail, I am not sure we 
really understand how serious is the challenge that now faces us. We 
are only at the beginning of a long and deadly war that will inflict 
much loss and pain, one that will require sacrifice and steady 
determination during the very dark hours to come. We must be powerfully 
armed, morally as well as materially, if we are to do what must be 
done. That will take courage and unity, and these must rest on a 
justified and informed patriotism to sustain us through the worst 
times.
  ``A verse by Edna St. Vincent Millay provides a clear answer to the 
question of why Americans should love their country:

     Not for the flag
     Of any land because myself was born there
     Will I give up my life.
     But will I love that land where man is free,
     And that will I defend.

  ``Ours is such a land.
  ``Up to now, too many American intellectuals and too many faculty 
members of our greater universities have been part of the country's 
problem. If we are to overcome the dangers that face us, we will need 
them to become part of the solution. My hope is that the natural, 
admirable, vitally necessary patriotism that is now gaining strength 
and expression among ordinary people of our land will help to educate 
those among us who feel intellectually superior to them. We will need 
that patriotism in the long, dangerous, and difficult struggle that 
lies before us.''
  Certainly I cannot say it better than Mr. Kagan. Again, that was 
Donald Kagan from ``The Intercollegiate Review'' in the spring of 2002, 
``Terrorism and the Intellectuals.''
  My little attempt, Mr. Speaker, to do what Mr. Kagan is suggesting is 
the resolution I mentioned earlier today. Again, it simply says that 
all children graduating from schools in this country should be able to 
articulate an appreciation for Western Civilization. It will be 
interesting to see and hear the debate. It will be interesting to see 
and hear people say, no, they should not.

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