[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 114 (Tuesday, September 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9422-S9423]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, before I present the Legislative Branch 
appropriations bill, let me take a moment of personal privilege to 
thank my colleagues for allowing me last night's unanimous consent 
agreement to appear on the floor of the Senate in traditional clothing 
of a Cheyenne chief.
  This is a very special day in the lives of all Native Americans, and 
a very special day in my life, too. I would hope my fellow Senators 
would have time to visit our Nation's newest Smithsonian jewel--the 
National Museum of the American Indian.
  I have just come from speaking at the opening and ask unanimous 
consent that my remarks at that opening be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

National Museum of the American Indian Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell 
                           September 21, 2004

       Senator Dan Inouye, my friend and colleague, to whom we owe 
     so much, often says that Washington is a city of monuments 
     and yet, there is not one monument to the Native people of 
     this land. This magnificent structure is that monument and in 
     it we will tell our story.
       Indeed it is a monument to the Mimbres, the Anasazi, the 
     Toltecs and Hopewell, the Chacoans, the Mayans and hundreds 
     of other cultures now long gone, who lived in communities 
     called Tikal, Tenochtitlan, Cahokia and a multitude of other 
     enlightened communities while European cities were in their 
     infancy.
       They were communities inhabited by farmers and doctors, 
     teachers and craftsmen, housewives and soldiers, priests and 
     astronomers, who with all their collective wisdom could not 
     have known that earth mother would someday be called real 
     estate. They knew not alcohol or drug abuse, Tuberculosis or 
     Cholera, Smallpox or Aids or even the common cold. How much 
     we can learn from them.
       It is a monument to the millions of Native people who died 
     of sickness, slavery, starvation and war until they were 
     reduced from an estimated 50 million people in North and 
     Central America to just over 200,000 souls in the United 
     States by 1900. Only 400 years after the old world collided 
     with their world, the Native people of this land became 
     America's first endangered species.
       In spite of this sad truth, this beautiful structure is 
     also a monument to the 190 thousand American Indian Veterans 
     who served with honor and courage in our armed forces, 
     defending a nation that was founded on religious freedom, yet 
     practicing their own was often against the law. They 
     faithfully carried out the orders of the Commander in Chief, 
     even though before 1924, they could not legally vote for him 
     because they were not considered citizens.
       It is a monument to our elders, who as children, were taken 
     from their loved ones and placed in boarding schools that 
     often had the adage: ``kill the Indian to save the child.''
       All too often they were beaten for speaking their Native 
     language or praying to their Creator. All too many chose 
     suicide as their only alternative, but those who endured 
     though shorn of their hair and stripped of their dignity were 
     never shorn of their spiritualism or stripped of their pride. 
     They are our mothers and fathers.
       It is a monument to a people who were here before the birth 
     of a boy king in Egypt called Tutankhamen and before the 
     Greek poet Homer wrote the Iliad and before Caesar watched 
     Roman chariots race in the Circus Maximus and before Christ 
     walked the hills near the Sea of Galilee.
       It is a monument to their gifts to humanity. Native 
     Americans are much more than a sum of gifts. They are more 
     than squash and tomatoes, corn and beans and potatoes, 
     pumpkins and peanuts, and all the medicines derived from 
     plants that began as Indian lore and are now used to save 
     lives around the world.
       Their supreme gift to the world, in my view, even surpasses 
     the treasures you will see in this beautiful building. It was 
     a unique system of self-governance never before tried in the 
     monarchies of Europe or Asia. It is called Democracy. It was 
     a system copied from the Council Fires of the Iroquois 
     Confederacy by Benjamin Franklin and penned for a new 
     fledgling United States of America. It is still used by this 
     Nation and is copied, in part, by almost every emerging 
     Democracy in the world.
       This system was best described by President Abraham Lincoln 
     as a government of the people, by the people and for the 
     people.
       And last, we open this monument to all the dreamers who 
     helped make today come true.
       As I leave public office in a few short months, I am 
     reminded of a stanza from the

[[Page S9423]]

     Navaho chant of The Beauty Way. The Navaho people sing:

     In the House of Long Life,
     There I wander,
     In the House of Happiness,
     There I Wander,
     Beauty is before me and behind me,
     Beauty is above me and below me,
     Beauty is all around me,
     With it I wander,
     In old age traveling,
     With it I wander,
     On the beautiful trail Am I,
     With it I wander

       Thanks to the efforts of all those assembled today and so 
     many more, we celebrate the opening of this house of 
     happiness, this house of long life and walk the trail of 
     beauty.
       To all our Native American friends here today I say: the 
     sacred hoop has been restored. The circle is complete. And 
     the Hopi prophecy of the reemergence of the Native People has 
     come true.
       It is now my great honor to introduce the man who, in my 
     view, is singularly the most responsible for this magnificent 
     structure.
       He is my friend, my colleague, and my mentor.
       Among Native Americans--whether they be from Hawaii, the 
     lower 48 or Alaska he is without peer.
       His quiet demeanour and gentle way, his leadership and 
     perseverance, his record as a military hero, and his years of 
     service as a United States Senator are well known to all.
       Among our Native People he is known as a warrior chief 
     among warriors.
       Please help me welcome this great American--Senator Dan 
     Inouye of Hawaii.

                          ____________________