[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 132 (Tuesday, September 16, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H7539]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CONSTITUTION WEEK

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, this is Constitution Week, the week that we 
honor our Constitution, drafted in 1787 on September 15 and signed on 
the 17th.
  I spoke to a class about it in Memphis. I looked at the class, which 
is almost entirely African American, and I thought about the 
Constitution having in it slavery and not having in it a woman's right 
to vote.
  Then I have been watching Ken Burns' ``The Roosevelts'' and seeing 
how Teddy Roosevelt would have thought about where we are today. Teddy 
Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt knew we needed a central government to 
work for the people. Teddy Roosevelt said the Constitution was for the 
people, not the people for the Constitution. He put right first and he 
fought the trusts and he looked after labor and he looked after the 
average American worker. He would have been repelled at the idea of not 
having a Voting Rights Act, as he had Booker T. Washington, the first 
African American in the White House.
  He would have been concerned about what this Congress is doing today 
and the prospect of war and our power to declare war and not acting and 
not exercising our constitutional prerogatives.
  The Ken Burns series is a tribute to two great men and a great 
family, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, who made America better. I wish 
this Congress would do the same.

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