[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 1, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H1398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Schiff) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, 100 years ago next month, on April 2, 1917, 
President Woodrow Wilson stood in this Chamber and asked Congress to 
declare war on Germany. While the proximate cause for America's entry 
into World War I was Germany's campaign of unrestricted submarine 
warfare, Wilson and his supporters were also motivated by the belief 
that they, and the force of American arms, could deliver Europe from 
its intractable squabbles and, in so doing, make the world safe for 
democracy.
  It was not until the following spring that the American doughboys 
were committed to the Western Front in large numbers, but they provided 
not only the additional combat power needed to break the exhausted 
Germans within months, but also imbued a sense of moral purpose into 
what had been nearly 4 years of futile slaughter.
  A generation later, millions of American GIs returned to help free 
Europe from Adolf Hitler, while millions more pushed Japan back from 
its imperial conquests in Asia. This time we stayed--the living to keep 
the peace and prevent one form of tyranny being replaced by another and 
the dead as silent witnesses to the cost of liberation.
  The United States worked to create the United Nations and a host of 
other international organizations designed to bind together humanity 
and avoid another catastrophic world war. We extended aid and 
friendship to our former enemies through the Marshall Plan and rebuilt 
Western Europe into an alliance of democracies, a shining contrast to 
the Soviet Union's eastern satellites.
  America's commitment to peace was matched by an equally resolute 
willingness to defend freedom. When the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin 
in 1948, in an attempt to force the Western allies out of their half of 
the city, American pilots flew missions around the clock for 11 months 
to keep the city supplied until the Soviets relented.
  Walls, barbed wire, and stifling oppression characterized the Soviet 
bloc and Communist Asia. Against this, the United States marshaled its 
greatest weapons--individual liberty, democratic governance, and a 
market economy to discredit and defeat communism.
  When the Cold War ended four decades after it had begun, it was the 
fall of the Berlin Wall that symbolized the triumph of freedom and 
seemingly heralded a new era of peace and prosperity.
  Nearly three decades have passed since communism's collapse and the 
global harmony that many hoped for has been replaced by an 
international order more challenging to American leadership and 
American ideals than any we have seen in my lifetime.

                              {time}  1030

  Intolerance, ultra-nationalism, and crude populism are rising across 
the developed world and threaten to undo the work of decades. After a 
century of American leadership of the international community, there 
was a sense among many here at home and around the world that we have 
lost our will to lead, that we will no longer honor President Kennedy's 
commitment to ``pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, 
support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the 
success of liberty.''
  The world sees President Trump's executive orders on immigration and 
asks: Where is the America that welcomed millions to its shores?
  Well, I am happy to say that America is alive and well in communities 
across this great Nation, where people from every continent live 
together, eat each other's food, celebrate each other's holidays, and 
it also lives on in the hundreds of State Department officials who 
signed a Dissent Channel memorandum opposing that policy.
  The world sees President Trump's threats to withdraw from Europe and 
Asia unless our allies ``pay up,'' and asks whether America will still 
defend its friends. That America, the one that stands shoulder-to-
shoulder with NATO and South Korea, can be found in our troops 
stationed in the Baltics, Poland, and along the DMZ; and it can be 
found here in Congress, where there is broad support for our alliances 
and our allies.
  The world sees President Trump threatening to drastically cut our 
foreign assistance budget, the literal difference between life and 
death for millions of the world's most vulnerable people, and asks: 
Where is America's legendary generosity?
  That America, Mr. Speaker, is alive and well, too. Our USAID 
professionals, our Peace Corps volunteers, and the thousands of 
individual Americans working as medical missionaries or with NGOs are 
still making a difference around the globe every day.
  The world sees President Trump's embrace of Vladimir Putin and his 
seeming disdain for key allies like Germany and Australia and wonders 
whether we will remain committed to democracy and the rule of law, or 
we will abandon principle in favor of expedience and flattery.
  That America--the America that stood with Solidarity in Poland, with 
Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and with Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma--is 
still here, too. Millions of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, the 
old and young, still stand with those who seek freedom, and we will 
never allow this President to abandon our ideals.
  And finally, Mr. Speaker, the world has seen the rise of Donald Trump 
and wonders whether Americans will still fight for their own 
democracy--are we still worthy heirs to Washington, Lincoln, and 
Roosevelt? The answer to that is on display every day across this 
country. From the millions who clogged our nation's streets on January 
21st, to the calls pouring into Congress every day to demand a full 
investigation of the Russia scandal, the American people are engaged 
and ready to fight for our democracy here at home and for freedom 
around the world.
  To those who doubt us, or wonder whether we remain true to our 
ideals, whether we will stand up for what we believe, and defend not 
only America but the beautiful idea it represents, let me borrow a 
phrase from John Paul Jones, the Revolutionary War hero. ``We have not 
yet begun to fight.''

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