[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 177 (Wednesday, November 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6964-S6965]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO DR. GLENN POSHARD

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Dr. Glenn Poshard has served the United 
States in many ways. He served in the military and taught in high 
school. He represented rural southern Illinois in the Illinois State 
Senate from 1984 to

[[Page S6965]]

1988 and in Congress from 1989 to 1998. I served with him for 8 years 
in the House of Representatives.
  Glenn was a strong proponent of campaign finance reform so much so 
that he limited individual donations and refused contributions from 
political action committees when he ran for Governor in 1998.
  Following his tenure in Congress, Glenn and his wife, Jo, founded the 
Poshard Foundation for Abused Children. The foundation has helped the 
abused, abandoned, and neglected children of southern Illinois for 18 
years.
  Glenn's service to the community also continued through his role as 
president of Southern Illinois University where he was the second 
longest serving president in the history of the Southern Illinois 
University system.
  Earlier this month, Glenn reminded us what service to our country and 
what the American flag means for us in an op-ed in the Southern 
Illinoisan, which I have included here.
  Dr. Poshard wrote:

       In 1962, I joined the U.S. Army on my 17th birthday. I had 
     just graduated from high school and was following in the 
     tradition of my family's military service. They had served in 
     the Civil War and fought their way across Europe and the 
     Pacific in two World Wars. Some were POWs and one, my first 
     cousin and closest friend, Dennis, awarded the Bronze Star 
     for bravery in Vietnam, was the first young man from our 
     county to be killed in that war.
       During my three years of enlistment, I served a tour of 
     duty with the First Cav Division in Korea. When my active 
     duty was finished in December 1965, I immediately entered SIU 
     Carbondale on the GI Bill. Protests against the Vietnam War 
     were already gripping the campus. They were abhorrent to me, 
     particularly when the American flag was used to symbolize 
     anger toward the government. But I was busy, carrying a full 
     load of classes, working three part-time jobs, and trying to 
     support a new family. By the time Old Main burned and the 
     campus closed in the spring of 1970, I was beyond anger for 
     the thousands of protesters desecrating our flag and 
     destroying my beloved university.
       I made no attempt to understand the difference between the 
     symbolism of the flag and the substance of the Bill of Rights 
     as it pertained to freedom to speak against perceived wrongs 
     of our government.
       Years later, as a member of Congress, I was forced to 
     grapple with this volatile issue again. In my first term, a 
     bill was submitted to amend the Constitution prohibiting the 
     desecration of the American flag as a means of protest 
     against our government. Now, I had to understand this issue 
     in its deepest, broadest context. My family and I went to 
     Philadelphia where I sat in Independence Hall, contemplating 
     those early debates of our forefathers on issues of equality, 
     justice and freedom. Moved to tears, I was about to cast a 
     vote of which the historical significance reached back to 
     arguments which formed the founding documents of our country, 
     the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
       We drove to Gettysburg and I stood where our greatest 
     President, Abraham Lincoln, delivered his address, taking us 
     back to our Declaration of Independence, which stated, ``All 
     men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with 
     certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, 
     liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' When our forefathers 
     thought they had been denied these rights long enough by the 
     King of England, they fought a Revolutionary War to gain 
     them. And they fought a Civil War to extend those rights to 
     slaves. Over the next 100 years, they fought all over the 
     world to secure these rights for other people.
       President Kennedy spoke of this in his inaugural address. 
     He said, ``These same revolutionary beliefs for which our 
     forefathers fought are still at issue around the globe today. 
     The belief that the rights of man come not from the 
     generosity of the State, but from the hand of God. We dare 
     not forget that we are the heirs of that first Revolution.'' 
     The Declaration goes on to say that when any form of 
     government becomes destructive of these rights then it is the 
     right of the people to protest and alter that form of 
     government so that those rights are secured to the people. 
     And in the 1960s and '70s, people protested against what they 
     believed was an unjust war which imperiled their lives, their 
     freedoms, and their pursuit of happiness. They believed that 
     nearly 60,000 deaths were enough in a war our government 
     either could not or would not win.
       When hundreds of thousands of mostly white young men in the 
     '60s and thousands of mostly black young men today protest 
     against their government, it is because they feel their God-
     given rights are threatened. But why involve the flag? In a 
     Supreme Court decision, Board of Education v. Barnett in 
     1943, Justice Jackson wrote words especially relevant to this 
     issue. He said, ``Freedom to differ is not limited to things 
     that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of 
     freedom. The test of freedom's substance is the right to 
     differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing 
     order''--i.e. our flag.
       For many, it is not enough to write a letter to their 
     congressman, attend a meeting or participate in a march. They 
     must take the most important thing symbolizing our freedom--
     the flag--and cast it at the feet of their government to show 
     how emphatically they disagree with government allowing the 
     infringement of their rights. Millions of people of color in 
     our country today feel threatened. They just want to enjoy 
     the same security and freedom we all enjoy and the flag has 
     become central to their protest precisely because it matters, 
     as it did in the '60s to an earlier generation.
       When I protested as a young man in my church that it was 
     not necessary for God to send His only Son to be sacrificed 
     for my freedom, that He could have provided another way, the 
     pastor said, ``Oh yes it was, because He could not win your 
     freedom from sin by sacrificing that which didn't matter 
     much, He had to sacrifice the most important thing He loved, 
     His Son.''
       The Supreme Court has said that the use of the flag in 
     dissent against the government does not diminish it or the 
     contribution of the men and women who fought for our freedom, 
     but instead stands as a powerful symbol to illustrate the 
     substance of our Constitution's Bill of Rights.
       I listened carefully to the debate in 1990 on the flag 
     desecration amendment which for the first time in 200 years 
     would have amended our Bill of Rights. These words from 
     President Reagan's solicitor general, Charles Fried, express 
     my beliefs entirely. ``The flag, as all in this debate agree, 
     symbolizes our nation, its history, its values. We love the 
     flag because it symbolizes the United States; but we must 
     love the Constitution even more, because the Constitution is 
     not a symbol. It is the thing itself.''

  Reading Glenn's op-ed, I was reminded of the late John Glenn, 
colleague, friend, and legend. He testified to the Senate Judiciary 
Committee in 2004 about the flag of the United States. This is a man 
who carried the flag into space as an astronaut. He served in the 
Marine Corps. When presented with a flag-burning amendment, he said, 
``It would be a hollow victory indeed if we preserved the symbol of our 
freedoms by chipping away at those fundamental freedoms themselves.''
  Free speech is the bedrock of our democracy. As millions of Americans 
are participating in the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution today, 
we should remember Glenn Porshard's point that they do so not to 
destroy our Republic, but to celebrate the strength of our 
Constitution.
  Thank you.
  (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)

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