[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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