[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 93 (Tuesday, June 4, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S3181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     EXECUTIVE CALENDAR--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.


                       75th Anniversary of D-day

  Mr. LANKFORD. I rise to remind the Senate of two anniversaries that 
are happening this week. This week is the 75th anniversary of the 
invasion of Normandy. It is commonly known as D-Day. One hundred sixty-
thousand-plus individuals crossed the English Channel by aircraft, by 
boat. They moved in every way possible, starting in the middle of the 
night and with the major invasion that was the largest naval invasion 
in the history of the world. They would have crossed into France--what 
was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany.
  The loss of lives of Americans and Allied forces was catastrophic as 
they pushed in. The boys, 18, 19, 20 years old, got on aircraft, got on 
ships, launched out into the water, knowing there was a tyrant on the 
other side who had to be stopped. It is entirely appropriate for the 
Nation to pause to remember D-Day, to know the freedom we have right 
now was protected by a generation that stood for that freedom. As the 
Nation looks toward Normandy a couple days from now, I think we should 
once again thank the ``greatest generation'' that guarded our freedom.


                100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment

  Mr. President, today is also a 100-year anniversary, though. One 
hundred years ago today, June 4, 1919, the Senate voted to pass the 
right for women to vote. As a son of a pretty amazing mom and as the 
husband of a really remarkable lady and as the dad of two daughters who 
are both voters now--they cannot thank the ladies enough who started in 
the 1800s working toward a basic human dignity and right; that is, the 
right for people to vote. It is astounding to us as a nation to think 
that it took that long, all the way up until 1919, to have a vote in 
the Senate to allow women to vote. That vote--with 36 Republicans and 
20 Democrats that day who voted on June 4, 1919--changed the direction 
of how we would vote and how we would cooperate together as a nation.
  Now, we have a lot of other areas to fix, but that one was a big one, 
and my family is grateful for what was done in the past. People who 
come through the Rotunda of the Capitol often see a statue there that 
looks like it is not finished. It is a block of stone, and there are 
three ladies who are carved out of it, but a part of it is not carved. 
I often hear people say they don't understand that statue. That statue 
is Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott, the 
three ladies who led the movement of ladies all over the country to 
just speak out and say ladies should have the right to vote. Those 
three ladies are carved into stone that is in our Rotunda, but what is 
interesting is, the statue is unfinished because the assumption was in 
the days ahead, there would be more ladies in the future who would step 
out and would lead a nation to make sure that we allow the rights of 
every single individual to be honored.
  So, for the sake of my mom and my aunt, my grandmother, my wife, my 
daughters, and millions of ladies, we cannot thank those ladies enough 
for standing up for what was right at that time period. I think it is 
appropriate that we pause for just a moment in the Senate and remember 
June 4, 1919, 100 years later, and thank those ladies for standing up 
for the rights of ladies in their generation and the ladies in the 
generations to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.