[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 118 (Friday, June 26, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H2581-H2582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        DESECRATION OF MONUMENTS

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, you would have to be living in a hole 
somewhere to not have noticed that across the Nation, the desecration 
happening to our national monuments, statues, memorials, and even the 
vandalization of some of our large cities has been running rampant.
  It is time for that to end. In many cases, these acts of vandalism 
are targeted towards longtime institutions of those that tirelessly 
fought for our freedoms. This desecration must end. And there must be 
severe penalties for doing these felonious acts.
  We have seen George Washington statues, the Father of our country, 
who valued freedom above all else, knocked down. Ulysses S. Grant, the 
Commanding General of the Union Army, who helped stop the slavery 
effort of the South, who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the 
ratification of the 15th Amendment, was toppled in San Francisco. 
Abraham Lincoln, who freed so many from slavery. Even down the street 
from here, they are having to guard the Mary McLeod Bethune statues 
down there at Lincoln Park, along with Mr. Lincoln. And she was a key 
element of FDR's original Federal Council of Negro Affairs, otherwise 
known as the ``Black Cabinet.''
  There is not even any logic or sense to the vandalism and chaos that 
is going on here when they are tearing down statues on all sides of the 
issue. It needs to be stopped, and there needs to be harsh penalties 
for those doing this.

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