[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7024]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE

  (Mr. HASTERT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday our Nation witnessed a senseless 
tragedy in Littleton, Colorado. Before I begin my 1 minute, I would 
like the House to take a moment of silence to remember the lives of 
those poor students who died at Columbine High School.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans across this Nation are trying to come to grips 
with the latest senseless tragedy that hit one of our schools. Why do 
some of our children feel the need to kill? How can they feel such 
hate? And why do they not have the moral framework that would stop this 
kind of tragedy?
  There are no easy answers to these questions, but some things I do 
know, that we must do our best to make our schools safe. We must 
provide our children with the moral framework from which they can 
distinguish between right and wrong. We must stop the culture of death 
that makes vicious killers out of too many of our children.
  Mr. Speaker, our children are our future. If we do not teach them the 
differences between right and wrong, our Nation's future is in peril.
  My deepest condolences go out to the community of Littleton, Colorado 
and especially to the parents of the students of Columbine High School. 
As a parent of two boys, I can only imagine the grief that you are 
feeling today as you try to make sense of yesterday's tragedy.

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