[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11298-11299]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE WORDS OF MARK HELPRIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mark Helprin is an author who was educated at Harvard, 
Oxford, Princeton, Columbia, having also served in the British Merchant 
Navy and Israeli Military. I will simply convey his words in an article 
first printed in Hillsdale College's Imprimis 3 years before 9/11 
propelled us into the realization that we had been at war for over 20 
years, but only the other side knew it was a war, and also before we 
knew how crushing and debilitating our enormous debt would be and has 
become.
  I've shortened the words a bit and provided them here as they express 
my heart more exquisitely than my own written words could:

       When letters took a month by sea and the records of the 
     United States Government could be moved in a single wagon 
     pulled by two horses, we had great statesmanship. We had men 
     of integrity and genius: Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, 
     Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Monroe. These were men who were in 
     love with principle, as if it were an art, which in their 
     practice they made it.
       They studied empires that had fallen for the sake of doing 
     what was right in a small country that had barely risen and 
     were able to see things so clearly that they surpassed in 
     greatness each and every one of the classical models that 
     they had approached in awe.
       Now, lost in the sins and complexity of a Xanadu, when we 
     desperately need their high qualities of thought, their 
     patience of deliberation and their unerring sense of balance, 
     we have only what we have, which is a political class that in 
     the main has abandoned the essential qualities of 
     statesmanship with the excuse that these are inappropriate to 
     our age. They are wrong. Not only do they fail to honor the 
     principles of statesmanship, they fail to recognize them, 
     having failed to learn them, having failed to want to learn 
     them.
       In the main, they are in it for themselves. Were they not, 
     they would have a higher rate of attrition, falling with the 
     colors of what they believe rather than always landing on 
     their feet--adroitly, but in dishonor. In light of their vows 
     and responsibilities, this constitutes not merely a failure, 
     but a betrayal. And it is a betrayal of not only 
     statesmanship and principle, but of country and kin.
       Why is that? It is because things matter. Even though it be 
     played like a game by men who excel at making it a game, our 
     life in this country, our history in this country, the 
     sacrifices that have been made for this country, the lives 
     that have been given to this country, are not a game. My life 
     is not a game. My children's lives are not a game. My 
     parents' lives were not a game. Your life is not a game.
       Yes, it's true, we do have accumulated great stores of 
     power, of wealth, and decency against which those who pretend 
     to lead us can draw when, as a result of their vanities and 
     ineptitudes, they waste and expend the gifts of previous 
     generations. The margin of error bequeathed to them allows 
     them to present their failures as successes.
       They say, as we are still standing, and a chicken is in the 
     pot, What does it matter if I break the links between action 
     and consequence, work and reward, crime and punishment, merit 
     and advancement? I myself cannot imagine a military threat 
     and never could. So what does it matter if I weld shut the 
     silo hatches on our ballistic missile submarines? What does 
     it matter if I weld shut my eyes to the weapons of mass 
     destruction in the hands of lunatics who are building long-
     range missiles?
       Our jurisprudence is the envy of the world, so what does it 
     matter if now and then I perjure myself a little? What is an 
     oath? What is a pledge? What is a sacred trust? Are not these 
     things the province of the kinds of people who were foolish 
     enough to do without all of their lives, to wear ruts in the 
     Oregon Trail, to brave the seas, to die on the beaches of 
     Normandy and Iwo Jima, and on the battlefields of Shiloh and 
     Antietam for me so that I can draw from America's great 
     accounts and look good, and be Presidential, and have fun in 
     all kinds of ways?
       That is what they say--if not in words, then indelibly in 
     actions. They who, in robbing Peter to pay Paul, present 
     themselves

[[Page 11299]]

     as payers and forget that they are also robbers. They who, 
     with studied compassion, minister to some of us at the 
     expense of others. They who make goodness and charity a 
     public profession, depending on their election upon a well-
     mannered embrace of these things and the power to move them 
     not from within themselves or by their own sacrifices but, by 
     compulsion, from others. They who, knowing very little or 
     next to nothing, take pride in eagerly telling everyone else 
     what to do. They who believe absolutely in their recitation 
     of pieties, not because they believe in the pieties, but 
     because they believe in themselves.
       Nearly 400 years of America's hard-earned accounts, the 
     principles we established, the battles we fought, the morals 
     we upheld for century after century, our very humility before 
     God, now flow promiscuously through our hands like blood onto 
     sand, squandered and laid waste by a generation that imagines 
     history to have been but a prelude for what it would 
     accomplish. More than a pity, more than a shame, it is 
     despicable. And yet this parlous condition, this agony of 
     weak men, this betrayal, and this disgusting show are not the 
     end of things.
       Principles are eternal. They stem not from our resolution 
     or lack of it, but from elsewhere where, in patient and 
     infinite ranks, they simply wait to be called. They can be 
     read in history.

                              {time}  1340

       They arise as if of their own accord when, in the face of 
     danger, natural courage comes into play and honor and 
     defiance are born. Things such as courage and honor are the 
     mortal equivalent of certain laws written throughout the 
     universe. The rules of symmetry and proportion, the laws of 
     physics, the perfection of mathematics, human will, that not 
     only natural law but our own best aspirations have a life of 
     their own. They have lasted through far greater abuse than 
     abuses them now. They can be neglected, but they cannot be 
     lost. They can be thrown down, but they cannot be broken.
       Each of them is a different expression of a single quality, 
     from which each arises in its hour of need. Some come to the 
     fore as others stay back, and then, with changing 
     circumstance, those that have gone unnoticed rise to the 
     occasion.
       Rise to the occasion. The principle suggests itself from a 
     phrase, and such principles suggest easily and flow 
     generously. You can grab them out of the air from phrases, 
     from memories, from images.
       A statesman must rise to the occasion. Democrats can do 
     this. Harry Truman had the discipline of plowing a straight 
     row 10, 12, and 14 hours a day, of rising and retiring with 
     the sun, of struggling with temperamental machinery, of 
     suffering heat and cold and one injury after another. After a 
     short time on a farm, presumptions about ruling others tend 
     to vanish. It is as if you are pulled to earth and held 
     there.
       The man who works the land is hard put to think that he 
     would direct armies and nations. Truman understood the grave 
     responsibility of being President of the United States, and 
     that it was a task too great for him or anyone else to 
     accomplish without doing a great deal of injury--if not to 
     some, then to others. He understood that, therefore, he had 
     to transcend himself. There would be little enjoyment of the 
     job, because he had to be always aware of the enormous 
     consequences of everything he did. Contrast this with the 
     unspeakably vulgar pleasure in office of President Clinton.
       Truman, absolutely certain that the mantle he assumed was 
     far greater than he could ever be, was continually and 
     deliberately aware of the weight of history, the 
     accomplishments of his predecessors, and, by humble and 
     imaginative projection, his own inadequacy. The sobriety and 
     care that derived from this allowed him a rare privilege for 
     modern Presidents to give to the Presidency more than he took 
     from it. It is not possible to occupy the Oval Office without 
     arrogantly looting its assets or nobly adding to them. May 
     God bless the President who adds to them, and may God condemn 
     the President who loots them.
       America would not have come out of the Civil War as it did 
     had it not been led by Lincoln and Lee. The battles raged for 
     5 years, but for 100 years in the country, both North and 
     South, modeled itself on their character. They exemplified 
     most perfectly Churchill's statement, ``Public men charged 
     with the conduct of the war should live in a continual stress 
     of soul.''
       The continual stress of soul is necessary as well in 
     peacetime, because for every good deed in public life, there 
     is a counterbalance. Benefits are given only after taxes are 
     taken. That is part of governance. The statesman, who 
     represents the whole Nation, sees in the equilibrium for 
     which he strives a continual tension between victory and 
     defeat. If he did not understand this, he would have no 
     stress of soul, he would merely be happy--about money 
     showered upon the orphan, taken from the widow; about 
     children sent to day care, so that they may be long absent 
     from their parents; about merciful parole of criminals, who 
     kill again. Whereas a statesman knows continual stress of 
     soul, a politician is happy, for he knows not what he does.
       It is difficult for individuals or nations to recognize 
     that war and peace alternate, but they do. No matter how long 
     peace may last, it will end in war. Though most people cannot 
     believe at this moment that the United States of America will 
     ever actually fight for its survival, history guarantees that 
     it will. And, when it does, most people will not know what to 
     do. They will believe of war, as they did of peace, that it 
     is everlasting.
       The statesman, who is different from everyone else, will, 
     in the midst of common despair, see the end of war, just as 
     during the peace he was alive to the inevitability of war, 
     and saw it coming in the far distance, as if it were a gray 
     wave moving quietly across a dark sea.
       The politician will revel with his people and enjoy their 
     enjoyments. The statesman, in continual stress of soul, will 
     think of destruction. As others move in the light, he will 
     move in the darkness, so that as others move in darkness, he 
     may move in the light. This tenacity, that is given to those 
     of long and insistent vision, is what saves nations.
       A statesman must have a temperament that is suited for the 
     Medal of Honor, in a soul that is unafraid to die. 
     Electorates rightly favor those who have endured combat, not 
     as a matter of reward for service, as is commonly believed, 
     but because the willingness of the soldier to give his life 
     is a strong sign of his correct priorities, and that in the 
     future he will truly understand that statesmen are not rulers 
     but are servants. It seems clear, even in these years of 
     squalid degradation, that having risked death for the sake of 
     honor is better than having risked dishonor for the sake of 
     life.
       No matter what you're told by the sophisticated classes 
     that see virtue in every form of corruption and corruption in 
     every form of virtue, I think you know, as I do, that the 
     American people hunger for acts of integrity and courage. The 
     American people hunger for a statesman magnetized by the 
     truth, unwilling to give up his good name, uninterested in 
     calculation only for the sake of victory, unable to put his 
     interests before those of the Nation.
       What this means in practical terms is no focus groups, no 
     polls, no triangulation, no evasion, no broken promises, and 
     no lies. These are the tools of the chameleon. They are 
     employed to cheat the American people of honest answers to 
     direct questions. If the average politician, for fear that he 
     may lose something, is incapable of even a genuine ``yes'' or 
     ``no,'' how is he supposed to rise to the great occasions of 
     state? How is he supposed to face a destructive and 
     implacable enemy? How is he supposed to understand the 
     rightful destiny of his country and lead it there?

                              {time}  1350

       At the coronation of an English monarch, he is given a 
     sword. Elizabeth II took it last, and as she held it before 
     the altar, she heard these words:
       ``Receive this kingly sword, brought now from the altar of 
     God and delivered to you by us, the Bishops and servants of 
     God, though unworthy. With this sword do justice, stop the 
     growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God, help and 
     defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone 
     to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and 
     reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order; that 
     doing these things may be glorious in all virtue; and so 
     faithfully serve our Lord.''
       Would that we in America come once again to understand that 
     statesmanship is not the appetite for power but--because 
     things matter--a holy calling of self-abnegation and self-
     sacrifice. We have made it something else. Nonetheless, after 
     and despite its betrayal, statesmanship remains the 
     manifestation, in political terms of beauty, and balance, and 
     truth. It is the courage to tell the truth, and thus discern 
     what is ahead. It is a mastery of symmetry of forces, 
     illuminated by the genius of speaking to the heart of things.
       Statesmanship is a quality that, though it may be betrayed, 
     is always ready to be taken up again merely by honest 
     subscription to its great themes. Have confidence that even 
     in idleness its strengths are growing, for it is a 
     providential gift given to us in times of need. Evidently we 
     do not need it now, but as the world is forever interesting, 
     the time will surely come when we do. And then, so help me 
     God, I believe that, solely by the grace of God, the corrupt 
     will be thrown down and the virtuous will rise up.

  Slavery was an abomination, but statesmen arose and fought until its 
demise. But 13 years after the foregoing words were first said, we do 
so desperately need that statesmanship, and God's unmitigated grace, so 
that His providential gift of this Nation to us may endure for 
additional generations and, in the process, may God resume blessing 
these United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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