CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

July 11, 1966

Page 15167

Mr. JAVITS. Mr. President, I should like to be joined as a cosponsor of this bill, if agreeable to the majority and minority managers.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I would be delighted to have the Senator from New York as a cosponsor.

Mr. COOPER. Mr. President I joined with the Senator from Washington [Mr. JACKSON] in sponsoring this bill. A number of others have joined since that time, and I know we would be very happy to have the distinguished Senator from New York join with us as a cosponsor.

Mr. JAVITS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr President S. 3035 represents a major step forward in our efforts to preserve and protect our national heritage. The legislation reported by the Interior Committee combines features of the bill submitted by the Department of the Interior to implement President Johnson’s message on preserving our natural heritage and two bills, S. 3097 and S. 3098, which I introduced with other Members of the Senate to implement the recommendations of the Special Committee on Historic Preservation of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. As a member of that committee I was pleased to join the distinguished chairman of the Interior Committee, Mr. Jackson, in cosponsoring the amended version of S. 3035.

The special committee studied historic preservation in Europe and examined our efforts in the United States. We were struck with the need to act now, before much of our heritage of architectural and historic sites is destroyed by the constant change of America.

In her foreword to the special committee’s report, "With Heritage So Rich," Mrs Lyndon Johnson wrote:

We must preserve and, we must preserve wisely. As the report emphasizes, in its best sense, preservation does not merely mean the setting aside of thousands of buildings as museum pieces. It means retaining the culturally valuable structures as useful objects -- a home in which human beings live, a building in the service of some commercial or community purpose. Such preservation insures structural integrity, relates the preserved object to the life of the people around it, and not least, it makes preservation a source of positive financial gain rather than another expense.

The legislation we are considering today, coupled with S. 3097, which is being considered by the Committee on Banking and Currency, will help us achieve this kind of preservation. I hope both measures will receive speedy approval. Time is getting short in protecting the priceless reminders of our Nation’s development.