May 13, 1969
Page 12440
SENATOR MUSKIE'S GOOD SENSE HON. JOSHUA EILBERG OF PENNSYLVANIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Tuesday, May 13, 1969
Mr. EILBERG. Mr. Speaker, a few short weeks ago at a dinner marking the opening of the 1969 Anti-Defamation League Appeal in New York City, Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE received the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith Human Rights Award from Dore Schary, national chairman of the ADL.
Senator MUSKIE delivered an address which was marked by the good sense and honest judgment which have become hallmarks of the Senator's conduct, performance, and statements.
We in the Democratic Party are fortunate to number the gentleman from Maine among our leaders. The Nation is fortunate that the people of Maine had the good sense to elect Mr. MUSKIE to the Senate.
The Senator's speech did not go unnoticed in the daily press of my own city, Philadelphia. The Evening Bulletin, in an editorial "The Spirit of Moderation," applauded the Senator's call for the "moderate majority of blacks and whites" to end the racial divisions in this country.
For the RECORD, I insert Senator MUSKIE'S speech delivered March 31, 1969, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and the Bulletin editorial which appeared April 5, 1969:
REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE
Three hundred years ago the vessel St. Charles brought a small band of Jewish people to the shores of what was then the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.
They were refugees fleeing from the Inquisition. Their arrival was inauspicious, but the event was meaningful -- not only to the Jews of America, but to Americans of all faiths and national origins, who were to follow.
For on that day there came to these shores 23 people whose ancestors had given new dimensions to the concepts of liberty and justice, kindness and understanding, brotherhood and trust -- ideas and ideals which were to flourish on this continent.
They were descendants of a people dedicated to the principle of human dignity; and they came to a land which would flourish because it would foster that dignity among its citizens in the years to come.
This is the tradition which motivates the Anti-Defamation League today.
I have followed your work with great interest. I have admired your legal and educational efforts to stamp out discrimination wherever it occurs.
I know that from the very beginning, you have practiced what you preached -- that as a Jewish organization you sought an end to discrimination against Jews but wrote into your original charter that you sought "justice and fair treatment for all citizens" because you understood that in a democracy the fate of all people is intertwined.
It is obvious to anyone who has followed the enviable and inspiring record of the League, that you have faith in your cause because you have faith in your nation.
And in large measure, the history of the Jewish people in America is the history of America itself. In your aspirations, frustrations and successes are reflected the attempts of all Americans to realize that high degree of individual worth which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution set forth as the democratic ideal.
When my father came to America from Poland, he wasn't driven by a burning desire for wealth or fame. He came so that he, and his children after him, could have an equal chance for fulfillment in freedom. I have had that chance; my children are having that chance; and to the extent that I have any role in America, my commitment is to insure that every young American gets that chance.
I think this is what we all feel
But democracy is a difficult business. Someone said that man’s perennial struggle to govern himself is the most trying of human endeavors. This is as true today as it was at the time of our nation's birth.
There is always a testing ground in a democracy.
From time to time in our history, certain segments of the population have been subordinated to the lowest rung of society's ladder. Their attempts to attain economic, social and political equality have provided the challenges which have pulled us on to greatness.
Three hundred years ago, every human right the Jews of Dutch New Amsterdam achieved, they earned dearly, by invoking law and justice. They had to fight for the privilege of owning houses, of trading with the Indians, of engaging in retail trade, and of worshipping their God in the manner they were taught by their fathers.
Fifty years ago, the struggle for human rights was called a class conflict and the testing ground was in the factories -- where laborers fought to make a place for themselves in American life.
Now the testing ground has shifted. The arena is the inner city, and the issue has become one of equal treatment for all Americans, regardless of irrelevant considerations of ancestry.
The strength of our democracy lies in its traditional capacity to correct its own faults and rectify its own injustices.
The election of John F. Kennedy as President is a far cry from the terrorizing of Irish Catholics by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Wagner Act is a far cry from the sweat shops of the 1920's where women and children worked 14 hours a day.
To our generation falls the historic task of bringing full justice and equality to all citizens of this nation.
The efforts -- and the progress -- that the disadvantaged have made over the past 15 years have been called the revolution of rising expectations.
But their expectations are no more revolutionary than those things which you and I have come to take for granted.
They want decent jobs. They want their children to be taught to read and write. They want their hungry to be fed, and their sick to be treated.
In this respect, the issues raised by this revolution are no different than the problems raised by poverty and the inner city, and we attempt to solve them in the same way -- by the model cities program, low-rent housing, medical care and better educational facilities.
But money alone is not enough to carry through the revolution of rising expectations. Talk to a young Black who has "made it" who hasn't missed too many meals lately. You'll find he isn't talking about poverty alone.
He wants to know why empty taxis speed past him on cold nights.
He wants to know why his street is the last to be plowed after a snowstorm.
He wants to know why he has never been asked to serve on a jury.
He wants to know why he couldn't find housing near the campus when he attended college.
Money can buy better schools, better health care, better training for jobs.
But money cannot buy human dignity. People everywhere are as hungry for respect as they are for bread.
Asser Levy led his band of Jewish Pilgrim Fathers to New Amsterdam because they had to find a country where they could put into practice their belief in the dignity of man.
In this respect, they were no different from the scores of groups who have struggled to attain the same end since then.
Through unpredictable conditions democracy has worked in this country because we have welcomed all peoples, many of whom were different and unfamiliar -- when our first reaction to them might have been hesitation and even fear.
Now in 1969 we are again challenged to make democracy work.
Unfortunately, the task is made more difficult by extremists on both sides. Some people have suggested that the old answers are no longer good; that they can no longer be pursued safely; and that at this point in our history we must begin to build walls between people.
The follow-up study recently released by Urban America and the Urban Coalition tells us that the nation is increasingly in danger of dividing into two societies; that blacks and whites remain deeply divided in their perceptions and experiences of American society.
Unless the movement apart is reversed, we are in for difficult, emotion-ridden times, and it is idle to pretend that they will go away.
The problem will be resolved not by hatred and bitterness, but by a determined effort on the part of the moderate majority of blacks and whites.
Americans must demonstrate again that reason can rule passion, communication can replace separation.
I think that one of the greatest barriers to progress is our failure to talk to each other enough -- or rather, we don't listen to each other with understanding.
The creation of effective, continuous dialogue among different communities will require patience and imagination. At times, the excesses of extremists may discourage moderates.
But what must be understood is the principle to which the Anti-Defamation League has dedicated itself since its founding 56 years ago -- that what affects one segment of the nation, affects all.
We are all Americans with a common problem. We must work it out -- all together and each alone.
Because our government is nothing more than the sum total of the people it serves, the choices that we personally make and the courses that we personally follow will finally determine the true character of this country,
I have faith that the day will come when human rights awards will be a thing of the past, simply because all Americans will be judged on their merits, not on their origins, the spelling of their name, their beliefs, or their color.
THE SPIRIT OF MODERATION
Receiving the Human Rights Award of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Writh, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine said, with his usual good sense, that it would take a determined effort by America's "moderate majority of blacks and whites" to end this country's racial divisions.
He also said that one of the greatest barriers to progress "is our failure to talk to each other -- or rather, we don't listen to each other with understanding."
Perhaps it would help if there were less blind contention and more conversations, less clamor and more civility in dealing with each other. Extremists on both sides, to be sure, do not really wish to communicate but to dictate.
This is not to suggest that the urgent needs, the unfulfilled rights, and the decent aspirations which are the source of legitimate strivings today should be swathed in the cotton wool of mere politeness. That often leaves the mind unreached and the heart untouched.
It is to say that the spirit of moderation holds a democratic society together, and that when it is riven from a people no force can bring them cohesion.
"People everywhere are as hungry for respect as they are for bread," Senator Muskie told the audience. Giving one another respect and getting it in return can only be a product of moderation; extremism presses to the bitter end without regard for others.
The spirit of moderation, Judge Learned Hand once said, feels a genuine unity between all citizens, recognizes their common faith and common aspirations, has faith in the sacredness of the individual.
Moderation, in short, humanizes; extremism polarizes.
Senator Muskie said "the day will come when human rights awards will be a thing of the past simply because all Americans will be judged on their merits, not on their origins, the spelling of their names, their beliefs or their color."
If that day is to come, it will be because the American majority asserts itself as militant moderates.