July 31, 1969
Page 21749
MUSKIE SPEAKS IN INDIANA
HON. LEE H. HAMILTON OF INDIANA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, July 31, 1969
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I had the great pleasure of being host to Maine's distinguished Senator, EDMUND S. MUSKIE, in southern Indiana last week.
During his visit in the Ninth Congressional District of Indiana, Senator MUSKIE delivered one of the most enlightened, concise reports on this Nation's priorities that I have heard.
Senator MUSKIE'S visit came in the wake of the Apollo 11 success and that glow of pride which all Americans share in this remarkable achievement. But the Senator's concern is that we take heart from this achievement and set ourselves goals here on earth.
Each of my colleagues will find reading this address a good investment of his time.
I include in the RECORD the entire text of Senator MUSKIE's excellent speech, given July 25 at the Jeffersonville, Ind., high school field house:
SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE, INDIANA SPEECH,
JULY 25, 1969
During most of the past two weeks, our people have been unified in a way that only great moments of triumph or tragedy seem to produce.
In the affluent suburbs; in the steaming inner cities; in our troubled universities, and in neighborhoods where the schools are inadequate and overcrowded; in mountain and seashore resorts, and in homes where families cannot afford a summer vacation; beside clear lakes, and on the shores of polluted rivers; whether we were white or black, rich or poor, young or old, supporters or critics of the war in Vietnam, Democrats or Republicans, New Left or Old Right -- the magnificent adventure of Apollo XI gripped us all.
The image of Neil Armstrong's foot swinging down from the Eagle. and onto the surface of the moon, is a permanent part of our consciousness. No matter where we saw that television screen --in a rec room, or in a tenement -- its fantastic image last Sunday night belongs to all of us. Time cannot erase it nor in any way diminish its power. For a while it made us one people.
And our unity was based on something deeper than national pride. Armstrong and Aldrin were representing all of us -- all mankind -- reaching out into the cosmos.
How long will that sense of unity last? I'm afraid the answer is not long, if you consider the history of other great events that have drawn us together in exultation or sorrow.
Because sooner or later the television sets go off, and we return to the earth and the heat of summer. To high prices. A weak stock market. To traffic congestion. Rising crime. Cities hard-pressed for funds, and public services deteriorating. The air we breathe dark with chemical waste. Mistrust between the races. Mutiny in the hearts of many young people. The war dragging on.
That, it can be said, is the real world. Our vicarious participation in the moon mission is just that -- vicarious -- though we did pay for it.
But I want to suggest tonight that at least one aspect of the moon mission is part of our real world, too -- or could be.
I don't mean all the technological advances, the by-products, that are supposed to come from space science. I assume they are real. But by themselves, they are not likely to do much to relieve the problems we live with here on earth.
As a matter of fact, the science and technology, the national resources, and even the bravery that went into Apollo 11 could not in themselves have lifted that rocket a foot off the launching pad.
It took something more, something that could put all those elements together and give them coherence and power. It took a unifying goal, understood by all, and the will and determination to reach it.
In the case of the space program, the goal was simple. It was to enable a human being to walk on the moon's surface by the end of this decade. Achieving it was a terrifically complicated business. But the goal was clear and understandable and it inspired and unified our efforts, and we made it.
What if we decided that there were some goals here on earth that were no less important to us, no less urgent?
Now that we have seen that man can operate successfully in the lunar environment, what if we decided to help him operate successfully in the urban environment?
Now that we have shown ghetto children that a dream of sophisticated science may come true, I think it's about time to teach them to read.
Now that we have protected the health of three astronauts hundreds of thousands of miles away, I think we ought to find a way to give all our people good medical care at reasonable cost.
Now that we have built machines that can sustain great journeys in space. I think it's time to solve the problem of transporting people to and from work, without turning the countryside into concrete and the air into carbon and sulphur compounds.
Now that we've seen men cooperate to unite two machines in orbit at terrific speeds around the moon, let's find out how to get white men and black men to cooperate in improving city life.
I recognize that there is a difference between a physical triumph like putting a man on the moon, and a social triumph like putting a poor teenager on his way to a successful and responsible life.
With the one, we've been dealing with brilliant, highly educated men and women. We've had the use of the most advanced scientific equipment. We've been able to measure our progress exactly.
When we've failed, when there was a tragic fire that set us back, we've pressed on, undaunted.
We've had the funds that let us call on the vast resources of private industry. And most of all, we've had a simple goal.
But dealing with our human problems is another matter. We've found that we could not simply put together a few ingredients -- a little money to improve the schools, a year of Head Start, a job training program, and some good intentions -- and heal the lives of people who have known nothing but poverty and deprivation from the beginning. We don't know yet how to measure the effect of most of what we are doing -- how much a billion dollars of aid to education can do for school children, for example.
Every failure -- every grant to some group that mis-spends it -- is the occasion for cries of outrage and calls for stopping the program. We've talked a lot about getting private industry involved, but we haven't found the key -- the incentive -- to bring that about in sufficient quantity. And most of all, our goals have been very general -- and very rhetorical.
I think it's time we delivered some simple goals and some firm target dates for our problems here in America.
Like improving the reading skills of high school graduates in the ghetto from the ninth grade level to at least the eleventh grade level by 1976.
Like meeting the goal of the National Housing Act -- 26 million new units -- in the next nine years.
Like cleaning every American river of unacceptable pollution by 1976.
Like assuring that no American family goes hungry by 1971.
Like reducing the delays in our courts of criminal jurisdiction by -% within five years.
There are plenty of other goals -- in higher education, in mass transportation, in cleaning the air, in reducing infant mortality.
And it is up to the political leadership of this country to set those goals and to provide some target dates for reaching them -- dates that are just as demanding as putting a man on the moon in the sixties was, when John Kennedy set it in 1961.
You don't provide that kind of leadership if you back-pedal before every reactionary breeze.
And whatever your Gallup poll rating, you can't lead from a low silhouette. You've got to stand up. You've got to invest some of your political capital in making this a more human and hopeful country. You've got to help your people understand how critical our problems are -- and how we can marshall our energies, as we did in the space program, to solve them.
Because the real issue is not who wins in 1970 or 1972. It's what happens to the country in the next four years -- whether it regains its old determination, its old optimism and hope, or whether it divides still further into frustrated, despairing factions.
I hope our President has a successful trip in Asia and Eastern Europe. But when he returns -- as when Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins returned -- he will find an America very much as it was when he left it: In need of political leadership that identifies our problems realistically, and that describes some human goals within our reach.
It may be that this is too much to ask from Republicans. They are better at turning the clock back, or making it stand still, than they are at anticipating what could be in the hours and days to come.
It has been our Democratic role to identify national needs, and to set the forces in motion that will meet them. We have done that before. We shall do it again. And between now and 1972, let us press this administration to stand up and lead. Let us -- speaking as the majority party representing the people -- try to exert more forward pressure than Strom Thurmond can brake.
Let us take heart from the spectacular achievement on the moon, and set ourselves some goals here in America. And let us bring together the resources and the will we need to reach them, and press on, through whatever disappointments and delays, until we do. That is the way, and the only way, by which we can regain the union we knew last weekend. And, despite the glory of Apollo XI, that is what really counts.