September 16, 1971
Page 32139
SENATOR MUSKIE TALKS SENSE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
(Mr. PUCINSKI asked and was given permission to extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and to include extraneous matter.)
Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Speaker, two nights ago Senator EDMUND MUSKIE addressed our Nation's Governors and gave them and the American people a valuable insight into the kind of problems which confront our Nation.
ED MUSKIE's speech was filled with good sense and plain talk and a discussion of problems we can no longer consider remote merely because they occur behind oppressive prison walls. That Senator MUSKIE was willing to depart from a prepared speech and talk about an event whose grotesque tragedy shocked the Nation into silent horror says a great deal about his character and capacity for leadership. He wanted to urge the Governors – and through them, the people – to set their sights on achieving a new partnership of understanding and compassion for others.
Mr. Speaker, ED MUSKIE's words speak eloquently of the man himself and I commend them to my colleagues and to the people of the United States as testimony to the greatness of his vision and his courage:
REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE
I know this speech should begin with a joke and a note of thanks to each of you.
I know this speech should point to problems and propose solutions.
And a few hours ago, that is how I intended to talk with you tonight ... in conventional words and ways ... hopefully, with the force and the phrases to move you.
I was coming to this conference for many different reasons.
I wanted to speak as an American ... to congratulate most of the Governors in the South for their courage in defending the rule of law through a difficult and troubled month.
I wanted to speak as a Senator . . . to pledge my support for revenue sharing and welfare reform . . . and my opposition to any delay in putting more of our money where most of our problems are.
And I wanted to speak as a former governor ... to tell you that I know what your problems are ... because I was there.
But this is the wrong night ... even if that is the right speech. And perhaps there is no right speech at this moment – because at this moment there is only one thing to sayand I am not sure how much we can say about it.
Yesterday, twenty-eight inmates and nine hostages died at a prison in New York State. It was the banner headline in the morning newspaper. But what has happened is more than spectacular news – and it is even more than a deeply human tragedy.
We need not, indeed we cannot pass final judgment on the events at Attica. But in our sorrow we can ponder how and why we have reached the point where some men would rather die than live another day in America.
The Attica tragedy is more stark proof that something is terribly wrong in America. How many of us are really ready to face that truth? Not many.
It is too easy and tempting to hide behind an almost ritual reaction to each new atrocity.
We mourn today's victims . . . but because we did so little about yesterday's, it will all happen again tomorrow.
We denounce with fervor the barbarism of a court house shoot-out ... but how many of us still remember – a year later – the name of the judge who was gunned down in San Marin?
It is almost like watching the Vietnam War unfold on the television news – after a while, the numbers of the body count begin to sound like the numbers of the weather report. And now the mounting casualty lists from domestic battlefields seem only to reinforce a spreading numbness.
This is not the way to keep a country – to keep it free – to make it as good and as great as it can be. And we must choose now – between the narcotic comfort of business as usual or a harder, longer path toward an America worthy of our heritage.
We are literally saturated with the assorted tragedies of this time – but we cannot give up on our best chance – to care, and to change the way we live. We cannot join the half of our fellow citizens who already believe that this Nation is headed for a final breakdown.
The system has not failed – but some of us have failed the system. And both political parties and most recent administrations can claim some share of the blame.
Too often, we have invented labels instead of finding answers. Nearly four years after the passage of the bill we called the Safe Streets Act, even a guard inside a prison is not safe.
And too often, we fail to see the answer behind a label. Nearly every argument has been heard for revenue sharing but the right one ... that what is ultimately at stake is people ... their neighborhoods, their schools, their homes, and their hopes.
We talk a new prosperity. But still we rely on half measures ... public relations ... and statistics like the G.N.P.
The only decent course now is a single, clarifying decision – at long last, a genuine commitment of our vast resources to the human needs of people ... from the stockbroker on Wall Street . . . to the middle American in Ohio . . . to the inmates of San Quentin and Attica. And I am talking about results, not the promise in a name.
I am talking about action to reform prisons ... not more years of papering over the plain fact that our jails are monstrous, inhuman dungeons ... schools for crime and centers of sexual abuse.
I am talking about action to relieve poverty ... not more years of a war on poverty whose only real casualties are those most in need.
I am talking about action to lower property taxes ... not more righteous rhetoric while people are literally taxed out of the homes they worked and saved to buy.
And I am talking about so much more – too much surely for any of us to believe what some of us say – that this plan or that reform can accomplish swiftly all the tasks which must be done.
But at least we can begin. At least we can restore the hope of so many who are so close to giving up. At least, we can help them believe again in a vibrant, moving, compassionate society ... a society without another reason every day for new bitterness and new despair ... a society that lets people reach out and touch the promise of things to come.
The ultimate outcome does not depend on budgets or appropriations. They merely reflect the results of a different, deeper contest . . . a contest we must wage and win inside ourselves. Amid all the competition for place and power in America, we must answer a single, fundamental question: can we remember the simple decency of caring about our common humanity?
When we are told that there is no constituency for prison reform, we must become that constituency ... because we care about endangered guards and their frightened families ... because we care about conditions which prompt an Attica inmate to say: "If we cannot live as human beings, we will at least try to die like men."
When we are told that no one will speak for the poor, we must raise our voices ... because we care about a three-year-old child who fortunately cannot yet understand the poverty which robs him of his morning milk.
And when we are told that a race or a group has no influence, we must share ours because we believe that the only race that counts is the human race ... because we believe in the right of people to direct their own destiny.
So, in 1971, more important than who leads us is what leads us . . whether we can respond to Dietrich Bonhoffer's challenge to live for others. We face a host of other challenges, technical challenges – how to reshape urban government ... how to redesign welfare eligibility and benefits . . . how to restructure a faltering medical care system. But beyond all the programmatic specifics and the cost analysis, behind the Congressional legislation and the presidential commissions, what will finally make the difference is our feeling for each other.
Nothing has troubled me more in recent months than the events at Attica and San Quentin. And nothing has troubled me as much since the murder by a sniper of a young black girl named Joetha Collier on her high school graduation night. These tragedies struck at a distance of thousands of miles – but they also strike at the heart of our country's meaning. Human lives – the lives of people with hopes and dreams – have been lost forever . . . not for a decent cause, but for a mistake.
And ultimately it is our mistake. We make it whenever we accept the living death of a deprived existence . . . whenever we accept institutions that ignore the suffering of people . . . whenever we permit men and women to be less than they could be because they have less than they should have ... whenever we settle for a country rich in G.N.P. but poor in the quality of everyday human life.
Each of you is the elected leader of a sovereign state. In the coming weeks and months we will all face the stern test of leadership.
For the terrible ordeal of New York could become the ordeal of Michigan, or Maine, or Georgia tomorrow, or next week, or next month.
How we respond will in large measure determine the national response.
Two roads will open up to tempt people of different inclinations.
One is to take repressive action to shut ourselves off from the people who are the failures, the mistakes, the problems of our society. In other words, build the walls higher.
The other is to do what is necessary to insure that this tragedy doesn't happen again. We have the responsibility to insure the safety of our people and the peace of our society.
At the same time we have the responsibility to correct the conditions which create the threats to that peace and safety.
Those conditions exist throughout America. When you and the mayors say to us in Washington that you need a fairer share of our national resources, it is not just because you face budgetary problems. It is also because there are conditions relating to the welfare and well-being of your people with which you cannot deal effectively.
Revenue sharing and welfare reform are essential, even necessary. But they are not ends in themselves. Rather, they reflect our commitment to make the effort, to take the first steps, inadequate as they may be, to achieve in our society the kind of mobility which will permit every American to seek opportunity wherever it may be, or wherever he may see it – the kind of mobility which will permit his children to receive a good education, wherever that may be – the kind of mobility which will enable every American to get a decent job, and to own a decent home, in a decent and safe neighborhood, wherever that may be – the kind of mobility to focus our resources in our States and cities on the high priority needs of our people.
In 1955 and 1960, we were talking about a revolution of rising expectations in the underdeveloped world. Are we now ready to accept a time of declining expectations in our own country?
It is our obligation – yours and mine – to build something better than that. And I believe we can do it – if we look into our history and grasp again the tools of our heritage and take up the work which must be done.
Thirteen men sit in this room tonight as direct heirs of our proudest tradition. Each of them is the latest successor of an unbroken line of governors stretching back before the time when there was a union of States.
Those thirteen men – from as far away as Vermont and Georgia – are a reminder of thirteen little colonies that made themselves into a country charged with greatness and the potential for greatness. And, as we approach the 200th anniversary of that beginning, perhaps the best way for us to move forward is to pause for a moment and look back.
If the first Americans could declare for liberty in 1776, can it be so hard for us to declare for equality in 1971?
If a weak alliance of three million people on the edge of this vast continent could design a Constitution to outlast every other government alive at America's birth, can it be so hard for us to strengthen our Federal system ... to put more of our money where most of our people's problems are?
For a long time, we have concentrated on the mechanics of celebrating this Nation's 200th year.
Now we must work to insure that what we are celebrating in 1976 is an America worthy of the
first Americans.
Only we can make it so. And we must begin in 1971.
Let us do that much – and then together we can do so much more.