[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E52-E53]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE WORLD WAR II GENERATION

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HON. BOB BARR

of georgia

in the house of representatives

Wednesday, January 6, 1999

Mr. BARR of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to share with my
colleagues a commencement speech delivered at the University of
Georgia, entitled ``Reflections from the World War II Generation,'' by
former Attorney General and retired Federal appellate judge Griffin B.
Bell, on December 19, 1998. I hope each Member of the House of
Representatives will take a moment and read this inspiring document.

Reflections From the World War II Generation

I am from the World War II generation. My youth was in the
Great Depression, which tempered all who lived it.
The discipline of military service, indeed, the service
itself in World War II, had a marked effect on some 14
million Americans who served. Following our service, our
country educated many of us under the GI Bill of Rights. Ours
was the first generation of Americans to include substantial
numbers of people who had graduated from college.
The electronic revolution had its genesis in World War II
and has continued to develop at a rapid rate until this day.
Much of it was developed in the vast defense and space
enterprises, which followed World War II and in the Cold War
with the Soviet Union.
Some of our generation had to participate in the Korean War
along with many other Americans who had not been in World War
II.
We sent our sons to Vietnam if our sons wanted to serve.
Vietnam was the first of our peculiar wars where almost
anyone could dodge service and, if all else failed, could run
away to Canada. This meant that the Armed Forces during the
Vietnam War were made up of poor people who did not know how
to escape and those Americans who were patriotic enough to go
even though they could have escaped.
The Vietnam War was the beginning of the sharp divisions in
our country between those who served and those who did not or
who did not support the war effort. It was during this era
that we began to question values that had served us well for
generations. Patriotism, to some, meant protest. The idea
sprung up that there was no such thing as absolute truth;
that truth was a relative term and therefore depended on the
circumstances. We learned that there was such a thing as
situational ethics; that ethics depended on the particular
setting.
Our own children, known by some as the Yuppie Generation,
were badly split over Vietnam and social mores. Many turned
to drugs and the hippie life.
Our World War II generation had a large role in the civil
rights revolution of the 60's. Many of the Yuppie Generation
participated as well, thus a joint effort which reached
across the two generations. The revolution was momentous in
the history of our country. It stands as one of the nation's
highest achievements--a revolution engaged in under law and
contained within the law.
The Yuppie Generation has never had to face hard problems
of war or depression. Its problems are smaller but still
important. Our education system is in disrepair despite
prosperous times, ill serving substantial numbers of people
who are in the public schools. We experimented with leaving
the neighborhood school concept and let the federal
government into local education. We seem to have either lost
the ability to manage the schools and the system or have lost
the will to correct the problem. The school problem is
exacerbated by poverty.
We are turning into a sound bite people. We catch the
television news or hear the kibitzing on the radio. We are
not readers. We are losing the ability to write well.
Politicians have learned to use the television and radio as
a means of spinning the news to suit their purposes. A
gullible populace seems to be taken in by the spinners. This
is much like the medicine shows which passed through the
small towns during my youth. As Oliver Goldsmith said in his
poem, The Deserted Village, referring to the village
schoolmaster when he spoke on the village square: ``Amazed
the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed and
still the wonder grew, How one small head could hold all
he knew.''
We must ask: Have we lost our capacity to govern in a
representative government? Have the pollsters and polls taken
over? Is there a need for us to have representatives or are
representatives mere rubber stamps to obey the will of the
polls? Pure democracy was a form of government rejected by
the Founding Fathers. We must remember Jefferson's words that
our representatives owe us their best judgment, not their
votes. Their judgment is important.
During this period has come an era of bad manners--
incivility and rancor in our private and political life,
extremism in entertainment and sensationalism in the arts and
in the media. How can we improve our discourse? What has
happened to old fashioned courtesy? Nowhere is conduct worse
than among the too-clever-by-half lawyers where the smart
aleck and ill-mannered so-called advocate is destroying the
nobility and high calling of the law, and perhaps the last
vestige of good manners as taught us under the English Common
Law practice. Sir Matthew Hale, a British judge who died in
1676, in writing on ethics, gave us a rule that would serve
us well today. This was his rule: In all my actions, I will
seek to know and follow my better instincts, never my worst;
the nobler course, never the baser; [I will seek to know and
follow] the high purpose, never the meaner.
I suggest this as a good rule for all people of good will
and good manners. We should expect no less from our leaders,
whether public or private; that they take the high road.
Our country is passing now into your hands. We call you
Generation X, and we wonder what your values will be and what
your aspirations will be for our country and for your fellow
citizens.
Based on my observations of my own grandchildren, I believe
that Generation X will be one of our greatest. Your values
will increasingly be in the public interest. You will accept
the challenge of doing something about the poor public
schools and about the fifteen percent of our population who
live below the poverty level. You are our hope--our highest
hope. How will you deal with our greatest failure: the
scourge of drugs? Poor education and poverty will weaken our
country, but drugs can destroy it. The prisons are filled,
largely because of drugs. Using drugs is unpatriotic, but our
leaders do not put the problem in those terms.
You have received a good education and are in a better
position to serve others than many Americans. I hope that you
will adopt the standard of noblesse oblige--``To those to
whom much is given, of them is much expected.''
Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell may have been the
greatest Southerner of this era--and certainly among the
greatest Americans. On the occasion of his death, the
Richmond, Virginia Times-Dispatch, in an editorial of his
life, quoted him as having written, ``As to values, I was
taught--and still believe--that a sense of honor is necessary
to personal self-respect; that duty, recognizing an
individual's subordination to community welfare, is as
important as rights; that loyalty, which is based on the
trust-worthiness of honorable men, is still a virtue; and
that work and self-discipline are as essential to individual
happiness as they are to a viable society. Indeed, I still
believe in patriotism--not if it is limited to parades and
flag-waving, but because worthy national goals and
aspirations can be realized only through love of country and
a desire to be a reponsible citizen.''
There is a chapter in Sandberg's Life of President Lincoln
entitled ``A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down.'' This
chapter includes many of the tributes paid to President
Lincoln after his assassination. One of the tributes was by
the great Russian writer, Tolstoy, who, when asked by Russian
tribesmen to tell them about President Lincoln, responded,
``Lincoln was a great man. He was greater than Alexander the
Great and greater than George Washington. The reason he was
great was his values. Everything that he did was rooted in
four great values: humanity and justice, truth and pity.''
Truth is important. It is the bedrock of our legal system,
and the legal system is the bedrock of our country.
I speak of a legal system as being different from justice.
Justice is that which is rendered in the legal system. It is
the redeeming virtue of our country; that no person is above
the law and no person is below the law; we are all equal
before the law. you must take care to see that no fellow
citizen is ever denied justice. You must also take care to
see that there are no preferred citizens in the sense that
the rich and well-to-do can have a different kind of justice.
I direct your attention to the latterday style of trial

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where the witnesses or prosecutors or judges are attacked by
packs of lawyers using the media as a way to avoid guilt,
although the guilt is never denied. This will not do in a
great country. It will not do among free people.
Humanity and pity are the two other values mentioned by
Tolstoy. A strong feeling of humanity would make us evermore
attentive to problems of poverty and education, and to seeing
that every American is treated fairly and has a fair chance.
Pity is more for the individual basis, but is a mark of
decency--a standard to which we can all repair.
I hope that as you leave this great institution, you will
take with you, as a part of your education, love of country
and love of your fellow citizen. Even with its blemishes,
ours is a great country; the greatest. I have always said
that I am proud to be a Southerner, but am proudest of all to
be an American.
And now ends your last lecture.

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