RACE, DRUGS AND IGNORANCE

Address by NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia

Delivered to the United States Congress, Election of the Speaker, Washington, D.C., 7 January 1997

Let me say to those who voted for me, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. To those who voted for someone else, I hope that I can work with you in such a way that you feel that I am capable of being speaker of the whole House and representing everyone.

To the freshmen and their families and all the young people who are here today, you are part of a wonderful experience. Just as in less than two weeks we will welcome the president for an inaugural, we here in the legislative branch also celebrate a remarkable moment which the entire world watches; a time when an entire nation voluntarily decides how to govern itself and does so in such a manner that there is a sense among the entire country that freedom is secure and that every citizen can participate.

This is the 105th time we've done this as a country -- every two years. The first one actually did not occur until April the 1st, 1789, because while everyone was supposed to show up in March for the brand new Congress, they couldn't find a quorum. And then they all came together. And there are wonderful stories by people who were there written in their diaries and their letters about the fact that they were just folks from all over, of many different backgrounds. Back then they would all have been male and they would all have been white and they would all have been property holders.

Today we have extended democracy and freedom to levels that the Founding Fathers could not have imagined.

And any citizen anywhere on the planet watching through C-SPAN and through the networks and seeing this room and its diversity, can appreciate the degree to which America opens its doors and its hearts to all people of all backgrounds to have a better future.

In addition to the elected members, we are very fortunate to have a professional staff on both sides of the aisle and a professional staff serving on a nonpartisan basis. And let me say that I think that Robin Carle stood well as the clerk of the House in representing all of us in establishing with dignity.

And I thought that in the interchanges between she and Chairman Fazio that the world could see legitimate partisanship engaged in legitimacy -- legitimately, exactly the way it should be; in a professional, in a courteous, in a firm way on both sides. And I think that's part of what we have to teach the world.

In just a few moments, my dear friend John Dingell, who represents a tradition in his district, who has fought all these years for all that he believes in, who in the last Congress served so ably in helping pass the Telecommunications bill, is going to swear me in. And I am going to ask -- then I will have a chance to swear you in. But before that, if I might, I'd say to my dear friend -- let me say my wife is here and my mother and my relatives.

And two years ago, they were here with my father. He is not here today, as I think all of you know. He was an infantryman. He served this country. He believed in honor, duty, country.

Let me say to the entire House that two years ago, when I became the first Republican speaker in 40 years, to the degree I was too brash, too self-confident or too pushy, I apologize. To whatever degree, in any way that I brought controversy or inappropriate attention to the House, I apologize.

It is my intention to do everything I can to work with every member of this Congress. And I would just say, as with telecommunication in Congressman Dingell's case, on welfare reform, on line item veto, on telecommunications reform, on steps towards a balanced budget, again and again we found a bipartisan majority willing to pass significant legislation, willing to work together.

There's much work to be done. I've asked Chairman Henry Hyde of the Judiciary Committee to look at the issue of judicial activism. He has agreed to hold hearings looking at that issue.

I think all of us should focus on increasing American jobs through world sales. And I have asked Chairman Archer to look at the whole issue of taxation and how it affects American job creation.

I've also asked the Ways and Means Committee to look at oversight on NAFTA, on the World Trade Organization, because the fact is, we have to move the legislative branch into the information age. If there are going to be continuing bodies around the world, then Chairman Gilman in International Relations and Chairman Archer and others have to get in the habit, I think, of a kind of aggressive oversight, reporting to the nation on whether or not our interests are being protected.

I've also asked Chairman Archer to prepare a series of hearings looking at the entire issue of how we revise the entire tax code; whether we go towards a flat tax or whether we replace the income tax with a sales tax, or what we do; but to begin a process that, frankly, may take four to six years, but is the right direction for the right reason.

Finally, I've asked Chairman Spence, on the National Security Committee, both to look at the issue of national missile defense and to look at the question of military reform.

And let me say to all of my friends on both sides of the aisle, we have every opportunity through reform to shrink the Pentagon to a triangle; we have every opportunity to apply the lessons of downsizing, the lessons of the information age. And just because something is in uniform doesn't mean it has to be saluted, but instead, we should be getting every penny for our taxpayers, and we in the Congress should be looking at long-term contracting as one way to dramatically lower the cost of defense.

But I want to talk about one other area. And here I just want to say there's something more than legislation. Each of us is a leader back home. And I want to just talk very briefly about three topics, and it's about these children and their America, children on both sides of the aisle, children from all backgrounds in every state.

I think we have to ask the question, as leaders, beyond legislation: How do we continue to create one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all? I believe most Americans, whether native-born or immigrant, still desire for us to be one nation. So let me briefly talk about three areas that I think are vital.

Let me say first, I think -- I'm going to talk just for a second about race, drugs and ignorance. First, let me ask all you: Do we not need to rethink our whole approach to race? And let me draw the parallel to Dick Fosbury. He was a high jumper. In the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, he developed an entire new approach which is now used by everyone. Yet for six years, the U.S. Olympic Committee rejected it.

My point is very simple. I don't believe any rational American can be comfortable with where we are on the issue of race. And I think all of us ought to take on the challenge as leaders, beyond legislation, beyond our normal jobs, of asking some new questions in some new ways. After all, what does race mean when if based on merit alone, ethnic Asians would make up a clear majority at the University of California at Berkeley? What does race mean when colleges recruit minorities in the name of inclusiveness and diversity and then segregate them in their own dormitories? What does race mean when many Americans cannot fill out their census forms because they're an amalgam of races? And furthermore, if those of us who are conservative say that bureaucracy and compulsion is not the answer, then what are we going to say to a child born in a poor neighborhood with a broken home and no one to help them rise, who has no organic contact to prosperity and has no organic contact to a better future?

Now, I mentioned this in passing two years ago, and one of the failures that I would take some of the responsibility for is that we did not follow up. But I want to put it right on the table today that every one of us, as a leader, has an obligation to reach out beyond party and beyond ideology and, as Americans, to say:

"One of the highest values we're going to spend the next two years on is openly dealing with the challenge of meaning that when we say in our declaration that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that every child in every neighborhood, of every background, is endowed by God. And every time America fails to meet that, we are failing to meet God's test for the country we should be."

Let me say second about drugs; I think we have to redefine and rethink our approach to drugs. One of my close friends had her 19-year-old sister overdose, and her 19-year-old sister today is in a coma and celebrated her 20th birthday in that coma. Drugs aren't statistics. As Charlie Rangel told me at breakfast just two years ago, drugs are real human beings being destroyed. Drugs are real violence. If we did not have drugs in this country, the amount of spouse abuse, the amount of child abuse, the amount of violence would drop dramatically. And so I want to suggest that we should take seriously reaching across all barriers and establishing an all-out effort.

You know, the Columbia University Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse has done a fascinating study. The center found that one of the best predictors of whether a child will stay free of drugs is whether he or she practices a religion. Joe Califano, Lyndon Johnson's former adviser and Jimmy Carter's secretary of Health and Human Services, says that religion is part of the solution to our drug problems and to drug treatment itself. Alcoholics Anonymous refers to a "higher power." 

I don't know what all the answers are. But I do know that if we love these children, in addition to fighting racism and reaching out to every child, we need to decide that we are prepared to have the equivalent of an abolitionist movement against drugs and to do what it takes so that none of these children end up in a coma celebrating their birthday or end up dead.

Lastly, we need to pay closer attention to a word you don't hear much anymore: ignorance. Traditionally, ignorance ranked with pestilence, hunger, war as abominations upon humanity. But in recent years, the word ignorance has been cleaned up and refined into some aspect of educational failure. I mean by ignorance something deeper. It's not about geography in the third grade. It's about learning the work ethic. It's about learning to be a citizen. It's about learning to save. It's about all the things that make us functional. It's about the things that allow virtually everybody in this room to get up each morning and have a good life.

There are too many place in America where people are born into dysfunction, educated into dysfunction and live in dysfunction, and we should find a way to reach out in this modern era and use every tool at our tips, from computers to television to radio to personal volunteerism, so that every family that today happens to be dysfunctional has a chance within the next few years to learn to be functional.

And I think we should take ignorance as as serious a problem as drugs or race.

We in the Congress have one place; we have an obligation beyond any other, and that's this city. And I want to commend Eleanor Holmes-Norton for the leadership she has shown and the courage she has shown day after day and week after week. She and Tom Davis and Jim Walsh worked their hearts out over the last two years, and I believe it is fair to say that in some ways, we have begun to make progress. It is not easy. It has to be done carefully. It cannot violate the right of the citizens of this city. But let's be candid, first, this is our national capital. We have a unique obligation on both sides of the aisle, to care about Washington, because we are today to Washington what a state government would be back home to your town. We have an unusual obligation to Washington.

Second, it is our national capital. And people looked at me as though I'd lost my mind a year and a half ago when I met with Mayor Barry and I said, "You know, our vision ought to be the finest capital city in the world." And that ought to be our vision.

And furthermore, if we're going to talk honestly about race and we're going to talk honestly about drugs and we're going to talk honestly about ignorance, we owe it to every citizen of this District, every child in this District, to have a decent chance to grow up and go to a school that succeeds, in a neighborhood that is drug-free and safe, with an expectation of getting a job in a community that actually cares about them and provides a better future. 

And we should take on as a capital -- as a Congress, our responsibilities to the District of Columbia, and we should do it proudly. And we should not be ashamed to go back home and say, "You're darn right we're helping our national capital because we want you to visit it with pride, and we want you to know that you can say to anyone anywhere in the world: Come to America and visit Washington, it is a great city."

Let me close with this final thought -- and I appreciate my friend, John, standing there. And I apologize for having drawn you forward, particularly since you're standing on one foot.

But this has been a very difficult time. And to those who agonized and ended up voting for me, I thank you. Some of this difficulty, frankly, I brought on myself. We will deal with that in more detail later. And I apologize to the House and the country for having done so. Some of it is part of the natural process of partisan competition.

This morning, a very dear friend of mine said that he was going to pray to God that I would win today, and I asked him not to. I asked him to pray to God that whatever happens is what God wants, and then we would try to understand it and learn from it.

Let me put that forward in the same thing for all of us as we approach the next two years. I was really struck about a month ago when I walked down to the Lincoln Memorial and I read the Second Inaugural, which is short enough to be on the wall. And 12 times in that inaugural, Lincoln refers to God. I went back and read Washington's first inaugural, which is replete with reference to America existing within God's framework. I read Jefferson's first inaugural -- since he's often described as a Deist -- which refers to the importance and the power of Providence. All of you can visit the Jefferson Memorial where he says -- around the top it is inscribed --"I have sworn upon the altar of God Almighty eternal hostility against all forms of tyranny over the minds of men."

We have much to be proud of as Americans.

This is a great and a wonderful system. We have much to be ashamed of as Americans; from drug addition to spouse and child abuse, to children living in ignorance and poverty surrounded by the greatest, wealthiest nation in the world; to a political system that clearly has to be overhauled from the ground up if it is going to be worthy of the respect we want and cherish.

I would just suggest to all of you that until we learn in a nonsectarian way -- not Baptist, not Catholic, not Jewish -- in a nonsectarian way -- until we learn to reestablish the authority that we are endowed by our Creator, that we owe it to our Creator, and that we need to seek divine guidance in what we are doing, we are not going to solve this country's problems. In that spirit, with your prayers and help, I will seek to be worthy of being speaker of the House, and I will seek to work with every member sent by their constituents to represent them in the United States Congress. 

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Do you agree?  If so, why?  If not, why not?  Is this the speech of a limited government Conservative or a Progressive Republican?

I can tell you that it is not the speech of a libertarian.