Speech #940054356

Many of these people fled sure execution. It is a small contribution we can make to life and humanity. Most of the refugees are women and children. and those 35.000 able to work will have jobs either in private jobs or Governmentsupported programs. We are completing the history of a painful period for both Vietnamese and Americans. If this is indeed the land of the free. then I believe the final chapter will not be filled with anger. apathy. and neglect. If we are to continue as the leader of the free world. if our tradition of providing new opportunities is to endure. then our strength. our courage. and our responsibility must continue after all the battles are over. At this point in the RECORD I include an article from the Washington Post: PAYING OUR MORAL AccouNTs (By David S. Broder) The Vietnam refugee controversy suggests a new rule for American foreign policy: Dont bloody up countries whose vanquished you will not accept. No refugees. no bombing. in short. It is not much of a policy. but if the refugee reaction measures the political and moral condition of this country. it may be the best we can do. This reporter saw the wave of antirefugee sentiment beginning to form two weeks ago in the classroom of a community college in Southern California. Many of the students in the introductory political science course were themselves no more than a generation or two from the immigration office. working to acquire an education in the classic American pattern. But that morning. the Los Angeles Times had headlined a local officials scarewarning that halfamillion Vietnamese might be on their way to California. and the students peppered the visitor from Washington with questions: Whos going to pay for this? Why should they come here. when were having a hard time finding jobs as it is? Arent they just running out on their own country. buying a ttcket to Uncle Suckers welfare state? The questions went on until the teacher. who happened to be a black woman. cut them off with a remark that she was "ashamed" her students seemed to have forgotten this countrys tradition as a place of refuge for the victims of wars and tyrannies. Her rebuke was just about as ineffective as President Fords remonstrance ten days later to the House of Representatives. when it refused to vote the $327 million he had requested for refugee aid. The members of Congress. of course. had other reasons for their action. they said. They were disturbed by language in the same bill allowing President Ford to use American forces to assist the evacuation of Americans and some South Vietnamese from the overrun country.