REFERENCE: Vol. 134 No. 51

TITLE: WARTIME RELOCATION OF CIVILIANS

SPEAKER: Mr. BYRD; Mr. CRANSTON; Mr. EVANS; Mr. EXON; Mr. HELMS; Mr. MATSUNAGA; Mr. SIMPSON; Mr. WALLOP

TEXT:    [*S4386]  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Adams). The Senator from Nebraska.

Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I have been listening with great interest to my friend and colleague from Virginia, and I thank him for his well-said remarks. They were particularly on point.

I would just like to urge my colleagues to move forward on the bill that I am a cosponsor of that has been spearheaded by my friend and colleague, Senator Matsunaga, from Hawaii.

Since I have had a little personal experience in this particular area, that I will recite briefly, and while I do not think that we Americans should take pride in condemning ourselves, sometimes confessing a sin and being sorry for what you once did is good for the soul, and this might be a time that this is also good for the Nation.

As a young man growing up in South Dakota, when the rattle of World War II was on its path, and followed by the sneak attack by the Japanese Government on our important naval and military facilities in Hawaii, I remember well when the news came out that the Japanese were being rounded up, especially on the Pacific Coast, in the national security interests of the United States, and I remember well at that time that my father and my grandfather that I was very close to sitting there and discussing with me, a young lad that they expected would be involved in the military conflict in the years to come. They were rationalizing and discussing whether or not it was proper for the United States to round up Japanese who lived especially on the West Coast and intern them -- I believe that was the term that was used at that particular time, and I thought my grandfather and my father had lost all reason.

We obviously were at war with the Japanese and to my young mind it only made sense that since we were at war with the Japanese we were at war with the Japanese on the Japanese mainland and also with the Japanese who lived in America, because you see in Lake Andes, SD, we did not have any Japanese. In my young mind I thought that was the proper thing to do.

Oh, I rationalized that some of them, a few of them probably were good Americans, but from my logic it only made sense that most of them were agents of the Japanese Government, and while I thought that there may be a few Japanese-Americans who were good, not very many of them could have been good and if we abused a few that was a part of the situation that we found ourselves in at that time and, of course, everybody at that time detested the Government of Japan.

My father and my grandfather, who had a lot more wisdom than I did, said this remined them of World War II. While we did not have any Japanese in Lake Andes, SD, my hometown, we had an awful lot of Germans because the German stock were the ones that came over and homesteaded in my particular home area and were some of the outstanding citizens, of course, in South Dakota at that time and have been ever since.

But they told me about World War I and how anyone with a German name back in World War I regardless of whether they were good Americans or not were suspect and if anyone ever spoke German during that time they were convinced that they were certainly, if not an agent of the German Government, they had to be sympathetic to them or they would not speak German.

How idiotic can we be? How idiotic it was looking back on it that we did what we did as a Nation to Japanese-Americans who were just as good Americans as anyone else, and we have ample testimony of that right here in the U.S. Senate in both Senator Matsunaga and his colleague, Senator Inouye, both wounded, decorated, veterans on the side of the United States, like so many Japanese-Americans were in World War II.

I only say this, Mr. President, because shame on us for assuming just because we did not have German names in 1917, shame on us as Americans just because we did not have Japanese names in 1941 that we took it upon ourselves to decide what was right and what was wrong regardless of the rights of the individual.

I am proud of the fact that this Senator from Nebraska is supporting the measure before us. Oh, it is going to cost some money. That is right. But certainly it is not going to cost very much money compared to what we did and the shame of what we did to the Japanese-Americans at the beginning of World War II.

I remember another personal factor that I do not think my friend and colleague, Senator Matsunaga, knows about. But a few months after that talk I had with my father and grandfather that I related to you, that vibrant American boy named Jim Exon, with the right color eyes and the right color skin, found himself in the service of the United States and before I served overseas 2 years fighting the Japanese, I ended up in the signal corps camp in California. It was Camp Pinedale, and when we got there it was the sorriest looking camp I had ever seen or ever imagined. It was nothing more than a group of tar paper covered shacks. Some improvements were made while I took my basic training at that particular signal corps camp.

But, nevertheless, one of the reasons we did not like it was the fact that this was a Japanese internment camp where a sizable number of the Japanese who were originally gathered up were dumped into this dump of an internment camp.

As I understand it, the reason that they made way and put the Signal Corps people in there was the fact that they were not sure that it was  [*S4387]  safe to have those Japanese-Americans even in California; they wanted to move them farther inland where they would not be as much of a menace to the war efforts of the United States of America.

I only cite that personal history of mine and I hope you will forgive me, Mr. President, for getting personal in these things. I am not sure that that helps. I only cite it for the fact that I have personal insight into what we did to great Japanese-Americans at that time and anyone who would quibble about the amount of money that we are giving to try in a small way make up for that great injustice and take that position in my view does not understand, does not appreciate, and has not learned the histories of doing the wrong thing, of making judgment about others that all of us have done from time to time throughout our history going way, way back.

Therefore, Mr. President, I hope that we will not have any other votes. I hope that no further killer amendments, like the one that was just defeated substantially, will be offered.

I salute the leadership of Senator Matsunaga in bringing this to the attention of America. As Americans, we should be saluting the initiative of the Senator from Hawaii and maybe at least we can cleanse our souls for the sin that the Government of the United States committed against American citizens of Japanese origin that were just as good, if not better, Americans, as many of them proved in World War II.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Will the Senator from Nebraska yield before he yields the floor?

Mr. EXON. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Nebraska for his early cosponsorship of the measure and for the great support that he has given the measure. The statement which he just made in which he cited his own experience with Japanese-Americans and his recitation of what happened in World War II I think sheds considerable light upon what can happen to any group of Americans. This is what S. 1009 is intended to prevent. In World War II, while we were engaged in war against Germany and Italy, neither Italian-Americans nor German-Americans were evacuated from the west coast, only the Japanese-Americans were evacuated and interned.

So I thank the Senator from Nebraska for bringing that point to the attention of the Senate.

Mr. EXON. I thank my friend from Hawaii. I do this, as he knows, with all sincerity and freedom of heart. I guess that when I vote for this bill, I feel that in some way I will have made amends for the feeling that I admitted that I had at one time. We all learn and become wiser as we go along.

I would simply say to the Senator from Hawaii that the reason that we did not intern German-Americans in World War II, you see we learned our lesson with them in World War I. But, as we do so often, in times of hysteria, in terms of fear -- and I do remember also that there was a greater fear in America at the time that there was an imminent Japanese invasion that was likely to follow within 2 weeks of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

So I guess that we can forgive America for over reacting. But with what we did to German-Americans, which was a disgrace, in World War I and what we did to Japanese-Americans, which was a compounding of the disgrace, in World War II, the bill offered by the Senator from Hawaii may set the record straight that if we have made mistakes in the past we learned from them and will not let it happen in the future.

I thank the Senator from Hawaii for his kind remarks.

I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. EVANS. Mr. President, I am encouraged that this legislation has been presented for consideration before the full Senate. It is an important issue; one that would address our tragic mistakes of the past. With S. 1009, we are addressing the Japanese relocation efforts during World War II and acknowledging the gross aberration of Japanese-Americans' civil rights. And we should offer them redress.

As a Senator from the State of Washington, I have a special interest in this legislation. The first group of Japanese citizens to be removed from their homes under President Roosevelt's Executive order were from Bainbridge Island, WA. They were the first of nearly 13,000 Japanese-Americans from the State of Washington to be funneled into assembly centers and eventually into relocation facilities.

Victims of Executive Order 9066 were given very short notice that they would be sent to relocation facilities. Most were granted just a few days to abandon their homes and belongings. As a result they were forced to sell or lease their property and businesses at prices reflecting only a fraction of their worth. Substantial economic losses were incurred. Once they arrived at the relocation centers they found a quality of life which was atrocious. They were overcrowded and families suffered from an actute lack of privacy with no borders or walls to separate them from others.

Opponents of this legislation choose to ignore raw, racial prejudice woven in what was supposed to be legitimate national security justification for internment. The evacuees, however, were guilty of no crime other than the apparent crime of being of Japanese ancestry. Japanese-Americans left their homes in an atmosphere of racial prejudice and returned to the same.

What is perhaps most alarming about the Japanese internment is that it took place in the United States of America. This is the same country which has prided itself on freedom, justice, and the preservation and protection of individual rights.

Thirty-four years after the last citizens were released from captivity, Congress established the Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Japanese-American Citizens to assess the decision to intern and relocate Japanese-Americans. Two years after its inception, the Commission issued certain factual findings and subsequent recommendations. I have cosponsored legislation to implement these recommendations throughout my tenure in the U.S. Senate.

The $20,000 compensation that would be allotted to each victim, and the educational fund established by this legislation are a modest attempt to redress wrongs against loyal Americans. Although we cannot restore completely what already has been lost, the legislation would serve as a symbol to all that the United States can come to terms with its own tragic mistake.

Our legal tradition provides us with a system of damage compensation to promote accountability in government's actions. For example, false imprisonments from the May Day demonstrations in 1972 resulted in a Federal court decision to award money damages to the demonstrators for the hours they spent in detention. Additionally, special compensation was rightfully granted to the 52 Iran hostages under the Hostage Relief Act and Anti-Terrorism Act. These examples offer precedential evidence that victims justifiably have received individual compensation for a loss of bodily freedom. Furthermore, Federal law affords both equitable relief and money damages under section 1983, against any State or Federal official who violates a person's constitutional rights.

Today, we have the opportunity to use our hindsight. And with the 20-20 vision it provides, we not only can recognize this flagrant injustice from history, but we can learn from it. By offering redress to the Japanese-Americans we will invest in a deterrent from future atrocities.

Mr. President, similar legislation in 98th and 99th Congresses never was granted a complete hearing. Congress must no longer delay consideration of this issue. It is time that we accept the Commission's recommendations and endorse its remedy for reparation. I urge my colleagues to cast a vote in favor of its passage.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. President, I believe Senator Helms is prepared to offer an amendment. Until such time as he arrives on the floor, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

 [*S4388]  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

AMENDMENT NO. 1968

(Purpose: to provide that no funds may be appropriated in any year in which there will be a budget deficit)

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. Mr. President, in this case I ask the clerk to read the entire amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.

The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms] proposes an amendment numbered 1968.

At the end of the bill, add the following:

TITLE IV -- REQUIREMENT FOR A BALANCED BUDGET

Sec. 401. (a) Prohibition on Appropriations. -- No funds may be appropriated under this Act for any fiscal year if

(1) it is determined, under the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, that there will be a deficit in such fiscal year; or

(2) if the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, adopted pursuant to Section 301 of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, sets for a deficit for such fiscal year.

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and I thank the distinguished clerk.

I found the vote on the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Hecht], to be quite interesting and enlightening because it disclosed that money is an important aspect to this bill. That prompts me to suggest that it is time for the Senate to make a realistic judgment about whether the taxpayers of this country can afford to have Congress appropriate $1.3 billion for this purpose.

Bear in mind, Mr. President, that a very small percentage, relatively, of the American people alive today were even born when Pearl Harbor was virtually destroyed and our fleet was lying on the bottom. I do not know what that percentage is, but I think the percentage is zero of American people alive today who had anything whatesoever to do with the decisions on the relocation of Japanese-Americans.

So, what we are talking about is adding to the burden of the working taxpayers today, another $1.3 billion for something they had nothing to do with. Since so many of them were not even born, I wonder about the fairness of doing that.

I have three children. As of yesterday, I have six grandchildren. Amelia Jane Helms was born in Winston-Salem, NC, yesterday afternoon. I had to get that in, Mr. President.

The PRESIDING OFFEICER. The Chair understands the pride of the Senator from North Carolina, and it is appreciated by all Members.

Mr. HELMS. Bragging ain't bragging if you can prove it, Mr. President.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is right.

Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair.

But I think it is about time that we think about fairness for them, too. Nobody is, in retrospect, proud of the relocation of the Japanese-Americans during World War II, but as I said earlier, we lived in a time of terror in this country immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nobody knew what was coming next, and even though I do not now belong to the party of Franklin Roosevelt, I reject the implicit condemnation of the judgments that he made based on intelligence reports made to him by this Government.

Mistakes are make constantly by any government in times of strees, and certainly that was a stressful, emotional time. Nobody knew what to expect.

The Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner], recalled that this Capital City was in darkness. Nobody knew whether there was going to be an attack on Washington, DC, in addition to that, our forces lacked weaponry. I recall that soldiers were stationed on the roof of the House Office Building, and they did not even have rifles. They had wooden imitations of guns.

I went to the recruiting station in Raleigh, NC, on the afternoon of December 7, 1941, and volunteered but was turned down because of ear difficulty. It was 3 months later before I was sworn in, I had to get a waiver from the Navy.

It was a stressful time, and nobody knew what was going to happen next.

I have not heard mentioned on this floor during this debate anything about what the U.S. Government has done in the interim since World War II in a good faith attempt to compensate the victims of relocation for their losses.

I say again that the decisions on which this legislation is based were taken against a backdrop of fear for the survival of America. We had just been attacked by a totalitarian regime which had enjoyed a virtually unbroken string of military successes, both before and immediately after the Government of Japan attacked the United States of America.

I was a much younger man on that day when Franklin D. Roosevelt went to the House of Representatives and talked about a day of infamy.

But I think it is self-evident that all of us, prior to the offering of this legislation, had put that behind us.

I have great affection for a number of Japanese leaders. I consult with them frequently. Just yesterday I was in a very pleasant conversation with the Japanese Ambassador to the United States I might add. He is a delightful man.

I have dealt with Mr. Nakasone on numerous occasions and found him to be a reliable friend. So that is behind us.

I have heard from a lot of survivors of American fighting men who were killed in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and they say: "How about us?"

I take nothing away; as a matter of fact, I praise men like Senator Matsunaga and Danny Inouye who fought for this country, and they know of my admiration and respect for them.

But, on the other hand, I think it is only fair to look back to that time, and recall the fact that our intelligence community told the then President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that there was great risk. Now we can see that it was a mistake.

I have no vision problem with respect to that. We will have 20-20 vision by hindsight, and I am perfectly willing for this Senate and this Congress to declare that this kind of thing must never happen again.

But the Senate has just voted to give the priority emphasis to money, $1.3 billion. So I think we ought to look at our priorities. That is the purpose of this amendment.

We have had another Japanese-American citizen in this Senate in the recent past, himself a delightful man, Sam Hayakawa from California, who served one term. On December 7, 1982, Senator Hayakawa, a splendid Japanese-American, had this to say:

It is difficult for people who did not live through that dreadful time to reconstruct the terror and the anxiety felt by people along the entire west coast. Disaster followed upon disaster after the attack on Pearl Harbor. *** Japanese forces landed on the Malay Peninsula and began their drive toward Singapore. Guam fell on December 10, Wake on December 23. On December 8 Japanese planes destroyed half the aircraft on the airfields near Manila. As enemy troops closed in, General MacArthur withdrew his forces from the Philippines and retired to Australia. On Christmas Day the British surrendered Hong Kong.

The Western World was scared stiff. The west coast of the United States, rich with naval bases, shipyards, oil fields, and aircraft factories, seemed especially vulnerable to attack.

There was talk of evacuating not just the Japanese from the west coast but everybody. Who knew what was going to happen next?

And I recall those days, Mr. President.

How frightening were the nightly blackouts during that bleak winter of defeat. Would Japanese carriers come to bomb the cities -- San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles? Would submarines sneak through the Golden Gate to shell San Francisco? Would they actually mount an invasion? Who could tell?

Of course the relocation was unjust.

I might say, Mr. President, parenthetically, there is no disagreement by 20-20 hindsight on that point. I will sign an affidavit to it.

But under the stress of wartime anxieties and hysteria and in the light of the long history of antioriental agitation in California and the West, I find it difficult to imagine what else could have occurred that would not have been many times worse. If things had continued to go badly for American forces in the Pacific -- and they did -- what would Americans on the west coast have done to their Japanese and Japanese-American  [*S4389]  neighbors as they learned of more American ships sunk, more American planes shot down, more American servicemen killed, including your husbands, your boyfriend, your brothers? What would they have done? Would they have beaten their Japanese neighbors in the streets, Would they have ostracized and persecuted Japanese-American children, Would mobs have descended on Little Tokyo in Los Angeles and Japan town in San Francisco to burn down shops and homes?

Again the popular hue and cry was backed up by reputable intellectuals. Walter Lippmann, the dean of American social commentators then and for decades thereafter, joined in the demand for mass evacuation. The idea was also supported at the time by such liberal intellectual journals as the Nation, the New Republic, and the extra-liberal but short-lived New York newspaper, PM.

Now, then, Mr. President, the U.S. Government, contrary to suggestions otherwise, has not ignored the suffering that occurred as a result of the relocation and internment during the war. The Government has officially recognized that much unjustified personal hardship was, in fact, caused. Previous Congresses, Presidents and Attorneys General have taken steps to acknowledge and compensate Japanese-Americans for the injuries they suffered.

For example, in 1948, Congress enacted the American Japanese Claims Act, which authorized compensation for "any claim" for damages to or loss of real or personal property "as a reasonable consequence of the evacuation or exclusion of" persons of Japanese ancestry as a result of governmental action during World War II.

I might add that this act of 1948 was subsequently amended to liberalize its compensation provisions.

Under the amended act, the Justice Department received claims seeking approximately $147 million. Ultimately, 26,568 settlements were achieved, many of which involved claims presented by family groups rather than individual claimants. So I think it is safe to conclude that of the 120,000 evacuees, most of them submitted claims under the American Japanese Claims Act and received compensation from the American taxpayers. A total of more than $37 million was paid in compensation pursuant to this act alone.

True enough, the American Japanese Claims Act did not include every item of damage that was or could have been suggested. It did, however, address the hardships visited upon persons of Japanese ancestry in a comprehensive, considered manner taking into account individual needs and losses, and this effort to correct injustice to individuals was in keeping with our Nation's best tradition of individual rather than collective response, and it was far more contemporaneous with the injuries to the claimants than would be any payments at this late date. But let me move along.

Mr. President, in 1956, Congress considered legislation that challenged the adequacy of the claims settlements provided pursuant to the 1948 act. That bill would have liberalized the relief provision of the act by granting expanded compensation for certain losses, and Congress specifically rejected the proposal because, in the words of Congress, "It would substantially reopen the entire project."

If you want a reference on that, it is House Report No. 1809, 84th Congress, 2d session, 9 (1956).

In 1972, Congress amended the Social Security Act so that Japanese-Americans over the age of 18 would be deemed to have earned and contributed to the Social Security System during their detention. The Federal civil service retirement provisions were amended in 1978 to allow Japanese-Americans credit for the time spent in detention after the age of 18.

Mr. President, one of the reasons I oppose this effort to pay additional reparations to individuals is because Congress has already enacted a comprehensive statutory scheme providing a reasonable, balanced contemporaneous remedy to affected individuals. By enacting the 1948 American Japanese Claims Act, Congress recognized long ago that many loyal Americans of Japanese descent were injured by the wartime relocation and internment program. Although the Commission's report challenges the amount of compensation chosen by Congress as inadequate, Congress has spoken after considerable debate, and there is no good reason to question that settlement some three and one-half decades later.

Mr. President, nothing has occurred since that time to warrant a supplemental payment to the internees. The results of the settlement process under the act, long since completed, deserve to be accepted as a fair resolution of the claims involved. If it was inadequate, those inadequacies can and should be determined and resolved by the courts -- not in a political carnival in an election year by the Congress.

Oh, it is so easy, Mr. President, to spend somebody else's money. That is the problem with the Nation's finances right now. Year after year, decade after decade, Congress has come in here willy-nilly, Senate and House, and said, "Wouldn't it be nice, wouldn't it be politically appealing if we appropriated a few billion dollars for that." It did not matter where the money came from, just appropriate it, spend somebody else's money. And I daresay that the young working men and women of this country will probably resent being used as pawns in this matter.They had nothing to do with any judgment made in the early 1940's. As a matter of fact, as I said earlier, I do not believe anybody is alive today who participated in the decision. Certainly, Franklin Roosevelt is not alive. He is not here to defend himself. And while it may be a bit odd for a Senate on this side of the aisle to defend Franklin Roosevelt, I defend him because he acted on the best information available to him in a time of stress and terror and turmoil in the United States of America.

But here we are going to dump this load on top of other loads we have dumped on the young working men and women of this country. It is another $1.3 billion to be added to the debt -- so here we go again.

The pending amendment at the desk, Mr. President, is so clear and so simple that any schoolboy could understand it. It simply states that "no appropriations will be in order under this bill if the budget projection by the Congressional Budget Office, pursuant to the Budget Act projects a deficit for the following year or if the budget resolution for the next fiscal year sets forth a deficit."

In other words, I am saying we cannot afford to spend $1.3 billion for this purpose now. Day after day, week after week, and month after month we come to this Chamber and say: "Oh, I'm for fiscal responsibility." Those words roll off the lips of Senators, and then they turn right around and add $1.3 billion here and $5 billion here and $6 billion there.

I went out there and looked at the trees on the Capitol lawn one day, Mr. President. I walked all around when the Senate was in recess and, you know, I did not find a single tree with money on it, not one. The money we spend comes from the hide of the working taxpayers of America.

Now, we can be regretful. We can be apologetic. I am willing to be both. Any American in his right mind would testify under oath that we should never engage in this kind of internment and relocation again, but in the same breath I have to say that I recall those days of terror and horror and frightful expectation.

I do not think the present occupant of the chair was in the Chamber when I earlier mentioned that only one time in history has the Rose Bowl football game been played in any place other than Pasadena, CA. It was played in Durham, NC, in January 1942 simply because intelligence furnished Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned that there was a distinct possibility that Japanese planes would bomb that stadium if it were filled with people for the Rose Bowl game in January 1942. So it was moved all the way across the country to Durham, NC, 21 miles from my home, the only time the game has been moved.

The anomally of all of this emphasis on money, Mr. President, is that the Senate has just passed a budget resolution setting forth a deficit of approximately $140 billion. Already, at best, we are going to go further in the red next fiscal year by $140 billion. Here we come with another $1.3 billion. I suppose there will be some who will say it is just $1.3 billion. But where I come from, a billion bucks is something you cannot even see in your mind's eye -- $1.3 billion.

 [*S4390]  We have heard a lot of rhetoric about budget problems and a willingness to get rough and make tough decisions. I do no think that the vote on the amemdment offered by Senator Hecht of Nevada justifies all of that bravado, macho, rhetoric by Senators. The plain truth is that we do not intend to balance the budget. If we did, if we had been, we would have cut spending around this place a long time ago. Those of us who voted against this add-on or this excess are regarded as reactionary. The most reactionary thing I can think of is to continue to pile billions upon billions of dollars of debt upon the working people of this country.

I have not taken a pool on this question. But I dare say that if the American people understand what is involved in this bill and could be polled on it, I think we would get a very clear message that they would oppose it.

Mr. President, I am going to have further remarks about this bill. I will have further amendments in time. But I think I have said enough for the time being.

Before I yield the floor, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. HELMS. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. MATSUNAGA addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina. The bill as reported by the committee already has a provision, section 207, entitled "Compliance with Budget Act," which provides as follows:

No authority under this title to enter into contracts or to make payments shall be effective except to the extent or in such amounts as are provided in advance in appropriations Acts.

The bill before us merely authorizes appropriations.

So if the budgetary situation is such that the Appropriations Committee determines that there can be no appropriations made because of the huge budgetary deficit, then the Appropriations Committee will not make the appropriations. There already is that safeguard. And the safeguard provision was put in upon the suggestion of the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Chiles.

So, Mr. Chairman, there is no need whatsoever for the amendment being offered by the Senator from North Carolina, and I urge its defeat.

Mr. President, I move to table that amendment.

Mr. HELMS. Would the Senator withhold just 1 second?

Mr. MATSUNAGA. I yield to the Senator from North Carolina.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator yielding for a question?

Mr. MATSUNAGA. I yield to the Senator from North Carolina for a question.

Mr. HELMS. It is more than a question. But let me state it. The Senator referred to this in effect as an authorization bill, which of course, it is. That is the process around this place. You first have to authorize funds, and then the issue goes to the Appropriations Committee; but the Appropriations Committee, under our rule, is not supposed to make an appropriation until there is an authorization bill. So what the Senator is saying, I assume, is that we are following the usual procedure of an authorization bill for $1.3 billion. And then it would go to the Appropriations Committee, assuming that this bill is passed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii has the floor.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. I move to table the amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question occurs upon the motion of the Senator from Hawaii to lay on the table the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina. The yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The question is on the motion of the Senator from Hawaii to table the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask for 10 seconds.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be a 15-minute rollcall and that the call for the regular order occur at the expiration of the 15 minutes automatically.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered.

The yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.

The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.

Mr. CRANSTON. I announce that the Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Gore] and the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] are necessarily absent.

I also announce that the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden] is absent because of illness

Mr. SIMPSON. I announce that the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner] is necessarily absent.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Shelby). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber who desire to vote?

The result was announced -- yeas 61, nays 35, as follows:

(See Rollcall Vote No. 103 Leg. in the ROLL segment.)

So the motion to lay on the table amendment No. 1968 was agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. President, does the Senator from North Carolina wish to offer further amendments?

Mr. HELMS. I think I have to have the floor in my own right to suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, it has been a very interesting debate for me. I have been paying attention to it on the monitor. It has made me recall some most interesting and memorable parts of my own life because I was a young boy in Cody, WY, in 1941 when the war started. I was 10 then.

Two years later, at the age of 12, somewhere between the years of 12 and 13, the third largest community in Wyoming was constructed between the communities of Powell and Cody, WY, a city of 15,000 people which really literally went up overnight. And the name of it, of course, was Heart Mountain War Relocation Center, known to the people of the area simply as the  [*S4391]  "Jap Camp," a term which may be hard for us to believe now but that is what it was referred to then; swiftly built by those who had not been drafted into the war, or older men in their 40's who were not able to be taken into the war effort.

And so came into being Heart Mountain, WY, War Relocation Center. There was barbed wire around it. There were guard towers at the edges of it. It was a very imposing area.

I guess the thing that you remember as a kid growing up, you suddenly were aware that here was this city of 15,000 people and we wondered what would happen if they all were to receive arms or weapons. Would they then come into the towns of Cody and Powell and capture the community? Silly things to think about, unless you are 12 or 13 and charting the course of the war in your bedroom, as to where the Allies were and Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini. Those were things that were very real to those of us of this vintage.

I remember one night very distinctly when the scoutmaster -- I was a Boy Scout, a rather nominal one, but I enjoyed the activities of the group. And he said, "We are going to go out to the War Relocation Center and have a scout meeting." I said, "Well, I mean, are there any of them out there?", No. 1. He said, "Yes, yes, these are American citizens, you see." And that put a new twist on it because we thought of them as something else -- as aliens; we thought of them as spies; we thought of them as people who were behind wire because they were trying to do in our country.

So I shall not forget going to the Boy Scout meeting and meeting Boy Scouts from California, most of them, I recall, same merit badges, same scout sashes, same clothing.

And why not? Some of them were second- or third-generation American citizens? We talked about all the things 13-year-old boys talk about in a complete spectrum of activity from merit badges to different kinds of books, what literature that you read at that tender age. We smoked a little cornsilk and did some other things that boys still do. Maybe -- but they do not smoke that anymore. [Laughter.]

So it was there, at that particular scout gathering I met a young scout named Norm Mineta, who is now the Congressman from the area of San Jose, I believe it is his district, in California. I remember a very animated discussion with him, seeing how lively, bright and curious about things he was. He still is, here, as he performs his remarkable service as a very respected legislator. When he got elected mayor of San Jose, I wrote him a letter and said: Do you remember that fat kid from Cody who visited with you when we were at Heart Mountain? Then, of course, since both of us are here in Congress, we have renewed and refreshed that friendship many times.

Heart Mountain rises up strong and majestic from the floor of the lush, irrigated farm valleys in the Big Horn Basin, between Cody and Powell. Its rugged vertical thrust makes it a remarkable subject for many an artist's canvas. When I was a kid growing up in Cody, my friends and I envisioned it as our very own Mount Everest, challenging its eastern peak, and some of us prevailing only after a solid day's efforts. It was then -- and still may be -- true ritual to carve your initials in the rocks at the very top in order to "serve notice" that certain intrepid youth had conquered the lofty peak!

Today, on a return trip, it is impossible to distinguish one's own initials from the many others that also had "laid claim" to the land. However, there are some other very distinct markings that grace the same area and present themselves ever so clearly. They are Japanese letters and writings engraved in the rocks by the Japanese-American citizens who were interned in the Heart Mount relocation camp during World War II. It is a moving -- and sobering -- site to find high upon a Wyoming mountainside.

So, I also remember those other nights we would go into the compound -- which it was in every sense, with searchlights and with wire -- visiting with some of the older people. There were very few young men there from the ages of 17 through 28, because many of them were in the armed services of the United States. But I do remember visiting with the older people and there were many of them there.

The younger and the older were there. Those were the principal inhabitants. I remember a woman, a very old woman to me at that age, said "Do you have grandparents?"

I said, "Yes, I do."

She said, "Where do they live?"

I said, "In Cody, down the road there."

She said, "Well, what kind of a house do they have?"

I thought, well, that is interesting to ask. I described it.

"What do they do?"

And then I remember she showed me pictures of her family.

She said, "This is my son. He is in Italy now fighting for this country, the United States of America."

Then we would go downtown in Cody, WY, and there would be a sign on the restaurant that said, "No Japs allowed here." And then you would go down to another place of business, it might be a sign that said, "My son was killed at Iwo Jima. How do you think I feel?"

And the trustee's would come into town. They were remarkable people. Usually the best and the brightest. Maybe those who had been involved in agriculture and whose lands had been taken from them -- confiscated.

So I really had a lot of trouble sorting that all out at the age of 13. I maybe have some of the same kind of trouble sorting it all out at the age of 56. But let me just say that I preserve it as a very formative part of my life. Yet I also observed that there were several within that compound who were very questionable as to their loyalties to the United States. Just like in any population of human beings. Of course, they had been pretty well interrogated before they came to Heart Mountain, or Colorado, or the main camps where they went. But in my mind you had to see it, you had to have it etched on the back of the rim of your eye, to understand that these people were put in an extraordinary situation where they lost their constitutional rights in the United States of America. They were not, as I say, aliens. They were U.S. citizens.

You have to also realize that it was a self-contained unit even with a mortuary in it. Of course many of the old people died in a rather harsh Wyoming winter, in what were then what we would call tarpaper shacks on the sagebrush plain.

The war ended. Many of them went back to their communities. Their land had been confiscated or sold. But then the land was opened to the veterans, the returning veterans of the armed services. And, ironically, and extraordinarily enough, some of the veteans that came and filed on the land were Japanese-Americans. They had been told that it was a pretty productive, though semiarid area, so here we saw this remaining, fascinating cycle closed with Japanese-American veterans filing on the lands of the war relocation center as they turned it over to the returning veterans of the United States. Some are still there. They are businessmen and women of Park County, WY. They raised sugar beets or bought lumber companies and did all the things American citizens do.

So I just had a desire to share that, as we have watched this debate. I am a cosponsor of the legislation. But yet there is a very troubling part of it to me and that has been reflected in two votes on this point.

There is no question about it being that gravest of injustices. And it may be hardly a repayable one. How do you ever really repay these people for the wages, the property, the opportunity, the education, the part of their lives lost during this period? And this taxpayer expenditure is a troubling part of the bill for me.

I have trouble with the money. An apology may be long overdue and may be so appropriate. But, coupled with money, it takes away some of the sincerity of the apology, somehow. If you did that with a friend, a lovely friend, and you said: I am sorry for what I did. I know that was very harmful to you and hurtful. But I am sorry and I apologize and I want to give you some money.

I think that that somehow is unbecoming. It may not be to some. It is a troubling aspect of it to me.

 [*S4392]  Our country has aggrieved many in its time. Sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. The Native Americans of my State suffered greatly, too. Should they be compensated with money? I have heard that in this debate. It is a troubling concept. Where does that end? How much will that cost? And yet the great majority of these people were and are loyal citizens of our land.

So, as I say I wish I could put all that into better blend of mind and heart. I do not think I can except to say that it remains puzzling.

What remains a bit more puzzling to me is the fact that we bring up an ancient grievance, and it is ancient in terms of the way we live in this place when the bottom line is what happens 3 months from now in corporate boardrooms or in this place, and say that here is it presented to us again through different sets of eyes. Then remember that at the time it happened that at least two of the greatest civil libertarians of our times, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Earl Warren, thought it was the thing to do, as did the United States Supreme Court.

It is very interesting because it was a different time. It was a time when we were totally unprepared for what happened at Pearl Harbor. That was evident in the act and the essence of the attack. We were totally unprepared for what was occurring in California with regard to the blinking of lights in the interior, on the shore, communicating with vessels in the ocean off of California and people then who were apprehended as aliens who had explosives, devices, and weapons, some citizens, some aliens, some people waiting for the call to do what it was their country had decided to do, which was to invade and conquer the United States of America. That was a different time.

It is difficult to look on that now and understand that the people of the United States were at war with this nation. But the other part of it is too, that we did not do that to the German-American population, although certainly those who were of German descent in the United States were sometimes suspiciously eyed.

In that same area of my growing up was a little location, a rural area called Germania Bench, which then during the war was changed to Emblem Bench. They felt it very important to correct that. But we did not intern German-American citizens; we interned Japanese-American citizens. We did not intern Italian-American citizens, only Japanese-American citizens.

In any event, when it was done, it seemed like the very right thing to do, and I know that must stun and appall people in this country today, but at that time in most every structure of our citizenry, or Government and our bureaucracy, it seemed the very right thing to do.

So I guess I still have the same feelings of conflict. The conflict of the acutal money appropriation is overcome in the final analysis by the humanity of what happened.

I will be supporting the final product, but somehow I think there is something that does not ring right when you say to all of those that they be financially compensated regardless of their treatment, and some were treated much better than others, I might add. Some became remarkable teachers; some were great journalists; some went on to Government service, some did not. They were just like the regular population of human beings anywhere gathered. But somehow it seems to me we say to each of you who were there that you will receive $20,000 and then to each of the Aleut population of Alaska who were involved, you will receive $12,000. I do not know. That leaves a strange feeling in my craw. I share that knowing full well that in this issue, there will be those who will indeed criticize whatever position one would take.

It is an emotional and extraordinarily charged issue which has been conducted beautifully by our friend from Hawaii, my friend, Senator Sparky Matsunaga. Without the respect and affection we hold for him, this debate would have ranged into other fields, and he kept it from that. I give him my congratulations and my admiration.

So we will conclude this, and I think probably we will revisit this issue again, not with this situation but in other populations of our country, and we best know indeed, that will likely take place.

There is not one of us here today with what we have been through with our civil rights activities in 1964 and Selma that probably thinks: "How could this have ever occurred?" And yet at the time it occurred, it seemed at that time of our lives to be the most important step that could be taken.

That decision was made by people with much greater wisdom than I had at the age of 13 in Cody, WY.

Hopefully, we will conclude this debate shortly and move on to other issues of the day because this is an old and sad and very painful thing that we have reopened here in this debate. The sooner we close that wound and suture it with love and understanding and affection, we will be better off. And suturing it with money does not seem like the best way to conclude the issue.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, it really gives me no pleasure to appear in opposition to a bill of a respected friend. We have worked together on a number of things in the Finance Committee, and on Energy matters. It just happens that on an issue of this dimension we are on opposite sides of a philosophical spectrum.

There is no doubt in my mind that this bill, which bears the cosponsorship of 75 Senators, will pass and that Senators supporting this measure will plead the case for a compassionate apology which will, at long last, right the wrong committed against internees some 45 years ago.

They will undoubtedly decry what they will call the unjustifiable actions of wartime leaders that today seems totally inconsistent with our form of Government. But, Mr. President, what seems incomprehensible today was the frightening reality of national security at the height of World War II.

Anyone who questions this is welcome to read any of several letters I have received from constituents detailing incidents such as a serviceman who, in the course of watching a Japanese prisoner of war in the Philippines during World War II, discovered that the man spoke English and had graduated from UCLA. And the prisoner, an officer in the Japanese Army, volunteered that of course there had been some Japanese-Americans who had been sending intelligence to Japan by radio, and that when in college he had made a number of friends precisely for that purpose. It is not to say that everyone was.

Yes, we are strong allies with Japan today. This astonishing Nation, above any nation in the world, forgives enemies, forgives acts of war and tries to live in civilized harmony more than any nation in the history of mankind.

So inasmuch as we are now allies with Japan, the events of World War II seem ever so much more distant and the hysteria ever so much more absurd. It is hard to imagine what was taking place. But to superimpose the peacetime mentality of today on the past and to judge our predecessors on that account is, as Jim Kilpatrick noted in a recent column, "The hindsight wisdom of a Monday morning quarterback."

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Kilpatrick column be included in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(See exhibit No. 1.)

Mr. WALLOP. The bottom line is that if we are set on judging our ancestors, better we put ourselves in their place rather than placing them in ours. To do so yields a different set of conclusions than those drawn by  [*S4393]  the Commission on Wartime Relocation and set forth in this bill.

Those who will join me in opposing this bill will point out that the Congress back in 1948 authorized monetary compensation to internees and that some $37 million in claims were paid. Others will note the fact that President Ford officially recognized that the internment was a mistake and repealed the excutive order that authorized it. Those are undeniable facts.

But what troubles me most about this legislation is that we are subscribing to what strikes me as a repugnant and an offensive idea -- that a clear conscience is to be had for a mere $20,000 a head. Why settle on that figure? Had we paid $1,000 or even $19,000, would we still be a nation with a conscience troubling us? Or had we offered $25,000, would the recipients count it as too much and return the $5,000? To me, Mr. President, this act demeans the Congress, demeans the United States and demeans the recipients. It is an act of astonishing materialism if this Nation, troubled by the events of the past, can purchase its honor, and that we can write a check and get back its honor.

Mr. President, honor does not come with a dollar sign attached to it.

That a great nation will apologize is something not unheard of in history, but you do not buy it back. It is not a dollar figure that will do anything about this wrong, if so wrong it was and so bad were our ancestors, that they, fearing for the survival of their country, did something which at the time they thought was correct. There was not a dishonorable act. Hindsight might well prove that there were other options, but that was the option of a nation on the first days of war. It was the option of a nation which had lost numbers and numbers of its own soldiers and sailors who were attacked, not by Americans of Japanese descent or Japanese living in America, but by the nation of Japan. And our Nation was responding to what it thought was a threat to its survival as a democracy.

The Nation did not simply think it was a threat. In fact we flat knew that we were going to the wall as a matter of survival.

Theory that proponents of this legislation would have us accept that it is possible to assign a dollar value to a concept like freedom. I would say tell that to the Jews who suffered at Hitler's hands. Tell that to a Sakharov, or Orloff or Shcharansky. Tell it to Armondo Valladares, a great Cuban who suffered in Castro's jail. Moreover, if reparations are due one set of Americans who suffered thus, what of the rest of the Americans who suffered during the Second World War and who lost loved ones overseas, or who were held in captivity by the Japanese in the Philippines, or the Germans in Germany, or indeed the Russians in the Soviet Union.

If we are determined to atone for the sins of our parents and grandparents in this manner, perhaps we owe some monetary apology to the descendents of slaves, to the Cherokee Indians who endured the Trail of Tears, or to the Chinese-Americans who were pressed into virtual servitude building the transcontinental railroad and suffered a major massacre in a town in my State.

To me it is sad that this Congress thinks that the remedy for inequity, and justice, and the loss of personal freedom is dollars. One has but to denominate it and our national guilt is assuaged.

As former Member of Congress, Dan Lungren, a member of the Commission on Wartime Relocation, noted,

Do we really believe that nothing can be genuine unless it involves the coin of the realm?

Mr. President, the bill not only sets a bad precedent but in the eloquent words of my constitutents, "only puts further disgrace upon this whole disgraceful episode in American history."

Mr. President, it had been my intention to offer an amendment which I will discuss and will not offer. In considering the bill to pay restitution to a people who were denied their lives and their livelihoods during a time of national crisis, we ought to consider the rest of what is implied here.

It seems to me that if this Congress feels that we owe a monetary apology for the actions of past generations, and can ease our collective conscience by so doing, then maybe we ought to consider cleaning the slate for other Government policies that today seem unjustified and incomprehensible.

Perhaps if this is the day of atonement for the U.S. Congress and if assuaging our national guilt is the goal, we should amend this bill to provide monetary compensation for other groups who have suffered under Government policies.

We should, I think, address the descendants of the Cherokees forced to walk the Trail of Tears. I have drafted an amendment to do just that. Maybe we have no historical memory but some of us remember of Trail of Tears from our history classes and some of us remember that from the fact that we grew up with Indian peoples.

Considering the issue we have before us here today, it is instructive to repeat that particular history lesson.

The Cherokees, under court order, had to adhere to the terms of the 1835 Treaty of New Echota which required them to surrender their land and move west of the Mississippi. The Indians were literally forced off their lands by local whites who ran off livestock and burned their homes. Troops under the command of Gen. Winfield Scott rounded up these Indians and drove them into concentration camps where they were held until they were sent in detachments of 1,000 people each on the fateful journey. In all some 15,000 Cherokees, under military force, walked from Georgia to Oklahoma. Winter approached, many fell ill and died along the way. Supplies ran short. The military escort refused to allow the Indians to even care for their sick or bury their dead. Some 4,000 Native Americans died.

Mr. President, this is also a tragic chapter in American history. If it is not, I do not know what is. The same thing happened to the Cheyenne people, forced out of their lands in Wyoming and Colorado into an area in Oklahoma called The Nations, from which they later escaped. They ran all the way north back up through Wyoming, and ended up in Montana, their great leader killed, and their nation confined to the northern part of the State. The southern Cheyenne still live in Oklahoma.

These people were deprived of their way of life as were the Cherokees who were forced into concentration camps, and forced on a thousand mile-plus march which killed more than a quarter of them, all due to the policies of our ancestors.

If we are compelled to offer redress to Japanese-Americans, should we not also offer some monetary atonement for the sins of our forefathers, for those on the Trail of Tears, for those forced back to The Nations?

Mr. President, I will not offer my proposed amendment, which is simple enough. It simply says:

No funds shall be appropriated under this title until the U.S. Government has also fairly compensated the descendants of the victims of the Trail of Tears.

The reason I will not offer it is that I do not think you can buy that back, either.

This Nation suffers from what it did to those people. They suffer yet from what was done and remains done to them. But America's honor is not for sale and it is not for purchase, in either direction. Monetary policy does not buy it, nor can it be sold.

That is what we are being asked to do. I think that in many respects we are not being asked to do that by the people the sponsors seek to compensate. I think this is genuinely a product of something else, although I am not exactly sure what, and I am not accusing anybody of anything. I am stating that my philosophical difference with the bill's sponsors is that I do not think you can buy, or sell, or barter honor. Nor can you, buy or sell or barter conscience.

I guess the only thing I am asking that Senators do is to reflect on what kind of precedent we are settling into today, whether we are prepared to do that in the future, and whether materialism is the measure by which America's reputation henceforth is to be judged.

EXHIBIT NO. 1

$1.2 Billion Worth of Hindsight

(By James J. Kilpatrick)

Now pending on the Senate's calendar, subject to floor debate at any time, is a bad  [*S4394]  bill that comes to us laden which good intentions. At a cost of $1.2 billion, the bill would pay $20,000 each to those surviving Americans of Japanese ancestry who were interned on the West Coast in World War II. The measure ought to be quietly retired.

It is not easy -- it is probably futile -- to oppose the Senate bill. It heads for the floor bearing the names of 75 sponsors. A companion measure passed the House last September by a vote of 243-141. Only a heart of stone, it is said, could fail to be moved by the injustice visited upon loyal American citizens 46 years ago. It is time to apologize, we are told; it is time to make amends.

The trouble with that compassionate plea is that it comes to us through a rear-view mirror. It embodies the hind-sight wisdom of the Monday morning quarterback. The bill carries a finding that "there was no military or security reason for the internment," but that is the conclusion now. It assuredly was not the conclusion then.

Two generations have grown up since the Japanese launched their attack on Pearl Harbor. Today we count the Japanese as friends and allies. In the winter of 1941-42 they were enemies. Today it seems absurd to imagine that the Japanese might have invaded California. This seemed not at all absurd at the time. In 1988 we scarcely can imagine risks of sabotage and espionage. Reasonable men vividly perceived them then.

Acting upon these fears, Congress authorized President Roosevelt to issue what become Executive Order 9066. Pursuant to that order, the commanding general of West Coast forces proclaimed Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34. After May 9, 1942, more than 110,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were to be uprooted from their homes. They were taken by train to internment camps. There they remained until the war's end in 1945. An estimated 60,000 survive.

As the Supreme Court noted in the case of KOREMATSU v. UNITED STATES, most of the internees were loyal Americans. But some were not. More than 5,000 of them refused to swear allegiance to the United States and to renounce allegiance to the emperor. Several thousand evacuees requested repatriation to Japan. It is all very well to say today that these citizens should have received fair hearings, but in the spring of 1942 we were involved in a desperate war for national survival. Due process had to yield to the exigencies of the day.

The exclusion order came before the high court in 1944. By a vote of 6-3 the court upheld the order. Justice Hugo Black, one of the great civil libertarians of all time, wrote the opinion. Felix Frankfurter and William O. Douglas agreed. Listen to what Black said:

"We are not unmindful of the hardships imposed by the exclusion order upon a large group of American citizens. But hardships are part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships. All citizens alike, both in and out of uniform, feel the impact of war in greater or lesser measure.... Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direst emergency, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger."

In looking back on those days, we ought to take guidance from Lord Macaulay. This was the precept of that great historian: "As we would have our descendants judge us, so we ought to judge our fathers. In order to form a correct estimate of their merits, we ought to place ourselves in their situation, to put out of our minds, for a time, all that knowledge which they could not have and we could not help having.... It is too much that the benefactors of mankind, after having been reviled by the dunces of their generation for going too far, should be reviled by the dunces of the next generation for not going far enough."

Rep. Bill Frenzel of Minnesota made the same point in House debate: "What a funny way to ask us to rub ashes on our heads! The bill asks us to purge ourselves of someone's else's guilt with another generation's money." No penance, no payments and no apology are required. The past is past. Let it stay that way.

Mr. WALLOP. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Mikulski). The clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

AMENDMENT NO. 1969

(Purpose: To insure that the Act is not construed as a weakening of the resolve of the United States not to relinquish any further national territory and to require the President to seek compensation for the descendents of the Aleut Indians removed from Wrangel Island)

Mr. HELMS. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask that it be stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) proposes an amendment numbered 1969.

At the end of the committee substitute add the following new section:

"Sec. . Notwithstanding any other provision of law or of this Act, nothing in this Act shall be construed as recognition of any claim of Mexico or any other country or any Indian tribe (except as expressly provided in this Act with respect to the Aleut tribe of Alaska) to any territory or other property of the United States, nor shall it be construed as providing any basis for compensation in connection with any such claim; provided, further, that the President shall seek appropriate compensation from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the descendents of the Aleut Indians forceably removed in 1924 from Wrangel Island by the Soviet Gunboat "Red October" and thereafter illegally interned in the Soviet Union where many died in conditions of deplorable hardship.".

Mr. HELMS. Madam President, it may be that the distinguished managers of the bill want to accept this amendment, because it does no harm to their purposes and, indeed, it seeks to preclude the pending underlying legislation from being used as a precedent to give standing to any person or future claim on the part of any country.

In Mexico City today, there stands a large museum of intervention. At its entrance is a large figure of Uncle Sam, meant to represent the United States, holding an axe, chopping off a huge chunk of what the museum, which is owned and operated by the Mexican Government, says is Mexico.

Let us look at that and think about it. The territory that this museum and the Government of Mexico are talking about includes all of the State of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah, and large parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas.

Now, Madam President, I am informed, but frankly I have not yet been able to get the CRS to verify it, that various Mexican citizens have filed suit in the American courts to seek return of all this territory to Mexico.

We say, well, that is not going to happen; we do not have any idea that the courts will do this.

But we better be safe about it. Therefore, I am offering the amendment which is intended to preclude, as I say, this legislation from being used as a precedent in the courts or elsewhere to give standing to any precedent or future claims on the part of Mexico or Mexicans or any other citizen or group claiming to have been dealt an injustice by the American Government at some time in the past.

This is an insurance policy. That is all this amendment is.

Of course, the claims for Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and large parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas, are probably going nowhere.

But in 1945, the very same thing would have been said about the Panamanian claims to the United States territory and property in the Panama Canal Zone. So you never know.

You are using a little bit of paper and a little bit of ink to write in this safeguard in this bill to prevent this bill from being considered by anybody as a precedent for such action.

The other part of the amendment, Madam President, directs the President to seek compensation for the Aleut Indians who were forcibly removed from Wrangel Island by the Soviet warship RED OCTOBER whose crew landed on Wrangel Island and made prisoners of its American inhabitants by seizing the territory and incarcerating Americans citizens in hard-labor camps on the Soviet mainland where many, including Charles Wells from Seattle, WA, the leader of that settlement, died in captivity.

The descendants of the Aleuts who settled on Wrangel Island and who were written off by our Government probably because of their race certainly should be compensated for this injustice.

But be that as it may, I think we ought to write in this safeguard so that this legislation cannot in the future be used as a precedent for any foolishness like that.

So I hope that our distinguished colleague from Alaska will give particular support to the amendment, and I hope that the managers of the bill would consider accepting it. Otherwise, I will ask for the yeas and nays.

 [*S4395]  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.