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Vol. 30:2 ISSN 0160-8460 June 2002
Remarks of Dr. John Brademas, President Emeritus, New York University, and former Member of Congress (D.-Ind.), at a Dinner Marking His Receiving the 2002 Distinguished Service Award of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, May 14, 2002
NHPRC Chair John W. Carlin presents the Commission's 2002 Distinguished Service Award to former Commission member John Brademas. Photograph by Roscoe George, NARA.
At the outset, I want to express my appreciation to all the members of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission for this high honor and to the Commission's able and dedicated Executive Director, Ann Newhall.
My own interest in history began in childhood. My late father was born in Greece and I grew up hearing about Thucydides; my mother was a public schoolteacher, and her father taught Greek, Roman, and American history in schools and universities in Indiana. So after finishing my undergraduate and graduate studies and, on my third try, winning election to Congress, I naturally sought membership on the Committee of the House of Representatives with jurisdiction over legislation dealing with schools, colleges, and universities; libraries and museums; the arts and the humanities, and I served as well on the Joint (House-Senate) Committee on the Library of Congress.
The privilege that then-House Speaker Carl Albert accorded me in 1971, appointment to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, opened yet another exciting door to the world of history, American history, and I immensely enjoyed the periodic meetings at the National Archives Building with Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island; Justice William Brennan of the Supreme Court; the then Archivist of the United States, Bert Rhoads; and some distinguished American historians.
Some personal observations. My own papers cover 22 years as a Member of the House of Representatives. I served with six Presidents-three Republicans: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford; and three Democrats: Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter. During my last 4 years, I was, by appointment of Speaker Tip O'Neill, House Majority Whip. During my service as Whip, I joined Speaker O'Neill, Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd, House Majority Leader Jim Wright, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey while he lived, and the other Democratic Leaders of Congress for breakfast nearly every other Tuesday at the White House with President Carter and Vice President Mondale.
I hope to make use of my notes, over two decades later, for a study of how a President deals with the leaders of his own party in Congress. Recently, with the help of New York University's Archivist, Nancy Cricco, my papers were brought from a Library of Congress warehouse to NYU, where Professor Peter Wosh is using them as materials for a class he is teaching on the management of historical archives.
...So I want to establish a center in New York City that will have two principal dimensions: first, to be a place where scholars can engage in research on and study of Congress as a policy-making institution; and second, as a place to which, for conferences, lectures, and symposia, to bring practitioners: Senators and Congressmen, current and former; Congressional staffers; persons from the Executive branch; scholars; journalists; and parliamentarians from other countries to interact with academics at New York University. Such a Center would, of course, be wholly bipartisan... The work of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission is indispensable not only to the actual preservation of the documents of American history, but as a concrete demonstration that all three branches of the Government of the United States are committed to promotion of knowledge and understanding of our history. Indeed, let me observe that at least so far as I know, this Commission is the only entity in which all three branches of our national government meet not for lunch or dinner, but to make decisions. This Commission, far too little known, plays a uniquely valuable role in our country.
So Governor Carlin, Ann Newhall, and members of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, I hope that there will be strong support for adequate appropriations --you're authorized $10 million, I understand-- and I hope you win $10 million in appropriations-for-the-year-support from President Bush and from both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives.
After September 11, it is all the more important that if Americans are to know where we are going, we must know whence we came. Yours is a noble endeavor. All the more, then, am I grateful for the honor you do me this evening.
