Four Quotes [View All]

{1} "(There is a) power of the Congress to inquire into and publicize corruption, maladministration, or inefficiency in agencies of the Government. That was the only kind of activity described by Woodrow Wilson in 'Congressional Government' when he wrote: 'The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative functions.' Id., at 303. From the earliest times in its history, the Congress has assiduously performed an 'informing function' of this nature."
-- US Supreme Court decision in Watkins v. United States, 354 US 178, 200 (1957)

{2} " 'It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and disposition of the administrative agents of the government the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served; and unless Congress both scrutinize these things and sift them by every form of discussion, the country must remain in embarassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important that it should understand and direct. The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.' Wilson, Congressional Government, 303'."
-- US Supreme Court in United States v. Rumely, 345 US 41,43 (1953)

{3} "They had forgotten, if they ever knew, that the Constitution is designed to be a law for rulers and people alike at all times and under all circumstances; and that no doctrine involving more pernicious consequences to the commonweal has ever been invented by the wit of man than the notion that any of its provisions can be suspended by the President for any reason whatsoever.

"On the contrary, they apparently believed that the President is above the Constitution, and has the autocratic power to suspend its provisions if he decides in his own unreviewable judgment that his action in doing so promotes his own political interests or the welfare of the nation. As one of them testified before the Senate Select Committee, they believed that the president has the autocratic power to suspend the Fourth Amendment whenever he imagines that some indefinable aspect of national security is involved."
-- Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr.; Individual Statement in the Senate Watergate Report

{4} "Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research."
-- Malcolm X; Message to the Grass Roots

I was impressed with the Senate hearing yesterday. I will take the time today to express my "thanks" to a number of democratic senators for their good work.