Helen Chenoweth - member, United States House of Representatives (ID-1); nationally recognized spokesman for private property rights; former self-employed medical and legal management consultant; frequent speaker and lecturer; guest instructor, University of Idaho's School of Law; former state executive director (1975-1977), Idaho Republican Party.

 We're all environmentalists. We're good stewards of the earth, not just because we want to be, but also because we're commanded to be.

Out west, if there's a conflict between an endangered species and humans, they move the humans out. But guess what happened when they found just one little family of Tidal Basin beavers?

Remember what happened? The full force of government came down on this one little family of beaver.

Now, they're an indigenous species. And because of the pollution in the Tidal Basin and the Potomac River, we'd lost the beaver in this natural swamp that is Washington, D.C. It was a natural swamp; it still is, isn't it?

These little beavers had the audacity to try to make a home out of cherry trees. The cherry trees are not indigenous, as you know; they weren't here originally. But the Tidal Basin beaver was.

So this family by nature restored itself, and they had little beavers. But the full force of government came down on this little family of beaver. They separated the mama from the papa and the little babies from the parents. And they won't tell us where the beavers are. They came in, and they got those beavers.

Now what would have happened if George Washington lived today? He admitted to chopping down cherry trees. We can just imagine. He would have been embarrassed in the nightly news. He would have been separated from Martha and his children.

I couldn't help it, ladies and gentlemen. I had a lot of fun on the House floor with a speech on that one.

Then I had the agencies in front of me in the House Resources Committee. I asked them: "This is an endangered species. Obviously it is. Why did you do this? Why did you act in this manner and remove the beaver, instead of trying to enhance its habitat?"

And they said, "Well, because it wasn't listed."

Well, out in Idaho, there's a species called a grizzly bear, and it's not listed, either. But Fish and Wildlife Service is spending a lot of money bringing grizzly bear into Idaho. And that impacts populated areas against the wishes of the entire congressional delegation, the state legislature, all the county commissioners and most of the residents, by far the majority of the residents. But it didn't make any difference in that case.

So I told them in Committee that I was serving notice on them that I will have an official petition to the agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, to list the little beaver.

And I said, "I challenge you to find a reason why you can't list it. I also challenge you to find a reason why, having set the precedent out west, that when an endangered species moves in, we move the humans out, why don't we move the humans out of Washington, D.C.?

I really think this is the way we can save the country, right?

The little beaver might be the hero.

So we go on with the fights over the absolute nonsense that is going on in an effort to control us, a free society, and to control the wealth that has been given to us in this earth.

I listened with fascination, as did you, to Dana Rohrabacher's talk. There is no greater time than now for us to push for the completion of our plans and for the construction of a Strategic Defense Initiative, because what Dana told you about today moves the Chinese ahead at least ten to 12 years.

We really thought maybe in that ten to 12 years we'd be able to complete Ronald Reagan's beginnings of the land/space-based Strategic Defense Initiative. A wall of protection they call Star Wars -- so that we'd be able to detect, seek out and destroy an incoming missile.

That's what we absolutely must do now. We thought we had ten years to bring that up, over the resistance of this particular White House. But until last year the President has just managed to veto everything that we sent out. I think he's getting the message now, after so many terrible blunders.

These are difficult times in our nation, more difficult than we have faced since World War II. And while we're almost lulled in this mental marijuana of a good financial and economic situation, nevertheless the termites are working at the very foundation of this country.

As a lawmaker I think about what can we do, what we can really do to effect a change against the tyrannical ruling of this President right now, a President who will call up troops and engage us in war not by his own calling of the war, which he didn't do, by the way. The initiation of the war in Kosovo, and it is a war, was by the United Nations Secretary General, who is a Spanish Marxist. He's the one who gave the call, and we responded to the call.

When I ran for Congress, I made a pledge that I would work terribly hard to make sure that none of our troops ever have to serve under a foreign general.

Now my son, as probably many of your children, is poised to go to Kosovo. And my son has been raised to believe that when your commander-in-chief calls, you must go, and ask the political questions later.

I'm proud of him; he's a great military man. But it hurts the heart of a mother and it hurts the heart of a lawmaker to see that there is no balance of power, no ability to really check the actions of this President to engage us in what I feel is an illegal war.

 Look around at what has happened, at what has happened at Littleton, Colorado, at what is happening around the world with regard to human rights. I had to come to the conclusion, as we read in the Proverbs, that when the wicked rule, the people mourn, but when the righteous rule, the people rejoice. Right above my office desk, right behind me, is a picture of George Washington kneeling beside his horse in the snow in the Revolutionary War. That reminds me of where our real strength and power has to come from.

If we as lawmakers ever forget to bend our knee and bow our head and seek that almighty strength, we truly will lose this nation, we truly will lose the property rights that I have fought so hard for ever since I got here to Congress. Our inalienable rights -- rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- are all our property. That was what Thomas Jefferson reasoned when he allowed the change from "life, liberty and property" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All of these are inalienable rights given to us by God and for that very purpose government was set up to protect those rights. We will lose those unless as a nation we turn back to God and seek His forgiveness, like Second Chronicles 7:14 so clearly tells us: "If my people" -- that's you and me, not the other guys; that's us -- "If my people, who are called by My Name, seek My face and humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then" -- that's a conditional "then" -- God is making a contract with us that spans time -- "then I will hear them from Heaven and I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their land."

And He's talking in the plural. He's talking about His nations and His people.

In April of 1863, our country was torn asunder and our hearts were breaking, brothers were turned against brothers. We were engaged in the great Civil War. Abraham Lincoln at that time issued a Presidential Proclamation asking for God's help to heal the land.

We are at that point now, because no amount of laws can change the hearts of the young men who committed those horrible murders in Colorado. One young girl was asked, "Do you believe in God?" She stood up and said, "Yes, I believe in God." He blew her away.

We are at a very interesting point not only in terms of the political scene but in terms of who we are to God and with God, and who we are to each other. Having given a lot of thought and prayer to this, I realize that, as a nation, we must reconcile ourselves with God. And we must reconcile ourselves with each other.

I pulled out that Presidential Proclamation written by Abraham Lincoln. He wrote:

"We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, in wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God, and we've forgotten the gracious Hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us. We have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

"Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace; too proud to pray to the God that made us.

"It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."

That Proclamation was issued in April of 1863 by President Lincoln himself. Think of what that Proclamation says, and think of where we are today. The senseless murders of the young people in Jonesboro, Arkansas, in West Paducah, Kentucky, in Springfield, Oregon, Pearl, Mississippi, Littleton, Colorado, and many other places that have not received as much media attention as these.

Also, think of the brutal deaths of individuals by dragging, by beating, burning and exposure in Texas, Alabama and Wyoming.

Think of the national threat that we are now living under which Dana Rohrabacher just so aptly laid out, a threat to our very national security for which so many hundreds of thousands of lives have been laid down, all to preserve our security and our sovereignty.

Think, on a worldwide scale, of the civil unrest that we are witnessing and systematic genocide and religious and political persecution in Yugoslavia, Tibet, Turkey, China, Rwanda and Sudan.

And in general, the abuse, exploitation and abandonment of our children; the breakdown of many of our families through divorce and infidelity; cultural and ethnic division in our communities, and an overall moral decay.

The people are mourning, and in large part, the wicked are ruling. Has there ever been a better time for us to humble ourselves as a nation, and as a nation turn to God? I don't think so. It's always a good time, but there has never been a better time than now.

Our Founding Fathers understood these concepts and the necessity of that reconciliation. They continually spoke of our reliance on God and morality in the creation and sustainment of this very great nation.

John Adams wrote in 1798: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other but a moral and religious people."

Benjamin Franklin, on July 28th, 1787, rose in the final debate on whether there should be prayer to open the sessions in the House and the Senate. Addressing the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said, "I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer that I live, the more I realize that God governs in the affairs of men, and if a sparrow cannot fall without His notice, is it probable that a nation can rise without His aid? Therefore, I fear, Sir, that he that attempts to build the house alone, builds it in vain." He said, "I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."

After much rancorous debate, that was the last speech. And they voted in favor of prayer opening our sessions.

Thomas Jefferson wrote:

 "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, that firm basis being a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God and that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever."

The Scriptures also instruct us as a nation to pray and to seek humility. "Blessed is the nation whose God is Lord, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance" -- Psalms 33:12.

And I Timothy 2:1-2: "There I exhort, first of all, the supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and reverence."

So you see, as we approach the dawn of the new millennium and as we face these problems which are the result of a systematic evil that currently exists in our society, now is an appropriate moment to call for the people to humbly pray and ask for forgiveness and healing for this nation.

Using previous proclamations and congressional resolutions as a context, I have prayerfully prepared and crafted, a Concurrent Resolution calling for a day of prayer and fasting and humiliation.

Ronald Reagan successfully called for a day of prayer, but this is moving beyond that. It's doing what Abraham Lincoln asked us to do as a nation -- to humbly pray and fast and to seek and recognize our reliance on God and our need for reconciliation with Him.

And my proclamation urges the nation to pray for hate and indifference to be replaced with love and compassion, and recommends to all leaders, civil and the clergy, to call and appoint solemn assemblies of prayer, fasting and humility.

We are the most prosperous nation in the world. We have been blessed with an unprecedented period of economic stability and peace. We owe a duty to God and one another to serve and love our fellow beings and to combat evil throughout the country and the world. And we have the spiritual and political weapons to do it. We must use them all. We must recognize that one of God's most basic Commandments, to love and serve one another as we would ourself, is being totally abandoned.

It is for this cause, for the indifference, hate, strife and even murder throughout this country and the world, that drawing upon the example of the great Founders of this country and people such as Lincoln, Washington, Adams, Witherspoon, Jefferson and many others, that we have, as current elected officials in this nation, a moral obligation and a duty to humble ourselves before God and remind our people that our reliance on God and our responsibility is to live under His Commandments. Only then will we be able to avoid His wrath as a people and address the problems before us.

If there is ever a time that we need Almighty God, it is now. And if there is ever a time we need to pray, it is now. If there is ever a time we need to humble ourselves, it is now. If there is ever a time we need to plead for forgiveness, it is now. And if there is ever a time we need His peace, it is now. If there is ever a time we need His healing as a nation, it is now.

And I pray that we as a Congress and as a nation can join together in prayer, supporting this resolution and calling for prayer, fasting and humility.

It may sound odd to have a lawmaker stand up and make this kind of plea, but I think that unless we as lawmakers do make the plea, we abandon our responsibility of being good leaders in this nation, a nation which was founded successfully on Godly principles, and that's what we want to reestablish.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.