Back the Blue

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida for the recognition. She does a great job for the Congress, and we are all so grateful to have her here.

Madam Speaker, this is such an important topic tonight. Ranking Member Katko delineated the number of law enforcement jurisdictions who have seen funding cut and the unfortunate consequences that occurred on the populations that they serve. Did you ever stop to think of what would happen if there were just an absolute defunding of the police department?

Well, unfortunately, we only need to look about a hundred years past to see such an example. It happened in Boston, Massachusetts, in September 1919. The police force was unfunded, and the city was unprotected. This was documented in a book by a gentleman named Francis Russell. The book is called ``A City in Terror.''

What was startling to me when I read the book was not that there was a gradual descent into lawlessness, but it happened like turning a switch. Police were not on the job. The city sunk into chaos-- robberies, beatings, assaults, looting. And it went on for several days until the Governor of that State called up the National Guard and reasserted authority.

Who was that Governor? It is kind of a rarity to stop and think about it now, but it was a Republican Governor of Massachusetts named Calvin Coolidge. It was that activity of restoring order in the city that catapulted him to fame and caused him to receive the Vice Presidential nomination in the Republican Convention of 1920. And as they say, the rest is history.

Please, let us not forget our history. Defunding the police does not lead us to a better place. It does not lead us to a more just and civil society. It invites chaos.

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