April 22, 2009.  M. Speaker:  The statue of Ronald Reagan could not possibly arrive at the United States Capitol at a more appropriate time in the history of our nation.

 In these difficult days, we need to remind ourselves as a nation what it was like when it truly was “morning again in America.”

 They say it is always darkest before the dawn, and Ronald Reagan took office at a more difficult time than the one we are having right now. 

 We tend to forget: the double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, interest rates above 20 percent, mile-long lines around gas stations, American embassies seized with impunity, an American military so weak it couldn’t even mount a successful rescue mission.

 The arrival of this statue – and all that it represents – is a potent reminder that when our nation has drifted off course, it has always found its way back to those grand and uniquely American principles of individual rights, personal responsibility, limited government and free enterprise that define us as a people.

 It’s true that Ronald Reagan was a great communicator.  But as William Saracino has said, Reagan wasn’t communicating cookie recipes.  He was communicating the self-evident truths of the American  tradition.  And those truths resonated throughout the nation and ultimately produced that bright moment when we realized that it was, indeed, morning again in America.

 May this statue of Ronald Reagan remain here always as a promise that America’s greatest days still lie ahead, and that her founding principles will always shine as a bright beacon toward a safe harbor in the stormy tempests we have encountered and have yet to encounter.