August 31, 1907

On this date, Representative Augustus Freeman (Gus) Hawkins of California was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. After earning a B.A. in economics from UCLA in 1931, Hawkins became interested in politics. In 1934, he defeated a 16–year incumbent to earn a seat in the California state assembly. As a member of the assembly, Hawkins represented the interests of his predominantly African–American and Hispanic district. In 1962, he campaigned for a congressional district that covered central Los Angeles. Elected to the 88th Congress (1963–1965), Hawkins mastered the institutional intricacies of the House to effectively shepherd legislation that provided educational and employment opportunities for the underprivileged. One of Hawkins’s lasting legacies was the establishment of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission–a federal agency that investigated discrimination in the workplace–in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He combated unemployment with the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1978, an act that led to the creation of 660,000 new jobs. During his service, Hawkins served on a number of committees. He was a member of the Education and Labor Committee during his entire tenure, eventually becoming chairman in the 98th Congress (1983–1985). Hawkins retired at the end of the 101st Congress (1989–1991). Months after his 100th birthday, Hawkins died on November 10, 2007.

September 1, 1983

On this date, Representative Larry P. McDonald of Georgia, along with 268 other passengers and crew aboard Korean Airlines Flight 007, was killed when a Soviet fighter plane shot down the unarmed civilian Boeing 747 airliner near Sakhalin Island after it had strayed into Russian airspace. McDonald was en route to Seoul, South Korea, to attend a ceremony commemorating the 30th anniversary of a U.S.-South Korea defense pact. American officials, the general public, and the international community were outraged and the incident further embittered the already frosty relations between Washington and Moscow. Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill described the shoot-down as “unbelievably barbaric.” Idaho Representative George Hansen declared, “It’s murder, plain murder.” Ironically, McDonald was one of the House’s most strident critics of the Soviets. An avowed anti-communist, he had been elected to the House first in 1974 and, in 1982, had assumed the chairmanship of the conservative John Birch Society. In 1980, on the heels of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he introduced a measure to ban trade with the Soviet Union, but it went down to defeat by a 284 to 124 vote. Days after McDonald’s death, his widow, Katherine, declared her candidacy for the vacant seat and won the October 18, 1983, open primary with 30 percent of the vote. But she was forced into a November 8 run-off against her closest challenger, George Darden, who prevailed and filled the remainder of the unexpired term in the 98th Congress (1983–1985).

September 5, 1917

On this date, Viscount Kikujiro Ishii, an ambassador from Japan addressed the House of Representatives in a House Reception. Speaker of the House James Beauchamp (Champ) Clark of Missouri introduced the Viscount with a brief statement, noting that “every right-thinking man in the Empire of Japan and the Republic of the United States hopes that peace and amity and friendly relations will always prevail between these two great powers.” Viscount Ishii then approached the Speaker’s rostrum and reassured Members of the House that the Japanese government stood with the United States in the war against Imperial Germany. On September 3, 1917, the Japanese diplomat addressed the U.S. Senate in a reception in the Senate Chamber. Earlier in congressional history the standard manner in which both the House and the Senate received addresses by foreign leaders was to invite dignitaries to individual chamber receptions. The first House reception received the Marquis de Lafayette of France in 1824. In the post-World War II era, the practice of using one-chamber receptions eventually was supplanted by having foreign leaders address Joint Meetings of Congress. The last House reception was held in 1977.