William M. Thomas: “I, too, am pleased to take the time to remind all Americans that the Armenian genocide was the first genocide of the…”

“I, too, am pleased to take the time to remind all Americans that the Armenian genocide was the first genocide of the twentieth century. I think it is ironic that, as we are speaking now in memory of the first genocide of the twentieth century, that perhaps we are experiencing one of the last. Or yet will there be other genocides? When will the lesson be learned? Those of us who are from California, especially central California, have a number of friends who are Armenian. My chief of staff is Armenian. I have listened to their personal stories and the tragedies that they have lived through. It seems entirely appropriate that we carry these people in our memories as those who, at the very beginning of the 20th Century, experienced the worst of all possible debacles. That is, not murder, not mass murder, but genocide, and that with the Armenians' ability to cope and relate, let us hope that we, after this year, remember only the history of genocides and not the continuing ones.”