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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: March 2008

Editorial feature: The late Tom Lantos: a Wilburforce for our time

 

Outspokenly critical of the policies of U.S. President George W. Bush, the late House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Tom Lantos was nonetheless praised by Bush after his February 11, 2008 death from esophageal cancer as "a man of character and a champion of human rights.

As the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress," Bush added, "Tom was a living reminder that we must never turn a blind eye to the suffering of the innocent at the hands of evil men." Bush, like most other Washington D.C. eulogists and obituarists for national news media, omitted that the "suffering of the innocent" of deep concern to Lantos included the suffering of animals, and that Lantos championed animal rights as well as human rights for most of the 27 years he served in the House of Representatives.

Born on February 1, 1928 to Jewish parents in Budapest, Hungary, Lantos was 16 when the Nazis occupied the city in 1944. He fought with the underground, was captured, escaped from a forced labor camp but was recaptured and severely beaten, and promptly escaped again.

Lantos' second escape attempt brought him under the protection of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who used his authority to issue visas to help thousands of Hungarian Jews to escape abroad, but disappeared soon after World War II and is believed to have died in Russian custody.

Lantos emigrated to the U.S. in 1947, on a scholarship to attend the University of Washington in Seattle. His childhood sweetheart Annette and her mother had escaped from Hungary to Portugal, with a Portuguese passport produced with Wallenberg's help. Lantos married Annette in 1950, brought her to the U.S., and for 30 years raised a family with her and taught economics at San Francisco State University.

Human rights activism inspired Lantos, a Democrat, to seek election to Congress in 1980. His first legislation was a bill to make Wallenberg an honorary U.S. citizen, if Wallenberg had somehow survived, in the hope that the citizenship designation might shake loose information about what had become of him. Lantos founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1983, at the beginning of his second of 14 terms.

Annette Lantos two years later founded the Committee of 21, which won the release of 21 prisoners of conscience from the Soviet Union.

Neither Lantos was to that point deeply involved in animal advocacy, but when Annette learned that dogs were cruelly captured and killed for human consumption in the Philippines, she took the opportunity to raise the matter to then-Philippine rulers Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

"They said they were working to bring about laws to prohibit these practices in Manila, but that it would be almost impossible to control in the outlying districts," Annette recalled in 1991 to Animals' Agenda writer Phil Maggiti. "Starting with that little success, I became very committed to doing whatever I could to alleviate the plight of animals. "I had long realized that animals are not always treated properly," Annette Lantos continued, "but with that realization came an effort to protect myself from the painful reality of animal suffering."

Tom Lantos sponsored the House version of a bill to ban leghold trapping in the 99th Congress, began often co-sponsoring pro-animal legislation, and in 1986 first tried to organize the Congressional Friends of Animals caucus. It finally came together with the help of Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut) in 1991.

"When we came to Washington D.C. in 1981, some of our best friends in Congress would bark or meow when anyone brought up the subject of animal rights," Lantos told Maggiti. "But they're not barking or meowing now. This is a serious issue, one that people are beginning to perceive as lying at the very roots of the kind of world we are creating."

Tom Lantos had earned 100% on every Humane Society of the U.S. Humane Scorecard since the publication started in 1993. Though increasingly well respected in Congress, Lantos had relatively little seniority during his first six terms, and was then part of the minority party after the Republicans took control of the House in 1994.

Frustrated in most attempts to introduce pro-animal legislation during the 1990s, Tom and Annette Lantos helped to restore the prestige of the Washington Humane Society in 1996, after WHS received much bad publicity during a troubled 1995, by allowing their bichon frise mix Gigi to serve as "honorary chairdog" of the WHS "Bark Ball."

Two years later, Lantos' senior aide Geraldine O'Connor filed a lawsuit that helped to bring about reform and eventual administrative stability at the Peninsula Humane Society.

In both situations Lantos showed that he understood the importance of encouraging progressive trends in humane work, and was unafraid to risk his political reputation by standing alongside people he believed were trying to take their organizations in the right direction.

Lantos again showed his awareness of basic humane issues when in October 2004 he opened an exhibit promoting animal adoptions at the San Mateo County History Museum. His appearance ensured that the event received news coverage and was treated as important.

Meanwhile, Lantos had learned how to get things done with quiet words to the right people, as in October 1998, when he prevailed upon then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to order a 30-day moratorium on implementing a USDA Wildlife Services plan to trap and kill feral cats, skunks, raccoons, and foxes who were accused of killing endangered shorebirds in the Redwood Shores area of Redwood City.

This scarcely ended the issue, but helped to generate the dialog among partisans of the birds and the cats that in 2004 occasioned the formation of Project Bay Cat. Organized by Homeless Cat Network "cat manager" Cimeron Morrissey, Sequoia Audubon Society conservation committee chair Robin Winslow Smith, and Foster City management analyst Andra Lorenz, Project Bay Cat sterilized 77% of the cats living along the ecologically sensitive Bay Trail within a year, reduced the cat population near the trail by 35%, and became a nationally acclaimed model for cooperation among birders and cat defenders.

Lantos also used quiet words as "an advisory board member of Concern for Helping Animals in Israel for over two decades, along with his wife Annette," recalled CHAI founder Nina Natelson.

"When CHAI sought to send an animal ambulance to a shelter in Israel, the finance ministry demanded taxes and customs duties equaling the price of the vehicle. When appeals to officials and demonstrations went unheard, Tom Lantos sent a letter to every member of the Knesset," the Israeli parliament, "and at last the ambulance was allowed in duty and tax free."

In another incident, Natelson remembered, "Although one city planner set aside land for an animal shelter, the mayor would not allow the land to be used for that purpose." Annette Lantos intervened, and "That afternoon, a delegation from the Mayor's office appeared on the shelter's doorstep to let them know they could start building.

"When CHAI sought to sponsor a conference on the link between violence toward people and toward animals, and the importance of humane education in reducing violence," Natelson added, "Tom Lantos contacted the Minister of Education on our behalf. The Ministry agreed to co-sponsor the conference with us, and sent out a letter and a poster about the event to school principals, encouraging them to send educators to it, and offering credit to teachers who attended, which translated into a salary increase for them. The well-attended event received much media coverage and resulted in the Knesset Education Committee deciding that humane education must be introduced into the school system."

Recognizing "The Link"

Recognizing the importance of educating fellow members of Congress as well as the public about the sociological significance of cruelty toward animals, Lantos and 20 other Representatives on May 25, 2000 introduced House Concurrent Resolution 338, urging "greater attention to identifying and treating individuals who are guilty of violence against animals, because of the link between abuse of animals and violence against humans."

The resolution also asked federal agencies "to further investigate the link between cruelty toward animals and violence against humans." Though not carrying actual legislative weight, House Concurrent Resolution 338 may have marked a political turning point.

Since then, Congressional actions harmful to animals have chiefly advanced by stealth. Pro-animal legislation has won increasingly prompt and prominent support, on topics including cockfighting and horse slaughter, which formerly were staunchly defended by senior members of key committees.

Also in 2000, Lantos made his first attempt to pass the the Captive Wildlife Safety Act, to regulate interstate commerce in exotic and dangerous cats. Promoted by actress and Shambala Preserve sanctuary operator Tippi Hedren, the Captive Wildlife Safety Act became law in December 2003.

Nine months into 2005, Lantos' major pro-animal achievement for the year appeared to have been blocking repeated attempts by then-House Resources Committee chair Richard Pombo to open the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge to public visits, at possible risk to one of the largest seabird breeding colonies on the West Coast.

Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina, however, Lantos and Congressional Friends of Animals co-chair Christopher Shays introduced legislation, now in effect, to require the Federal Emergency Management Agency to withhold grant funding from communities that fail to develop pet evacuation and transport standards. More regional and state animal disaster relief plans have been developed in the two and a half years since than were produced in all the preceding years since then-Humane Society of Missouri chief executive Eric Hansen began trying to advance animal disaster relief planning in February 1937.

Lantos in 2007 was among three members of Congress who wrote to National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell urging league action against the involvement of players in dogfighting, soon after the arrest of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick on dogfighting-related charges.

Lantos and Representative Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) also wrote to Chinese ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, urging China to accept offers of help from the Humane Society of the U.S. and other organizations to help introduce kinder and more effective methods of animal control. 'The focus of any new policy should be on rabies vaccination, pet neutering, and pet guardian education, not a historically ineffective limitaton on the number of dogs per household," Lantos and Smith recommended.

Lantos' last piece of pro-animal legislation was a July 30, 2007 resolution against the annual Atlantic Canadian seal hunt, co-authored by Shays and unanimously passed by the House of Representatives. "This deeply inhumane practice is far beneath the dignity of the people of Canada," said Lantos. "There is no real good reason to let this needless slaughter continue, and every reason to put it to a stop. We call on the Canadian government to suspend the hunt in the waters off the east coast of Canada now and forever."

"At every turn," recalled Humane Society of the U.S. senior vice president for legislation Mike Markarian, "Tom Lantos insisted that animal protection was not only a just cause but urgent.

Lantos will posthumously receive the Joseph Wood Krutch Medal, the highest honor awarded by HSUS. Annette and Gigi undoubtedly will share that honor."

In terms of background and influence on animal advocacy, Lantos might be mentioned with fellow Holocaust survivor Alex Hershaft, who founded the Farm Animal Reform Movement and encouraged the formation of many other leading organizations in the early 1980s, and with Henry Spira, who survived Krystalnacht in 1938.

Lantos likewise came to animal advocacy through human rights activism. But another apt comparison might be with a politician of a far distant time and place whose concern was also for all who suffered: William Wilberforce, the 19th century British lawmaker who was instrumental in abolishing slavery and passing the first British humane law, and was remembered in the 2007 film Amazing Grace.

Lantos was a fabulous model of how people should care about animal rights as well as human rights, and of how people who have been persecuted themselves may become more sensitive to the plight of others, including animals.