“Today the challenge of political courage looms larger than ever before… only the very courageous will be able to take the hard and unpopular decisions necessary for our survival… and only the very courageous will be able to keep alive the spirit of individualism and dissent which gave birth to this nation” (Kennedy, Profiles In Courage). Tony Hall risked his career to take stands based on the dictates of good, rather than the dictates of polls, interest groups, or even his constituents, the people he is supposed to be representing. He writes in his book, “It wasn’t just the human suffering that I found so disturbing, but also the human cruelty that had helped to cause the suffering and was delaying relief. It’s something I’ve never been able to completely come to grips with - how humans can treat one another…show more content… Politicians are often so afraid of being disliked that they are opposed to standing up for what they believe in. Tony Hall wasn’t afraid to stand up for others and do many drastic things to try to help them and bring attention to their problems, such as fasting for 22 days. One of the things that interested Ambassador Tony Hall the most were hunger issues. He helped to create the House Select Committee on Hunger, which he later became chairperson for. The New York Times later termed the hunger committee “the conscience of the Congress”. This issue moved him enough to write an entire book about it. He wrote about his reasons for pushing this issue and his longing for a solution. In his book, titled Changing the Face of Hunger, he says, “In November 1984, as I made my first trip to the country, I
