A DISSENTING OPINION ON CONGRESSIONAL 'JUNKETS'
Neuberger, Richard L.
A Dissenting Opinion On Congressional 'Junkets' By RICHARD L NEUBERGER WITH members of Congress being panned in so many places, I would like to submit a dissenting opinion from a different...
...It is easy for a newspaper columnist, sitting in an air-conditioned penthouse or a steam-heated apartment, to be cynical about a Senator or Cabinet member flying to Alaska or Italy...
...William Langer spying a couple of North Dakota soldiers at Fort Nelson on the Alaska Highway...
...One of the inspiring features of this war has been the way leading people of the nation have taken their, time and risked their lives to visit the theaters of war...
...Kilgore and Ferguson visited the airports on the vital air route to Soviet Russia...
...Homer D. Angell of Oregon and Anthony J. Di-mond, the veteran Delegate from Alaska itself...
...Here is someone who can take back a message to my Mother and Dad...
...Harley M. Kilgore, West Virginia...
...Share And Share Alike All the officers and men whom I know had a favorable ©pinion of these visitors...
...When the President's wife visits a lonely island in the Pacific, it is easy to laugh it off as a political gesture...
...I am a Democrat...
...Here is someone who has enough interest in the war to travel thousands of miles to see for himself what we are doing and how we are getting along...
...He strode over to see them in mighty strides...
...They were not affected or stilted or high-hat, and they showed a genuine interest in the problems of the average American soldier in that bleak theatre of war...
...Roosevelt, Vice President Wallace, many Senators . and Representatives, countless members of the entertainment industry, innumerable newspaper correspondents, these people have showed up everywhere, all the way from Alaska's icy shores to the coral beaches of the Southwest Pacific...
...The two members of the House were Rep...
...Angell visited Watson Lake, an airport high on the divide between the Yukon and Mackenzie watersheds, an air corps corporal said to me, "Golly, captain, is that guy really a Congressman ? Who'd think we'd ever meet a Congressman way up here...
...The greatest encouragement which can come to a soldier in a lonely place is assurance that he is not forgotten...
...Yet they never spared themselves in seeing what was really going on in Alaska...
...They visited lonely, out-of-the-way installations...
...And Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, that meant something to me...
...Cynicism is an attitude confined to those fighting the war from night clubs and saloons...
...Those Penthouse Critics I have seen considerable criticism of so-called official "junkets" to visit our fighting men...
...I have never heard a soldier say this, though...
...When a Senator flies to an airport on the Bering Sea, it is equally easy to say he is trying to build himself up back home...
...No expedition was too much for them to undertake...
...Delegate Dimond flew far out in the Aleutians and traveled by Coast Guard cutter along the coast of the Alaskan panhandle...
...Journeys to the battlefronts and outposts may be "junkets" to the cynics, but they are tonics to the men who carry the flag...
...They made plane trips in hazardous Alaskan weather, and you must experience Alaskan weather to know what aerial hazards really are...
...Angell flew north of the Arctic Circle to Fort Yukon...
...For the next month Army units along the wilderness road talked about "that visitin' Senator fellow" who recognized a couple of soldiers as his constituents from back home...
...In the 21 months that I served in Alaska with the [American Army our outfit was visited by five Senators and two Representatives...
...But the soldiers in Alaska or Italy think quite a different way...
...Homer Angell is a Republican...
...A United States Senator getting off a plane or boat indicates to those men that they are not forgotten, that someone is deeply, concerned with their welfare...
...A comedian from Hollywood, a slim-legged chorus girl from New York, a Senator from Washington, D. C, a newspaper'correspondent from Chicago—• all of them are indications to the fighting man that the . solid people of his country appreciate what he has done...
...I served in the Oregon State Legislature as a Democrat...
...Westbrook Pegler never tires of ridiculing Mrs...
...and William Langer of North Dakota...
...Homer Ferguson, Michigan...
...The men who came to see us included Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, veteran Congressmen and newcomers...
...They proved regular fellows...
...The five Senators who came to our particular base in 'Alaska were C. Douglass Buck, Delaware...
...Members of Congress have been assailed for their trips to the various fighting fronts all over the world...
...This is particularly true of men stationed in far-flung outposts...
...The visits occurred at widely scattered times...
...James G. Scrugham, Nevada...
...The President has been at-taeked for his cruiser journey to Hawaii and the Aleutians...
...I remember Sen...
...I am sure that those who criticize official trips to the theaters of war—whether the trips are by the President or his Congressional opponents—have never served in those theaters...
...Scrugham, Buck, and Langer rode for many miles on the Alaska Highway...
...I have seen Senators and Representatives writing down messages to take back home, with GI's crowded around them.like a football huddle...
...When Rep...
...They shared pot-luck and slept in sleeping bags and wore GI parkas...
...Many of these members of Congress are men more than 60 years old...
...Soldiers like to be recognized...
...Conspicuous by their absence,, of course, have been some of the more bloodthirsty inhabitants of cafe society who are quick to ridicule and scoff at such trips...
...A Dissenting Opinion On Congressional 'Junkets' By RICHARD L NEUBERGER WITH members of Congress being panned in so many places, I would like to submit a dissenting opinion from a different viewpoint...
...Congressmen may not be popular in some quarters, but I can testify that their visits did a lot to boost morale and esprit de corps among the American soldiers who saw them...
...But when I saw him in the heart of the Yukon...
...River watershed, I said, "Here is the Congressman from my home town...
...Roosevelt's trip ¦ to the Southwest Pacific...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 40
