Civil leaders and groups on the Mississippi gulf coast are plugging hard for congressional action to make a national recreation park of Ship Island and one of the most enthusiastic pluggers is W. James Stevens, gulf coast businessman. Ship Island, Mr. Stevens points out, "is now owned or controlled by the Federal Government. ** There is no acquisition cost involved should the present Congress approve H.R. 6320." And, Mr. Stevens adds: "There are national seashore recreational areas at Cape Hatteras, N.C.; Cape Cod, Mass.; Point Reyes, Calif.; Padre Island, Tex.; and pending consideration at Fire Island, N.Y." Why not one at Ship Island, which is assuredly identified with American history more than any other offshore island? It was at Ship Island that Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, found safe anchorage for his two frigates, Badine and Marin, as he cruised in search of the mouth of the Mississippi River in February 1699. Iberville found deep water between two islands and anchored his ships in the shelter of one of them. He gave this island its name, Isle aux Vaisseaux-island of the ships, hence Ship Island. His men gave the name of Cat Island to the other because the raccoons which abounded there were mistaken by the sailors for wild cats. It was from Ship Island that Iberville set out in his two smaller craft to discover the Mississippi from the sea, and it was from Ship Island that the first French settlement on the gulf coast was established at the present site of Ocean Springs, where Fort Maurepas was constructed. One hundred and fifteen years after Iberville dropped anchor in the shelter of Ship Island, the British expedition against New Orleans in 1814 used Ship Island as a staging area for the campaign. The naval battle of December 14, 1814, when five little American gunboats under Lt. Catesby Jones valiantly opposed a whole fleet of British armed barges, was fought in the waters between Ship Island and Bay St. Louis. And nearly half a century after the British, defeated at New Orleans on January 8, 1815, had retreated to their warships and transports at Ship Island and sailed away, another invasion was launched at Ship Island. For a while in 1861, Confederate forces occupied Ship Island and a halfhearted at tempt at fortifying it was begun, but General Twiggs, then in command in New Orleans, prominently and thus a label was unofficially perpetuated." After the Civil War, Fort Massachusetts was completed in 1872 and Ship Island served as a U.S. Quarantine Station and a customs post in the 1880's. Today, the old fort on Ship Island attracts 40,000 visitors a year. "Historically speaking, Ship Island is one of the most frequently mentioned islands of the United States," declares Jim Stevens. "Whether for military invasion or peaceful commerce, it has made a definite impact on the country's history. Geographically, Ship Island is primarily useful today as a seasonal seashore playground. Its 7 to 8 miles of Gulf of Mexico shoreline has a constant roaring surf. Ship Island can bring much happiness to millions of Americans." Personally, I share Jim Stevens' enthusiasm for the development of Ship Island. For years, I wondered why the State of Mississippi didn't exploit it for tourists. Now, with a bill in Congress to make it a national historical seashore, Ship Island could, at long last, come into its own as a recreational area. LARRY O'BRIEN Mr. WELTNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from New York [Mr. GILBERT] may extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and include extraneous matter. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Georgia? There was no objection. Mr. GILBERT. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the President on his selection of Lawrence F. O'Brien to be Postmaster General of the United States. Although he served as Postmaster General only a short time, Mr. Gronouski has done an outstanding job, and I know that Larry O'Brien will follow his efficient and capable standards. Larry is well known to us in Congress, having served as legislative liaison officer for both President Kennedy and President Johnson. He is well liked on Capitol Hill where he has been of tremendous assistance to all of us. I am proud of ordered Ship Island evacuated. Accord- my warm and close association with this ingly, with little or no opposition, Ship friendly, able man from Massachusetts. Island was occupied by Federal troops in the He is a man of great personal charm and fall of 1861. Farragut's fleet used it as a character, with unmatched knowledge supply and repair base for his attack on Forts and understanding of both the legislaJackson and St. Philip in April 1862, the tive and executive branch of our Governpassing of which by the Union warships bespoke the fall of New Orleans. And Gen. ment, and he enjoys the high regard of Ben Butler's occupation troops were assembled at Ship Island, before boarding transports to follow in Farragut's wake to New Orleans. The War Department authorized construction of a fort on the western end of Ship Island in 1856, but by 1861, when Confederates seized it, the walls had been built to only a height of 6 feet. When the Federals occupied Ship Island in September 1861, the name Fort Massachusetts was bestowed upon the unfinished works, probably because the warship Massachusetts had supplied the men to take possession of it. However, according to the researches of Jim Stevens, the fort was never officially named Massachusetts. "Men in writing home seem to have given it that name themselves. When the war correspondents accompanying Brig. Gen. Phelps landed with his New England brigade December 4, they sent their news story to Boston and New York headed 'Fort Massachusetts, Ship Island.' Harpers Weekly, in its January 4, 1862 issue, uses the name both. As Postmaster General, he brings to a demanding position the ability and talent that will make him a great Postmaster General. I extend to my good friend, Larry O'Brien, my hearty congratulations and best wishes. MIKE MANSFIELD Mr. WELTNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Montana [Mr. OLSEN] may extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and include extraneous matter. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Georgia? There was no objection. Mr. OLSEN of Montana. Mr. Speaker, I have long admired and respected our senior Senator from Montana, Mr. MIKE MANSFIELD, and would like to bring to the attention of the Members the warm and revealing portrait of our distinguished majority leader published in today's New York Times. [From the New York Times, Sept. 2, 1965] OUTSPOKEN SENATE CHIEF: MIKE MANSFIELD WASHINGTON, September 1.-At the conclusion of his remarks at the opening Senate Democratic caucus last January 4, Majority Leader MIKE MANSFIELD dealt with the deli cate question of what Members owed to the President and to their own conscience in the field of foreign policy. "I would hope that Democratic Members, indeed all Senators," he said, "would bear in mind at all times the great burdens which the President carries for all of us in these decisions of foreign policy. I would hope and expect that we will give him every support, by word and vote, which can, in good conscience, be given. "And I would hope that Members qualified in questions of foreign policy would not hesitate, after careful study, to speak out on them. "Contributions have been made, from time to time, by Members of the Senate to the more effective formulation and conduct of our foreign relations. And clearly we are at a stage now in world developments when prudent contributions of thought and idea can be very useful." made his speech today pointing out that both It was in this spirit that Mr. MANSFIELD sides in Vietnam were setting certain conditions on a negotiated settlement. It so happened that Mr. MANSFIELD's idea coincided with those of the President and therefore the President welcomed the speech. HIS IDEA OF HIS TASK But Mr. MANSFIELD Would have made the speech whether or not it had the President's approval. He has always believed it was to function as the administration's leader, possible, though admittedly difficult, for him to represent the President's views to the Senate and still to be able to voice his own views as Senator from Montana. Those views have not always been welcomed at the White House. For example, Mr. MANSFIELD aroused considerable dismay there when, on June 14, 1961, he suggested that all Berlin be made a free city under international guarantees and protection the guarantees to be given by both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact countries and access to be assured by international peace teams. Again Mr. MANSFIELD believed the Kennedy administration had blundered badly in withNgo Dinh Diem, in Vietnam. He said so at the time and has continued to say so. The Senator freely conceded the mistakes and deficiencies of Premier Diem and he deplored the influence exerted on him by his brother and sister-in-law, Ngo Dinh Nhu, and the Diem regime offered the only hope of a reasonably viable, dependable government. his wife. Nevertheless, he maintained that Whether or not Mr. MANSFIELD's ideas on Vietnam have found acceptance at the White House, he has earned his credentials as a commentator worthy of respect. For 10 years before election to the House of Representatives in 1942, he was a professor of Far Eastern affairs at Montana State University. Beginning in 1953, he has made five trips to Vietnam. He was in Hanoi in the final days of the evacuation of the French forces. In 1959 he conducted a study of U.S. foreign aid in South Vietnam. HE CONFERS ALMOST DAILY Mr. MANSFIELD said today that he conferred almost daily with President Johnson on Vietnam. It is generally believed here that he has had some influence on the Presi- FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' COMPENSAdent's thinking. For example, there is reason to believe that the President's speech at Johns Hopkins University last April in which he offered unconditional negotiations was partly the result of conversations with Senator MANSFIELD and Senator J. W. FULBRIGHT, of Arkansas, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Commit TION ACT AMENDMENTS Mr. WELTNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. O'HARA] may extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and include extraneous matter. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there tee, in which they expressed their fears of ex- objection to the request of the gentleman pansion of the war. It is also believed that Mr. MANSFIELD'S cautionary views reinforced the President's reluctance to call up Reserves. The rise of MIKE MANSFIELD is a remarkable story. He was born March 16, 1903, at 98 Perry Street in Greenwich Village, N.Y. When he was three, his parents moved to Montana. At 14 he left home and enlisted after some dissembling about his age in the Navy in World War I. He served in the Navy for 2 years, then shifted to the Army in 191920, and finally served as a Marine in China from 1920 to 1922. Returning home, he worked in the mines from 1922 to 1930, earning the money to support himself while he went to high school. In 1931 he married Maureen Hayes of Butte, a schoolteacher, who was determined that he was going to have an education. He spent a year in the Montana School of Mines and 4 years at Montana State, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1933. OUT OF WORK IN DEPRESSION His master's degree from Montana State in 1934 was a matter of necessity. He applied for Montana towns and was turned down because he was a Roman Catholic. He was out of a job in the height of the depression. A professor at Montana State offered him a trifling stipend as an assistant. It was the only thing available. His wife cashed in her insurance and went to work, and he got his master's degree. from Georgia? There was no objection. Mr. O'HARA of Michigan. Mr. H.R. 10721 is directed primarily at in- There is no hearing procedure, there is no judicial review of the Bureau's decision. There is an Appeals Board, but it cannot take new evidence, and, in From 1933 to 1943 he taught Latin-Ameri- spite of the obvious effort made by the can and Far Eastern studies at Montana University. In 1942 he was elected to Congress. After five terms in the House, he was elected to the Senate in 1952. He was reelected with ease in 1958 and 1964. In 1957 Lyndon B. Johnson, then the majority leader, made Mr. MANSFIELD his whip, or assistant leader. When Mr. Johnson became Vice President, the Democratic Senate conference elevated Mr. MANSFIELD to the leadership. He was the one man acceptable to the southerners and the northern liberals. A REMARKABLE CONTRAST No two men could be more different in character, in style and in conduct than the ebullient, flamboyant Texan and the quiet, ascetic-looking scholar from Montana. Lyndon Johnson dominated the Senate. He cajoled and flattered, browbeat and insinuated, wheeled and dealed. He would let days go by without trying to press the Senate's business and then suddenly keep the Senate in grueling night sessions until weary Senators were prepared to do his will. He rarely confided his strategy to his colleagues, even to his assistant leader. Mr. MANSFIELD has no such talents and does not aspire to them. He is entirely without wile or guile. He has no strategy and he has no secrets. Bureau and the Board to give every H.R. 10865 would also move to meet During the long struggle over the civil Mr. MANSFIELD is also selfless to the point of shunning credit. He even gladly assigned it to Senator EVERETT M. DIRKSEN, of Illinois, the Republican leader, as he did on the passage of the treaty limiting nuclear tests, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the voting rights bill this year. Under the law as it now reads, a widow can receive death benefits until her own death or her remarriage. Marriage halts benefits, while more informal arrangements allow the compensation to keep coming in. My bill provides for a lump sum payment upon remarriage, thus removing the act's current, and I am sure unintentional, premium upon illegal cohabitation. Hearings on Federal Employees' Compensation Act amendments are scheduled, Mr. Speaker, before the Select Subcommittee on Labor of the Committee on Education and Labor. The hearings are expected to begin on September 9. I hope these hearings will provide an opportunity for a thorough review of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act. NEW JERSEYAN NOMINATED FOR unanimous consent that the gentleman There was no objection. copal Churches in the congressional disMr. KREBS. Mr. Speaker, the Epistrict which I have the privilege to represent have been among the leaders in constructive civil rights work. The two bishops of the Episcopal Church of the Newark diocese are constituents of mine, as they live in Montclair, N.J. I am, therefore, delighted that one of my constituents, Mr. Frederick H. Sontag also of Montclair, N.J., has been nominated to represent the States of New Jersey and New York in particular and the east coast in general on the national board of directors of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. Mr. Sontag has been active in the civil rights field since the 1940's and worked on behalf of the civil rights bills of 1957, 1962, and 1964. Mr. Sontag was the coordinator chosen by prelates of the major faiths who prepared the material answering the false and malicious charges that churchmen-Roman Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and Jewish-engaged in drunkenness and sex orgies during the Selma-Montgomery march. I was one of the first to take the floor of this House, Mr. Speaker, and to join other responsible Members of this body in challenging these irresponsible and inaccurate charges as they were twice expressed by the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. DICKENSON]. The Essex County clergy who participated in the Alabama march have outstanding reputations in their ministry and have my confidence that they conducted themselves in strict accord with the dictates of their faith. Moreover, it is noteworthy that there has been silence on the part of the gentleman from Alabama since the smears directed at the clergy and devoted church people were issued and fully rebutted on the floor of this House. A distinguished democratic layman, Mr. Malcolm E. Peabody, Jr., of Cambridge, Mass., is the president of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. He is the brother of the former Democratic Governor of Massachusetts and the son of Bishop and Mrs. Malcolm E. Peabody of the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Peabody won the affection and respect of many of us when she went to St. Augustine, Fla., to fight for civil rights with the wife of one of the Episcopal Negro bishops and both good ladies were promptly arrested. A group of New Jersey priests and laymen and laywomen will be going to Jackson, Miss., to attend the fifth annual meeting of ESCRU on September 9-13. In view of the tragic assassination of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, the Selmabased fieldworker for ESCRU, in Hayneville, Ala., on August 20, it is clear that the eyes of many people interested in advancing the cause of civil rights will be focused on the work of the priests and laymen and laywomen of ESCRU. Building a constructive program to help insure human and civil rights for all our people will be one thing that can be done at this meeting, and which will be in some small measure a fitting memorial to the late Jonathan Daniels. According to the Montclair Times, Mr. Sontag took a constructive part in the New Jersey Conference on Preserving the Democratic Process-An Examination of the Tactics and Implications of Extremism, as part of the New Jersey Episcopal delegation. ESCRU fielded over 500 priests and laymen as participants during the Selma and Montgomery march. This Episcopal group of dedicated bishops, priests, and lay people has been in the forefront in fighting for civil rights throughout this country during the last 5 years. Although Jonathan Daniels is the first ESCRU staff member to be killed in cold blood, it takes considerable courage to speak up on some of these civil rights matters. The bishop of Washington was recently attacked on the floor of this House and I am proud that a colleague of mine, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. [Mr. REUSS] joined the Washington chapter of ESCRU in defending Bishop Creighton. I would think that the good bishop and his able suffragan, Bishop Paul Moore, Jr., will be able to survive attacks like this, but we should all be grateful that there are people in our churches and synagogues who do take leadership in these important matters of public and private policy. I am naturally pleased that an Episcopal leader living in my district and in WASHINGTON WORLD CONFERENCE tation. The money is not there so they ON WORLD PEACE unanimous consent that the gentleman Mr. WELTNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. KASTENMEIER] may extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and include extraneous matter. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Georgia? There was no objection. Mr. KASTENMEIER. Mr. Speaker, Washington will be the site for the Washington World Conference on World Peace through Law on September 12-18, 1965. The highest judicial and legal officials of 120 nations will be the special honored invitees and more than 2,000 of the invitees and more than 2,000 of the world's leading lawyers are expected to attend and participate in the proceedings. Former Presidents Eisenhower and Truman will serve as honorary cochairmen of the sponsors committee and Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States, is the honorary chairman of the conference. It will be the most important, representative and influential international assembly of the legal profession in history. It is fitting then that this Congress recognize this meeting and the distinguished representatives who will attend. I am pleased to join in sponsoring a House concurrent resolution to welcome to our shores the jurists and members of the legal profession of the world who will meet on this important effort to build world peace. HIGH-SPEED GROUND TRANSPORTATION Mr. WELTNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. IRWIN] may extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and include extraneous matter. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Georgia? have allowed their facilities to deteriorate. As I said in testimony before the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee in support of this bill, what we have to do is reverse the trend in the East and elsewhere in the country so that railroads and passengers will both be reminded that trains can provide fast, clean, efficient and safe service. I view the problem as one that must be met on several levels. We must approach it as a problem of faster train travel between our metropolitan areas. The 3-year, $90 million program to develop high-speed service from Washington to Boston, as envisioned in Chairman HARRIS' bill, is a sound one. It gives great promise of putting new life in our tired railroads and setting an example for the rest of the country. At the same time we must not overlook the crisis of getting people to work and back within our crowded metropolitan areas. Here we are confronted with a problem of overburdened, antiquated, deficitridden intracity transportation facilities increasingly unable to do the job. We in the Northeast, and particularly in Fairfield County, Conn., have been made painfully aware of the problem. On the commuter level in our area, the transportation crisis is apparently being eased by a Housing and Home Finance Agency grant under the 1964 Urban Mass Transportation Act. With Federal money providing the lion's share of funds to keep the service going in the interim, New York and Connecticut are working out plans for a permanent arrangement for commuter service to New York City on the New Haven Railroad. But we must do more than deal with the problem on a crisis basis. Just as we look to research for breakthroughs in intercity travel so we must look to new developments and unorthodox proposals to revive commuter travel. One idea that may have great promise calls for propulsion of trains by pneumatic pressure and gravity through an underground tube. It envisions speeds There was no objection. Mr. IRWIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in of up to 500 miles an hour. support of H.R. 5863. The need for research and development in the field of high-speed ground transportation is obvious. Intercity travel through the densely populated Washinggoing. And it will be even worse by 1980 Such ideas must be explored and, where feasible, developed if we are to see a marked improvement in our transpor tation facilities. Therefore, I am joining with some of Montclair has been singled out on the ton-to-Boston corridor already is heavy ment to the Mass Transportation Act basis of constructive suggestions, initiative, courage, and integrity for the Na tional Board of ESCRU. It is therefore good news that ESCRU's able executive director, Dr. John Morris, and Mrs. Donald Frey of Illinois, chairman of the nominating committee, and their coworkers-bishops, priests, and laymen-have seen fit to pick a New Jersey Episcopalian for nomination to represent this State and our neighboring State of New York. Mr. Speaker, I am confident that the ESCRU meeting in Jackson, Miss., will add another meaningful chapter to the march forward in the American dream of civil rights for every one of our citizens. when travel and freight is expected to double in this corridor. With other metropolitan areas developing at a rapid rate, there is every indication the problem of our overloaded and overburdened transportation systems will no longer be confined to the eastern seaboard. And the airways are not the answer. As many of us know from the first-hand experience of waiting in crowded air terminals, the volume of air traffic is fast approaching the danger point over many of our cities. Our trouble is partly due to the fact that we have permitted the railroads to turn their backs on passenger transpor my colleagues in introducing an amendthat would provide $10 million this fiscal year and a similar sum for fiscal year 1967 to be used for additional techno logical research. THE COLD WAR GI BILL Mr. WELTNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. GONZALEZ] may extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and include extraneous matter. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Georgia? There was no objection. Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, earlier today, the gentleman from Florida, Rep resentative CLAUDE PEPPER, testified before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs in behalf of the proposed Cold War Veterans' Readjustment Act, known as the cold war GI bill. The gentleman from Florida is one of the most able and dedicated Congressmen to have ever served in the Congress of the United States. I would not make such a statement lightly, but only after close observation over a long period of time. The gentleman from Florida has compiled a most distinguished record of public service. History will record, in my opinion, that Representative PEPPER is one of the giants among us in this great body of the National Legislature. This story was repeated wholesale across our Nation, and the entire Nation profited from its unfolding. As a result of the two GI bills, men who went to war as laborers returned to the opportunity of becoming foremen; those who had been orderlies were helped by a grateful nation to become doctors. Indeed, I think it safe to say that no piece of educational legislation, with the possible exception of the First Morrill Act, has exerted a more powerful influence for good on America than the two GI bills. level of a whole people shot upwards; a whole Largely as a result of them, the educational generation of skilled workers took the places left vacant several years before by the unskilled; and the higher salaries earned by these newly skilled men, along with the credit they exercised through the loan provisions, acted as stimuli without which the I am therefore proud and honored to two postwar economies might well have insert in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD a copy of the excellent statement delivered by Representative PEPPER in behalf of the cold war GI bill. This is the bill for which the Honorable RALPH YARBOROUGH, the senior Senator from Texas, has worked for many years. For Senator YARBOROUGH it has sometimes been a lonely struggle. The fact that the Senate has passed the bill this year, together with the enormous support that has been manifested for it in this House, is a tribute to Senator YARBOROUGH'S efforts and abilities. I have cosponsored this proposal by introducing a similar bill, H.R. 7910. I intend to personally testify in behalf of this bill before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee next Tuesday. The testimony of the gentleman from STATEMENT BY CONGRESSMAN PEPPER IN SUP- 5051) Mr. Chairman, I wish to express my appreciation for the privilege you have extended to me of appearing before the committee to testify on the subject of the socalled cold war GI bill. I would also like to commend you personally for the wisdom and farsightedness you have shown in instituting hearings in this most important area of legislation. I appear here today as the Representative of a State whose sons have never been slow in answering their country's call. I have known literally thousands of these boys; known them before they were called and after they returned. And I have known hundreds who never returned. Well over 300,000 of them went into the Second World War. Three hundred and eight thousand returned, and of that number, 171,000-fully 55 percent took advantage of the educational and training opportunity offered them under the original GI bill. Nearly 40,000 of those boys went to college in the years just after the war. Most of that number would not have gone without GI assistance. Thousands of others trained in other, noncollegiate schools, and still others improved their places in life with on-farm and on-the-job training. After the Korean war, much the same story was repeated throughout the peninsula, and Florida was again the gainer. Forty percent of the 182,000 Korean conflict veterans in our State went to school, thanks to the second GI bill, with nearly 30,000 of them attending our colleges. And in addition to the educational benefits they received, many hundreds of Florida veterans of both wars were enabled to purchase homes and farms and to set themselves up in businesses by means of GI loans. sagged. The period of the GI bill came to its effective end in 1955. The compulsory draft, however, outlived the bills, and is, of course, with us still. Consequently, every year sees thousands of young Americans completing their military obligations and returning to civilian pursuits, pursuits they have had to lay by for at least 2 years. By the close of the past fiscal year, over 3 million of these cold war veterans had returned. But when they returned, they were not given assistance in going on with their education. They weren't offered loans. Rather, they returned only to 4 more years of part-time soldiering, 2 years behind in the achievement of whatever goals they might have set for themat all to our country's credit. I am convinced we must remedy it at once. selves. I do not think this situation reflects In February of this year, my longtime interest in the American veteran and in American education led me to introduce H.R. 5051, the Cold War Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act. Similar measures were introduced by a good number of our colleagues in the House, and I am sure they were as heartened as I when S. 9, a bill identical with H.R. 5051, passed the Senate last month by a margin of more than 4 to 1. Since proposals for a cold war veterans' features of every Congress for the greater readjustment program have been perennial part of a decade, and since I know there is not a single member of this committee but has done his homework diligently, I will speak to the content of my bill quite briefly. Broadly speaking, this bill would extend to veterans of the cold war assistance similar to that given the veterans of World War II and the Korean conflict under the acts of 1944 and 1952. For the purposes of this bill, the cold war is taken to be the period between January 31, 1955, and July 1, 1967. These two limits represent the terminal date for establishing eligibility under the Korean GI bill and the expiration date of the current draft law, respectively. To qualify for assistance under the new proposal, a veteran must have received an honorable discharge after serving more than 180 days on active duty within the 1955-67 period, or he must have been discharged from active duty during that period as the result of a serviceconnected disability. Two types of assistance would be rendered the veteran under the cold war bill. The first type would involve educational and training programs aimed at improving the vocational standing of veterans and at giving them the opportunity to resume educational progress interrupted by their service. As in the earlier GI bills, the veteran would be granted 12 days of educational entitlement for each day spent on active duty during the period of coverage, with no individual entitlements to exceed 36 months. The vet eran may use his entitlement to pursue educational and training objectives through enrollment in regularly constituted institutions of education, such as colleges, universities, and trade and technical schools, and also through participation in approved programs of on-the-job and on-the-farm training, apprenticeship, or correspondence education. The rate of payment would vary with the nature of the program undertaken and with the family standing of the veteran. For a full-time program in an educational institution, a veteran would receive $110 monthly if he has no dependents, $135 a month if he has 1 dependent, and a top of $160 per month if he has more than 1 dependent. This basic rate would be scaled down if a veteran pursues such a program on a parttime basis, or if he chooses a program in volving on-job or on-farm training, appren ticeship, or correspondence education. The second type of readjustment assistance available under this bill involves loans for certain purposes. Section 3 of the present bill would amend chapter 37 of title 38 of the United States Code so that veterans eligible under this bill could either secure direct Federal loans for the purchase of homes and farms, or have commercial loans for those purposes federally guaranteed. While the provisions of this bill are generally similar to the provisions of the first two GI bills, differences do exist; differences of enough significance to warrant brief no First, the basic service period required under this bill is twice that under the earlier measures-180 versus 90 days. This fact, together with the fact that compensation under the educational section of the present bill is set at the same dollar level with compensation under the Korean GI bill, means, of course, that eligibility would be harder to achieve under this bill, and also that the effective purchasing power of assistance received would be substantially less than under the earlier enactments. Second, this bill provides no mustering out pay, which pay added as much as $300 to the benefits received by veterans under the World War II and Korean GI bills. Third, veterans of the cold war would not be eligible for federally guaranteed loans for business purposes, as were their brother veterans under the earlier acts. Fourth, veterans receving direct or guaranteed loans under the present bill would be required to pay a fee of up to one-half of 1 percent of the amount of the loan. This fee would be placed in a revolving fund from which the Veterans' Administration would make good any losses incurred under the loan program. In effect, the postKorean veterans would be covering the defaults of their fellow veterans, and it is quite unlikely that Federal money would be required for this purpose at all. And finally, the proposed cold war GI bill contains a special provision that would allow career men and those who choose to serve several terms of duty to benefit from the bill. Basically, a veteran would have 3 years after the date of his discharge from his last period of active duty beginning before July 1, 1967, in which to start using his educational or training entitlement. But no active service coming after the 1967 termination date will be counted as part of the 3-year period, so long as that post-1967 active service is not interrupted by breaks in active duty status of more than 90 days. As a result of this new provision, a young man could enlist today, serve his country for 20 years, and still make use of his educational entitlement upon his final discharge in 1985, though the basic termination date for the educational portion of the measure is June 30, 1977. This, then, is what the proposed bill would do, and how it would differ from the two earlier GI bills. I would like to turn for a moment now from the actual provisions of the bill and say a few words in justification of this proposal. Nearly 22 years ago, on this very Hill, I was privileged to hear the following words: "Vocational and educational opportunities for veterans should be of the widest range. There will be those of limited education who now appreciate, perhaps for the first time, the importance of a general education and who would welcome a year in school or college. There will be those who desire to learn a remunerative trade or to fit themselves more adequately for specialized work in agriculture or commerce. There will be others who want professional courses to prepare them for their lifework." With these words, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was asking Congress to enact the first GI bill. In my opinion, his simple yet eloquent sentences are as relevant to the its soldiers as Kipling reflected in his "Tommy": "For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Chuck him out, the brute!' But it's 'Saviour of 'is country' when the guns begin to shoot; Tommy, though perhaps simple, was not a fool: An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool-you bet that Tommy sees!" Mr. Chairman, the American GI is certainly no less sharpsighted than Tommy; his eyes are on us. I think we have let him down long enough. By reporting out a bill like H.R. 5051 and S. 9, this committee would be rendering yeoman's service in the just cause of American servicemen, and in the cause of all America as well. I thank you. proposed third GI bill as they were to the CONTRIBUTION OF THE ECONOMIC first. On that October day over two decades ago, the boys that F.D.R. wanted to send to college were already enrolled in some pretty stiff courses meeting between Naples and the Sangros River and in the Solomon Islands. Others were prepping at camps and bases scattered throughout the free world. Today, the sons of those brave boys are learning and teaching-similar lessons in the Vantuong Peninsula, at Danang, in the Dominican Republic, and around the globe. What their fathers did for our country, the sons are doing today. What our country did for the fathers, today it should do for the sons. There are those who say, in effect, yes, we should help our veterans, but only if they have proved themselves on the firing line. This seems to me to be a most unrealistic OPPORTUNITY ACT Mr. WELTNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. GONZALEZ] may extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and include extraneous matter. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Georgia? There was no objection. Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, recently we debated in this House the expansion and modification of the Economic Opportunity Act or, as it is popularly called, the war on poverty. Many of the critics were loud and vociferous in denouncing the things they and unhistorical way of looking at things. say have gone wrong with the program. The first two GI bills were not designed as sops for those who had borne the battle, nor as bounty pay. They were designed to assist all who had served, not merely those who had shot and been shot at. To my knowledge, there is no adequate way of repaying a man for the risk of his life, or for the gift of it. There are, however, ways of repaying him for his time and his services, and the GI bills Rarely, if ever, have we legislators considered a bill for which there have been such gleaming precedents. Judging from past form, I say we can enact this measure with not a single qualm about how it will work out. I will not take the committee's time to rehearse further the great benefits that have accrued to the Nation as a result of the first two GI bills. You have heard how many doctors and scientists and skilled workers those programs have produced. You know that the costs of the program have been more than repaid. You are aware that great numbers of the country's leaders, including a sizable portion of the membership of Congress, were educated under the earlier programs. You have the figures to show that the earlier bills have changed the very landscape of our country and made us a nation of homeowners. All these things you know, and much more besides. I would only say that the cold war veteran could make the proposal before us work fully as well, and that he in his millions is looking to us to give him the opportunity to prove it. The author of "Barrack-Room Ballads" is held in bad odor today by many for some of his ideas and policies. In spite of this, it is difficult to deny that Kipling knew, as few others have known, the life and thoughts of the soldier. Though I hate even to say it, I am afraid our Nation has been guilty of the same kind of dichotomized thinking about I am very proud to report to this House that in my district, the 20th Congressional District of Texas, the Economic Opportunity Act has made a significant and most worthy contribution. Recently I was a guest of the Edgewood Independent School District and visited, project by project, such inspiring and redeeming programs as the Head Start program with 1,120 youngsters benefiting from the Economic Opportunity Act; the Youth Corps program, and related programs under the purview and by virtue of the Economic Opportunity Act. For those of us who have endured the criticism and the opposition that the espousal of these programs has engendered, I want to say to this House that it was a tremendous and rewarding experience to have seen the good that this legislation has done in my district. I offer at this time for the RECORD an article from the San Antonio Express of August 29, 1965, by Mr. Mike Cantu, that very dramatically points this out: YOUTH CORPS DOES A JOB-EDGEWOOD SCHOOLS GET IMPROVEMENTS, 412 BOYS, GIRLS EARN NEEDED MONEY Through skillful managing by school officials, the summer Youth Corps grant of $172,000 to the district has provided jobs for 412 youths, each working 32 hours a week for $1.25 an hour. That means each of the youngsters will have earned $440 by end of the 11-week program on August 31. But it didn't end there at Edgewood. The students were not just being paid for doing small, meaningless odd jobs around the school campuses. A careful plan drawn up by school officials has resulted in the district realizing a return of nearly 1,000 percent on its own investment in the program. "I would say that actual and enduring value of work done for the district by Youth Corps members would be well over $200,000," said District Superintendent Bennie F. Steinhauser in appraising the program. That work included Youth Corps members constructing a 50,000 square foot vocational education shop building at Edgewood High School, building temporary classrooms faster than 1 a week, painting 12 classrooms a day, refinishing 300 desks a day, and manicuring all campuses of schools in the district, to name a few of the projects. YOUTH AND DISTRICT BENEFIT "It is filled with tremendous opportunity for youth both in earning money and valuable work experience; it also provides a serveralizing about Youth Corps. ice for the district," said Steinhauser in gen Officials at Edgewood began laying the groundwork for their Youth Corps program in November 1964. At that time, screening began for students to participate, with interviewers determining who actually needed the work most. By February, nearly 300 students were ready to begin work, but had to wait until April when the district was given final go-ahead. covered work during April and May. Early June saw beginning of the larger summer project, which will continue until the end of August. First work started on a $37,500 grant which Steinhauser explained the Edgewood program was tailored to meet three basic aims: (1) To allow the students to earn money, (2) to enable them to learn the work they were doing under supervision and (3) to have them contribute something useful to their community. Near summer's end he rated the project successful on all three counts. Youths were divided into two main classes, those under 18 and those over. This division was primarily intended for those working in classroom construction and renovation. The older youths are allowed to operate power tools while those younger are kept from hazardous work. Workers were divided into those going into construction, recreation, landscaping, painting, furniture refinishing, survey, clerical work and janitorial projects. Organization was the key, as a program with 412 unskilled workers could easily have been reduced to chaos. Groups of eight students were placed under an adult supervisor. The adult then chose a leader to take charge of the other seven. "Aside from helping the students, it was a gold mine for doing things that needed to be done," said Steinhauser about district work being done. TRIBUTE TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON Incidentally, headquarters for the Edgewood Youth Corps was set up at the district's new Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary School. "We thought it would be fitting," explained Steinhauser when it was noted the President initiated the war on poverty giving birth to Youth Corps. |