School 1922 and 1923; Member of the Seventy-ninth Congress; died JOHN BUELL SNYDER, Twenty-third Congressional District of Pennsylvania. Born July 30, 1877; teacher; student Harvard University, Columbia University; graduate of Lock Haven (Pa.) Teachers College; taught school 1901-12; western State manager, educational publishers, 1912–32; member of the National Commission of One Hundred for Study and Survey of Rural Schools in the United States 1922-24; Member of the Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, Seventy-fifth, Seventy-sixth, Seventy-seventh, Seventy-eighth and Seventy-ninth Congresses; died February 24, 1946. WILLIAM OLIN BURGIN, Eighth Congressional District of North Carolina. Born July 28, 1877; merchant; lawyer; banker; student Rutherfordton Military Institute and University of North Carolina Law School; mayor of Thomasville 1906-10; president of and attorney for the Industrial Bank of Lexington; elected to the State house of representatives 1930 and to the State senate 1932; Member of the Seventy-sixth, Seventy-seventh, Seventy-eighth, and Seventy-ninth Congresses; died April 11, 1946. Mrs. ROGERS, a Representative from the State of Massachusetts, standing in front of the Speaker's rostrum, placed a memorial rose in a vase as the name of each deceased Member was read by the Clerk. Then followed 1 minute of devotional silence. The CHAPLAIN. Infinite God, our rock, of refuge in every time of need, in this silence we would find our song of praise. Our hearts and memories are moved over scenes and associates which are no more. Our departed Members have labored through the storm; their souls have become immortal. Bless those whose hearts are bedewed with love and tenderness. When Thou comest in the darkness, when the thorn enters the side and our loved ones are smitten, then Thou art most gracious and full of mercy. Loving Father, in the arms of faith we bring all sorrowing hearts to Thee, Thou whose name is above every name, the One with the pierced hand and the wounded side; be Thou the divine herald who goes before, proclaiming final peace and happiness. In our Redeemer's name. Amen. 69550-48- -2 The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Hébert]). ADDRESS BY HON. F. EDWARD HÉBERT Mr. Speaker, my colleagues in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States, the families and relatives of those colleagues in whose memory we gather here today in this historic Chamber: On this solemn occasion when we are met to commemorate the lives, the spirit, and the good work of our colleagues who have been called to their eternal rest, I would ask you to come with me in spirit to that hallowed shrine which stands on Bedloe Island, at the entrance to the harbor of New York. That is indeed a hallowed sanctuary suited to the mood and the purpose of this ceremony, for there stands the Statue of Liberty, symbolizing the soul of America, silently proclaiming the ideals for which our colleagues labored and died. On the base of that monument we find these words, quoted from the Growth of the American Republic: Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free-the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me. I lift my light beside the golden door. There you find Yes; there you find the soul of America. the source of strength, the inspiration, the courage, the faith in humanity that have brought through to the realization of high ideals, of noble endeavor, of heroic achievement, the records of the men we memoralize today. Well did the Senator from California, HIRAM JOHNSON, know; well did the Senator from Nevada, JAMES SCRUGHAM, know; well did the Senator from Idaho, JOHN THOMAS, know; well did the gentleman from Oregon, JAMES MOTT, know; well did the gentleman from North Carolina, JOSEPH ERVIN, know; well did the gentleman from Pennsylvania, J. BUELL SNYDER, know; well did the other gentleman from North Carolina, WILLIAM BURGIN, know that it profiteth man nothing if he gained the whole world and thereby suffered the loss of his own soul. Well, too, did they grasp the easy transition that it profits a nation nothing if it gain the whole world and suffer the loss of its own immortal soul. They, too, have held high that torch of liberty beside the golden door. They, too, watched with bated breath and a sense of solemn responsibility the hundreds of millions of people who looked to that hallowed shrine for security, for peace, for possible happiness. Like a giant beacon their light, too, has shone out over the world, guiding men from the dangers of Scylla and shielding them from the rocks of Charybdis. The danger, far from passing, is increasing in our own times, of men avoiding Scylla only to be crashed against Charybdis. It is not so long ago that one whose memory we revere uttered an impressive prayer for America. He begged of Almighty God to vouchsafe to the people of this Nation the vision which is necessary to profit fully from the victory that was sure to come. Thank God that victory has been granted to us. To what end would that victory have been had we, in gaining it, snuffed out the light of the lady in New York harbor and had closed shut the golden door to a suffering world and in that victory, have lost the immortal soul of America. Righteous as our cause, just as our purpose, lofty as our ideals, what would it have profited to have gained the whole world and suffered the loss of our own soul. In victory and triumph we must turn humbly toward God instead of away from God in haughty satisfaction of material attainment. We must pray God that the vision may be ours: The vision for all the people and the vision, especially for us, in whose trembling hands has been placed the shivering, vibrant, yet strong, soul of America. Ours is the duty to hold high the torch, when men would snatch it from our grasp. Our American youth sacrificed their lives in order to preserve the brightness and the clear message that flashes from the soul of America. Ours is the task to be worthy of them and to leave for the future generations of young men and young women an example of vision that is clear, unwavering, and unfaltering. To do that we ourselves must beware of the rocks which flank both sides of the hallowed shrine of Liberty. On one side there is the dangerous rock of Scylla. It has often been camouflaged as Liberty, but we must know that it is a liberty of indifference-indifference to truth, indifference to morality, indifference to justice, and more than all else, indifference to the social good. It is an alleged vaunted right of the individual to say, to do, or to think anything whatsoever he pleases-no matter who or what might suffer. It is based on the assumption that there is no absolute standard of right and wrong; it sets up the individual as the supreme authority; it regards all regulations of liberty as unwarranted and unjustifiable restraint. We need not look far to find the various manifestations of this dangerous Scylla. We find it in the ideologies which maintain that there is no such thing as truth-there is merely a point of view; and their profound reason for such philosophy is because each man is his own measure of what is truth or good. We look to education and find it indoctrinating even the young with the principle that all discipline is a restriction on the individual's right of self-expression. We come to the political order and we find it assuming that the state has a merely negative function-that is, to protect the individual rights. Finally, in the economic order, it argues that if individuals are left free to run their business as they please without any social interference on the part of the Government, the maximum good of all will, in some miraculous way, be the outcome. With heavy hearts and with nervous misgivings, we have witnessed the ravages caused by this relentless Scylla. We have seen it produce, or try to produce, a civilization made up of a series of cross-currents of egotism. Under the aegis of that concept, the world began to take on the aspect of a free-for-all which was dignified by calling it the struggle for existence. No one was interested in the common good, but only in his own little cosmos which he proudly called his ego. Little wonder that on such sharp rocks unity was shattered, unselfishness was lost, and the spirit of sacrifice for others was almost completely torn to shreds. But the ravages of this indifference to the common good did not end here. It tore into the economic structure of life and left tremendous gashes which we called inequalities. Power and credit were concentrated in the hands of a few while the vast majority were reduced to the state of wage earners with little or no material security for the future. Logically that could lead to only one thing: The right of the rich to be rich, and of the poor to be poorer. Where were those words from the silent lips "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Had the light at the golden door been dimmed by the glitter of the gold itself? Was our Nation going to lose its soul? There were some who tried to avoid Scylla and they steered a course to Charybdis. They felt that in some way or other men had to be lifted out of their individual desires and brought to a regard for the good of all; some remedy had to be found to divert economic forces to the common good. Some means had to be invented to equalize inequalities and to recall an almost forgotten tie which bound men as brothers. And in looking for these avenues of escape they were dashed against the rocks of Charybdis. They forgot that men were "yearning to breathe free." To them there opened but one course and that was to force them to live for the general welfare and to seek wealth and power in order to equalize inequalities. On the rocks appeared the barnacles of dictatorships. Dazzled by siren calls they proclaimed if individuals cannot be responsible to the voice of conscience prompting them to recognize social responsibilities, if unity did not come from inside men, from their minds |