Page:Congressional Record Volume 81 Part 3.djvu/37

1937 Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, my colleague the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Duncan, is unavoidably absent on account of the death of his mother. If present, he would have voted “nay” on the motion to recommit and “aye” on the passage of the bill.

Mr. McREYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Chair a question with respect to straightening out a vote. A gentleman came in and thought he had voted in place of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Fish]. I am not sure whether the vote was so recorded or not.

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Fish] did not vote.

The result of the vote was announced as above recorded. A motion to reconsider the vote by which the Senate joint resolution was passed was laid on the table. The title of the Senate Joint resolution was amended.

Mr. PETTENGELL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to extend, at this point in the Record, a brief announcement with reference to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the death of Cavelier de La Salle, who discovered the Mississippi Valley.

The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Indiana?

There was no objection.

Mr. PETTENGILL. Mr. Speaker, a quarter of a thousand years ago tomorrow, March 19, 1687, at or near Navasota, Tex., one of the greatest empire builders of all time met his death. I refer to Ren6 Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.

His richest legacy, which he left to his king and to posterity, was the Louisiana Territory, which he established by discovery and exploration.

The millions who live in the valley of the imperial Mississippi, as well as in other sections of the United States, and Canada and his native France, can only profit if they pause to reflect upon the hardships he endured, the courage that spurred him on, and the Christian faith that sustained him. It is doubtful if any man who ever trod this continent excelled him in “the arduous greatness of things done.”

The people of southern Michigan and northern Indiana take an especial interest in perpetuating his memory, for it was near what is now South Bend that he first crossed over from the St. Lawrence Basin to the Mississippi watershed on December 5, 1679.

It is on that famous portage that the La Salle memorial committee of South Bend hopes to see some day erected an international shrine in his memory. I trust that the Congress of the United States may aid in that undertaking.

For what now follows I am indebted to Dr. L. A. Rausch, chairman of that committee: On Friday, March 19. 1937, the schools of the United States, Canada, and France have been asked to unite in the commemoration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the death of Ren6 Robert Cavelier. Sieur de La Salle.

La Salle, as this scholarly explorer Is known in history, was born to wealthy parents in 1643, and spent his childhood in his native city of Rouen, on the river Seine in France. Here, where he could watch the ships coming from and going to the sea, he acquired a taste for business and adventure which in later life caused him to renounce his intention to become a Jesuit priest, and set his course to America in search of a passage to China.

La Salle’s plan was to explore into the heart of the American continent, and establish forts as preliminary steps in a vast program of colonization, which was to protect the water route that he assumed led to the Pacific Ocean and the Orient. On all his Important Journeys, La Salle was accompanied by priests, the ministers of his church. Where La Salle built a fort, there also he erected a chapel for the worship of his God. His high moral standard, which he Imposed on those who traveled with him, caused many to desert.

It was La Salle, the diplomat, who in the glamorous court of Louis the XIV, persuaded the King and his counselors to grant La Salle the right to explore and colonize the new continent. Again it was La Salle, the diplomat, who in the wilderness persuaded the Illinois and Miami chiefs to discontinue their feuds and Join him as subjects of France, thereby obtaining without the force of arms, security for his explorations and colonizations. In the presence of the Council Oak, which still stands near the portage used by La Salle, the pipe of peace was smoked by white and red men alike, a symbol of friendship and loyalty.

The calumet Is truly symbolic of La Salle, for he believed in peaceful progress. However, he also believed that ability to defend one’s self often prevented undesirable attack, so we find La Salle always able to defend his party with force of arms if necessary, showing at all times a courage built upon preparedness, yet preferring the peaceful council and calumet rather than a decision through the shedding of blood.

Twenty years in the wilderness demonstrated all the fine and noble qualities of the man La Salle. His several Journeys claimed for France that vast territory of the Mississippi Valley, which La Salle named Louisiana, and which later was given by France to the then young United States. It was La Salle who discovered and named the Ohio “The Beautiful River." It was La 8aile who first Journeyed from a source of the Mississippi, the Kankakee River, to its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico. It was La Salle who by accident established a colony in what is now the State of Texas in the region of Matagorda Bay.

Disaster followed disaster throughout the career of La Salle, but an unconquerable spirit caused him to carry on when less sturdy souls would have given up. The storm on the Gulf of Mexico, which caused La Salle to miss the mouth of the Mississippi, forced the establishment of his last colony on the Matagorda River.

But, in his characteristic manner. La Salle set about to rediscover the river he had missed, in an effort to reach his Canadian estates, with the intention of starting ar'ln.

It was while his party was on his back-track that a disgruntled follower, hiding in the underbrush along the trail, shot La Salle dead as La Salle was hastening to the relief of another member of his party who was in distress.

Thus an untimely end was brought to the career of the peer of French explorers. And his body, stripped of all valuables, was tossed into the bushes, left to an unknown fate beside an unmarked trail near one of the rivers in Texas on the morning of March 19, 1687. The Council Oak and the La Salle Portage Trail In South Bend, Ind., mark the gateway to the West—the shortest portage between the Great Lakes and Mississippi waterways—which was used often by La Salle. Here was consummated the most Important treaty of La Salle’s wilderness career. So it is fitting, on this the quarto-millenial anniversary of the death of La Salle, that we as a nation promptly continue to completion the proposed international shrine to La Salle to be erected overlooking the La Salle Portage and the council site.

Mr. KVALE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in my remarks delivered today a copy of a brief editorial upon which my remarks were based.

Mr. RICH. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I would like to ask the gentleman from Minnesota if he knows that it is contrary to the rules of the House to put editorials in the Record?

The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman object to the request?

Mr. RICH. I am not objecting, Mr. Speaker.

The SPEAKER. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Minnesota?

There was no objection.

Mr. RICH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 15 minutes on Monday next after the reading of the Journal and the disposition of matters on the Speaker’s desk.

Mr. RAYBURN. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and I must object, because we have set aside that day, which was the day for the Committee on the District of Columbia in order that we might take up an appropriation bill and have general debate. I am sure the gentleman could secure time in general debate on that day.

Mr. RICH. Then, Mr. Speaker, I ask that I may have the time on Tuesday.

Mr. RAYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I shall have to object to the request because the bill will be read that day under the 5-minute rule. If the gentleman wants to change his request to Thursday, I shall have no objection.

Mr. RICH. Then, Mr. Speaker, I submit the request for Wednesday.

Mr. RAYBURN. That is Calendar Wednesday, and I shall have to object to that.

Mr. RICH. Mr. Speaker, may I ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rayburn] whether he is going to permit any other Member of the House to have any time between now and Thursday?

Mr. RAYBURN. I am not.

Mr. RICH. Then, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may address the House for 15 minutes on Thursday next.