[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 85 (Monday, June 24, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1136-E1137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             TRIBUTE TO HARRY COLMERY BY MICHAEL J. BENNETT

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, June 24, 2002

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, last week I participated in a 
ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the original GI Bill, and its 
principal author Mr. Harry Colmery of The American Legion. First 
enacted in 1944, the GI Bill has helped over 20 million Americans reach 
their educational goals, and in the process helped transform our 
Nation.
  Michael J. Bennett, the author of the book, ``When Dreams Came True: 
The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America,'' spoke at that ceremony 
and I want to commend his remarks to all of my colleagues:

       Mr. Dooley, my favorite political philosopher, had this to 
     say about Americans: ``We're a great people we are, and the 
     greatest thing about us is that we know we are.''
       I wonder about that. We are a great people--and we know it, 
     but I'm not sure we know why we are. We are a democratic 
     people, citizens of the world's first truly democratic 
     republic. And we are a practical, sensible people; indeed, 
     our national philosophy is often called pragmatism. Yet, all 
     too often, we seem to believe we are great because our 
     Presidents are great, elected leaders whose wisdom is 
     exceeded only by their power, and we are practical and 
     sensible because we study their words and follow their 
     example.
       If you believe that, you're in the wrong place today. 
     Franklin Delano Roosevelt preferred an Economic Bill of 
     Rights for everyone in return for everyone, women as well as 
     men, being subject to a universal draft. America got the GI 
     Bill of Rights instead because of the man we're belatedly 
     honoring today. And that is the best proof we have that 
     democracy itself, the wisdom of ordinary people, is what has 
     made us great--and will make us even greater still if we 
     follow the example, in deeds as well as words, of Harry 
     Colmery. For it was Harry Colmery, who crafted the GI Bill of 
     Rights in Room 570 of the Mayflower Hotel over the Christmas-
     New Year's holidays of 1943-1944.
       In just a few short weeks--and in the little more than six 
     months it took the Legion, Hearst newspaper reporters and 
     editors and Congressional allies in Congress to get the Bill 
     through the House and Senate--these men, and one woman, made 
     modern America possible. And they did so, despite FDR, and 
     the vociferous opposition of the nation's elite, the best and 
     brightest of the time.
       The GI Bill will turn the nation's colleges and 
     universities into ``educational hobo jungles,'' Robert 
     Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, 
     warned. The Bill will benefit ``the least qualified of the 
     wartime generation,'' moaned James Conant, the president of 
     Harvard, who rallied academic opposition to the Bill in 
     Congress. And he might have prevailed. But Rep. Edith Nourse 
     Rogers of Massachusetts was shrewd enough to use a Southern 
     segregationist to potentially expose the proper Bostonian as 
     a hypocrite to the improper Bostonian readers of The Boston 
     Record-American.
       That's just one improbable--but true--anecdote in a story 
     full of improbabilities, but then, everything about the GI 
     Bill is improbable unless you believe that democracy can 
     sometimes, rarely but sometimes, be the best of all possible 
     governments. And that's what makes the GI Bill truly 
     wonderful, a story full of real wonder and authentic 
     inspiration. For this was a bill conceived in democracy and 
     dedicated to the proposition that those called upon to die 
     for their country, if need be, are the best qualified to make 
     it work, if given the opportunity.
       And make the Bill work, the men and women who proudly 
     identified themselves as GI's did. They did so despite the 
     fact that the politically correct Pentagon advised newspaper 
     and magazine editors that the word GI, an acronym for general 
     or government issue is, and I quote, ``dehumanizing, 
     demeaning and disrespectful.'' The GI Bill became the 
     catalyst of America as an essentially middle-class society, 
     and the seedbed of the civil rights movement as GI's built 
     the suburbs, transformed arsenals of mass destruction into 
     industries of mass consumption, and democratized higher 
     education, even getting Conant to admit the GI's were ``the 
     best students Harvard has ever had.''
       There's a profound lesson here for all of us, one that 
     transcends the pieties of the left and the banalities of the 
     right; liberal ends are best achieved by conservative means. 
     Capitalism can be democratic. Merit should be determined as 
     much by actual deeds as by test scores. We live in an era of 
     growing rather than lessening class distinctions. Those who 
     go to the college of hard knocks can only expect hard times. 
     And those who are the smartest graduates of the best schools 
     experience little more than virtual reality. In these times, 
     as in World War II, the military is the best preparatory 
     school for life, higher education and citizenship.
       Everyone profits. The $14.5 billion cost of the WWII Bill 
     was paid by additional taxes on the increased income of the 
     GI recipients by 1960. Without the prosperity--and social 
     peace--engendered by the GI Bill, America couldn't have 
     afforded the Marshall Plan's $12.5 billion. Indeed, the GI 
     Bill, rooted in eternal verities of individual aspiration and 
     political reality, is a far better model for international 
     development than the Marshall Plan.
       The authors of the GI Bill were World War I veterans who 
     kept faith with their children, the veterans of WWII. That 
     made possible the peaceful end in 1989 of the 20th century 
     World War that began in 1914. Now, nine

[[Page E1137]]

     months after the massacres of September 2001, we are engaged 
     in a war on terror that will, undoubtedly, last at least as 
     long as WWI and WWII, if not much of the 21st century.
       Unfortunately, we didn't keep faith--as much as we should 
     have--with the veterans of Korea and Vietnam, especially the 
     Vietnam veterans. We didn't adequately respect their service, 
     and sufficiently encourage their potential. But perhaps, 
     starting with this dedication, we're beginning to learn the 
     practical, sensible, and, yes, pragmatic lesson of the WWII 
     bill. We owe the young men and women who are--and will be--
     our protectors in this long, shadowy conflict no less than a 
     moral--and a financial--equivalent of the WWII GI Bill.
       We don't just owe it to them; we owe it to ourselves.

       

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