[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 72 (Thursday, May 26, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H4077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE HISTORY OF MEMORIAL DAY

  (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, as we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day, 
let me give a brief history lesson. We know that Southern families 
decorated the graves of their fallen friends after the Civil War on 
what was known as Decoration Day.
  However, it was a former Member of Congress, a Democrat-turned-
Republican, an individual who got elected to the Senate, General John 
A. Logan, who gets credit for memorializing Memorial Day as he 
established the Grand Army of the Republic and issued General Order 31 
which formerly established Memorial Day.
  General Logan was from Illinois in the deep southern part of the 
State. He was a congressman, a U.S. Senator and a vice presidential 
candidate. He is memorialized with a statue here in Washington, DC and 
a statue in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he kept Union soldiers from 
burning down the city. He also has a community college named after him 
in the southern part of the State of Illinois.
  As we remember the men and women who have fallen in combat, let us 
also remember our soldiers from all wars and the folks that made it 
possible for us to have and celebrate Memorial Day, and one of those 
individuals is General John A. Logan.

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