SUTHERLAND’S TRIBUTE TO
COL. BEN EIELSON
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Mr. Sutherland: Mr. Speaker
and Members of the House, I
want to add to the remarks of
the gentleman from North Dako
to (Mr. Burtness) a few remarks
of tribute to the memory of this
magnificent young man, whose
passing today is mourned in far
off Alaska, in my district, as well
as in his home State of North
Dakota.
Carl Ben Eielson, when I came
to Washington, was a guard in
tine House Office Building. While
serving in the guard room he
was attending the law school at
Georgetown University.
He was deeply interested in
Alaska and spent much time
with me in my office preparing
data. He always prepared sci
entific data; that is, he collect
ed from the hies and records in
my office. He then went to Alas
ka, and the first winter taught
high school at Fairbanks, Alas
ka. In the winter of 1923-24
Postmaster New authorized an
experimental winter air mail
flight in Alaska. Eielson under
took the flight. The Post Office
Department paid him quite liber
ally for it and furnished him a
splendid new De Haviland air
plane, which was forwarded to
Fairbanks, together with a me
chanic. Eielson demonstrated
the possibility oi' what had hith
ertoo been considered practically
an impossibility; that is, to fly
an airplane in the tar notrhern
country where the thermometer
would be as low as 40 beow zero.
He gave a splendid demonstra
tion in six flights for a distance
of 340 miles and return over the
Alaskan wilderness. After that
he piloted Sir Hubert Wilkins
over the great northern range
and on to the Arctic Coast of
Alaska, carrying supplies for
Capt. Wilkin’s proposed explora
tion. Later came his wonderful
flight from Barrow, Alaska to
Spitsbergen, a distance of over
2,000 miles. Later his great flight
over Graliamland in the Antarc
tic Region.
Capt. Wilkins has well said
that Eielson is the greatest of
all pioneer Arctic and Northern
aviators.
After his flight in the Antarc
tic lie came back to Alaska and
this winter he flew to his un
timely end where he perished in
an Arctic blizzard on the bleak
coast of northern Siberia. I
speak of it as an untimely end,
but I wonder if the free venture
some spirit of Eielson would not
have desired such an end. There
is something tragic, something
heroic, something weird abuct
heroic, something wreird about
goes back to the time of Sir John
Franklin, and then Captain An
dre, who floated out in his bal
loon and was never heard of
more, and then Amundsen, who
lost his life in the Arctic fields,
searching for a man who was not
his friend.
There is this contrast between
the deaths of Amundsen and
Eielson, Amundson had no other
worlds to conquer. He had
achieved all his ambitions in
Arctic exploration, and, advanc
ed in years, he passed away in
the Arctic solitude. There is
something sublime, something
exalted in the circumstances
that surrounded the death of
Amundsen, and in his advanced
age we can see the glory of his
death. Eielson passed away in his
strong young manhood when
further great accomplishments
were before him.
I say there is something weird,
tragic, and heroic in these
deaths. The Norse conception of
the surroundings of death is
weird. You find it in their myth
ology. Back in the clays when
the Sagas were written the Norse
chieftan, when he died, had hi >
body placed on his ship. Thai
was his funeral pyre, and the
burning ship was cast adrift
iloat oil' into the unknown Arche
seas. Probably v/itii that idea of
weirdness the death of Eielssn
in the Snows of Siberia has a
particular appeal to their con
ception of how death should
come.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want
to say that it would be a splen
did thing if the Committee on
Military Affairs would report out
the bill of the gentleman from
North Dakota (Mr. Burtness).
That bill has been in the com
mittee for two sessions of Con
gress. It would be a splendid
thing if this tribute could be paid
posthumously at this time in or
der that his father, his friends
in his home, as well as the people
of Alaska may honor him in this
way after his death.
WISE AND OTHERWISE
We must give to every child,
and from the outset, full equal
ity of educational opportuni y;
there is no telling where the
the light of talent or genius will
break out; we must seek it im
partially everywhere, in every
rank and race. The first turn oil
every road is universal educa
tion.
NOTES TO TEACHER
. .“Dear Teacher: Kindly excuse
Johnnie’s absence yesterday. lie
fell in the mud. By doing the
same you will greatly oblige his
mother. —’’
JIMMIE WAS NO ROSE
Dear Mrs. Jones: Jimmie smells
very badly, so I’m sending him
home.—Teacher.
.The mother replied: “Dear
Ticher: Jimmie he ain’t no rose.
Don’t smell him. Learn him.
Mrs. Jones.