Congressional Oversight

In a little-known plot near 19th and B streets se, almost a hundred of the country's once illustrious sleep the last sleep.

The Congressional Cemetery was set apart by the founders because of the difficulties presented in those times of transporting the body of a member who might die on duty here to his native soil. It was the intention then that burial in such a place would put the honored deceased in a position to be remembered forever by a grateful nation.

Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers, in the gloom of a dying day of Congress recently, called attention to how shamefully this hallowed spot had fallen into the decay of neglect.

She was mindful that the little church situated there had done all its meager funds would permit. But she charged her colleagues: "If we do not honor our own, no one else will."

She referred, without rancor, to the magnificent preparations made at Arlington to care for the war dead. Glad of this, she was unhappy that the meager sum which would be required to renovate and provide perpetual care for the congressional plot had been overlooked by Congress.

And when she was thru with her speech on the floor she told a story:

"My husband and I," she said, "used to explore out-of-the-way places near town in our auto whenever the weather was pleasant and his duties would permit." (He was a Massachusetts congressman then.) "Passing Congressional Cemetery one day he said, "There's where you can bury me without a cent of cost."

"We laughed about it then, because the idea of death was furthest from our thoughts. Bud he did die. And I succeeded him in Congress . . ."

"He's buried at home, of course. But I think of those who went before, under other conditions than ours, and whether we who succeeded them in Congress might not remember . . ."

Published by: The Washington Daily News

Publishing date: February 19, 1937