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the employee, and his or her personal representative for the benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and next of kin. The committee takes the language "a person in interest" as meaning a person entitled under section 1 to maintain an action or to recover damages as a result of the injury or death.

The modern trend in the law is toward full and complete discovery of evidentiary facts. The Rules of Civil Procedure for the District Courts recently promulgated by the Supreme Court contain provisions giving latitude in the taking of depositions, interrogating the opposite party, and permitting the court to order any party to permit the entry upon land or other property in his possession or control for the purpose of inspecting, measuring, surveying, or photographing the property or any designated relevant object or operation thereon. The bill is in line with that trend.

It is not assumed that it will be undertaken by anyone morally to justify the acts or conduct which the reported bill prohibits, and it is believed that the proposed legislation has been sufficiently safeguarded, after consideration by the Judiciary Committee, to afford ample protection against its misuse.

75TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3d Session

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REPORT No. 2252

PROVIDING FOR THE ERECTION OF A MONUMENT TO TO THE MEMORY OF GEN. PETER GABRIEL MUHLENBERG

APRIL 28, 1938.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. KELLER, from the Committee on the Library, submitted the

following

REPORT

[To accompany H. J. Res. 631]

The Committee on the Library, to whom was referred the resolution (H. Res. 631) to provide for the erection at Woodstock, Va., of a monument to the memory of Gen. Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, having had the same under consideration, beg leave to report it back and to recommend that the resolution do pass with the following amendment: Page 1, line 3, strike out the figures "$50,000" and insert in lieu thereof the figures "$25,000."

Many monuments have been erected to the heroes of the War between the States, but the only generals of the Revolutionary War to whom personal monuments have been erected were Generals Mercer, Nash, and Davidson by the Continental Congress, and later confirmed by the Congress of the United States, and Generals Washington, Lafayette, De Kalb, Pulaski, Von Steuben, and Greene. In other words, independent action of the Congress of the United States has been taken to provide individual monuments to only two native-born generals of the Revolutionary War-General Washington and General Greene. It is, therefore, highly fitting for the National Government to recognize the outstanding services of another native-born hero, Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg. His native State of Pennsylvania has honored him by placing a statue of him in Statuary Hall and by erecting a monument to him in the city of Philadelphia. The Lutheran Church, of which he was a distinguished member, plans to honor him by the erection at Woodstock of a replica of the little church in which he preached his famous farewell sermon before entering the military service of his country. But the Government for which he fought and for which he rendered such conspicuous service has taken no official action to commemorate his accomplishments as a preacher,

as a soldier, as a statesman, and as one of the outstanding patriots of his day and time.

Appearing before the Committee on the Library in 1903, Col. Joseph Smolinski said of the proposal to honor the memory of Count Pulaski:

From out that galaxy of heroes who gave our Nation an historic beginning at a momentous period of the world's history, not excelled even by the Olympian memories of Pericles, who pictured in thundering eloquence Athenian patriotism, there is one among the many far-shining men whose renown in valor and deeds is the record of a golden page of our national history, to which it has imparted dignity. This one man I single out was a foreigner by birth, a noble son of that most ancient nation, Poland; a stranger, if you please, but a dear brother by adoption, a veritable Bayard, "without fear and without reproach," a champion in the cause of the oppressed, in the cause of freedom, a hero of liberty, nay, an American citizen, baptized in his own blood on the plains of Savannah while defending our beloved land against the enemy.

There are millions of loyal and patriotic citizens in this country of German origin who feel that a similar tribute could be paid to General Muhlenberg with the added fact that he was a product of the new country and not of the old.

Appearing before the Committee on the Library on April 21, 1938, Mr. E. E. Keister, of Strasburg, Va., said:

Gen. John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was one of the outstanding figures of the American Revolution, and his ringing call to arms at Woodstock, Va., was perhaps the most dramatic incident of that fateful contest.

Muhlenberg was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1746; schooled in Philadelphia; apprenticed to a merchant in Germany; back in America, a Lutheran preacher at 21. Four years later, in 1771, he received a call to Virginia. To gain full legal standing in Virginia, he went to England and was there ordained, April 25, 1772, by the Bishop of London. The same year he located at Woodstock. Active as a clergyman, he soon became prominent also in civil affairsa member of the House of Burgesses and chairman of the committee of public safety in Dunmore County. Among his acquaintances was George Washington, to whom, in the opinion of some, he bore a striking personal resemblance.

Early in 1776 Muhlenberg was appointed colonel of the Eighth Virginia Regiment. He preached his farewell sermon in the little church at Woodstock, threw aside his clerical robes, and called the men of his parish to arms. Thomas Buchanan Read has described the scene most effectively in his famous poem:

"He spoke of wrongs too long endured,

Of sacred rights to be secured;

And there was tumult in the air,

The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat,
And through the wide land everywhere
The answering tread of hurrying feet.”

Muhlenberg's military services in the War of the Revolution continued from first to last, and extended over a wide geographical area. First he won distinction in the South, notably at Sullivans Island, S. C.; then in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York; finally, again, in Virginia.

In February 1777, he was made a brigadier general in the Continental Army. In September of that year his brigade and Weedon's bore the brunt of the fighting in the battle of Brandywine; the next month he distinguished himself at Germantown. The following winter he was with Washington at Valley Forge. In the summer of 1778 he fought at Monmouth and the next year he supported Anthony Wayne in the capture of Stony Point. In December 1779 Washington sent him to Virginia, where he was in chief command until the arrival of Steuben and Lafayette; then he ably seconded them. He assisted in penning up Cornwallis at Yorktown. In the siege of Yorktown he led the first brigade of light infantry and was conspicuous in the attacks that compelled Cornwallis to surrender. His services at Yorktown ranked with those of Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton. Near the close of the war, Muhlenberg was brevetted major general. Then, after having his home at Woodstock for 11 years, he removed to Philadelphia. There, in 1784, he was elected to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsyl

vania. For 3 years, 1785-88, he was vice president of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin being president. In 1787, when the Federal Constitution was presented to Pennsylvania, Muhlenberg was influential in securing an early adoption. For 6 years, between 1789 and 1801, he was a Member of Congress, the House of Representatives. He was then elected to the Senate, but resigned. The last 5 years of his life, 1802-07, he was collector of customs for the city of Philadelphia. Philadelphia has erected a statue of Muhlenberg in the City Hall Square; and when the State of Pennsylvania chose two of her most distinguished sons to be honored in Statuary Hall in the Capitol here in Washington, Muhlenberg was one of the two chosen. At least two extended biographies of Muhlenberg have been published-one by a great-nephew, Henry A. Muhlenberg, in 1849; another by Edward W. Hocker, in 1936. Practically all of the standard encyclopedias contain articles on Muhlenberg. The best one I have seen is to be found in the Dictionary of American Biography, recently brought out by Charles Scribner's Sons, in New York City.

Muhlenberg's notable call to arms at Woodstock has been recognized by historians, enshrined by poets, and depicted on canvas by distinguished artists. His name is a household word in Virginia and Pennsylvania, is familiar to students all over the Nation, and is not unknown in Europe. Every year thousands of tourists come to Woodstock, the historic town where Muhlenberg first rose to fame. Many seek to know more of him and his brilliant deeds. It is only fitting that our Nation shall honor him with a monument on the spot where his genius first blazed forth, that the youth of America shall be inspired and all comers uplifted by his example.

At the same hearing Capt. Greenlee D. Letcher, of Lexington, Va., said:

I am from a college town and to my dismay and deep regret in a ballot among the students of a certain American university, a few days ago, 25 percent of the ballots cast stated that the young men casting these votes would not as soldiers defend America, and 82 percent would not fight on foreign soil. With this poison

in the life of those who will later become the leaders of thought and action, Congress cannot do better than multiply memorials and shrines of loyalty and patriotism such as this, where its exemplar is a reverend man of God."

On the famous Valley Pike at Woodstock, Va., where it is proposed to erect the monument to General Muhlenberg, an official count of the Virginia State Highway Department showed an average of 1,119 automobiles from other States passed through Woodstock each day during the fiscal year ending July 1, 1937.

As General Muhlenberg rendered such great services to our Nation and received for them such small reward, the committee feels confident that the Congress and the country will esteem it a privilege at this late date to rear to him this monument of its gratitude.

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