Reach Abroad

The U.S. Congress was going to have a look at the world it had worried about for the last seven months. Last week, the State Department cranked out passports in wholesale lots, sent couriers flying around to embassies for visas, wired overseas for hotel reservations. The Army checked its C-54s, alerted overseas commanders to stand by for V.I.P.s.

Not all the congressional junkets were headed for overseas. One committee was headed for Hollywood to investigate labor racketeering. House and Senate committees were planning to tour the U.S., checking up on housing, agriculture, high prices. But at least half-a-dozen separate committees and subcommittees were heading for Europe, three for Alaska, three for the Pacific, one to Latin America. Before they all return to Washington next January, 100 or more Senators and Congressmen in dozens of committees and subcommittees will spend upwards of $2 million crisscrossing the U.S. and circling the globe.

Some of the trips looked like just a good time at the taxpayers' expense. But at least one was dead serious. Under the leadership of Massachusetts' Representative Christian Herter, who has made himself an expert on foreign relief problems, 19 Congressmen picked from 15 regular House committees will sail for a firsthand look at foreign needs and potentialities under the Marshall plan.

Careful, conscientious Christian Herter discouraged committeemen from taking their wives, told them to pack no dinner clothes, be prepared on their return to answer a stiff and lengthy questionnaire. Herter's goal, enthusiastically seconded by Secretary of State George Marshall: to break down old prejudices and educate key personnel of the House.

Congressmen were not the only ones who felt the need for travel and information. In Des Moines last week, 17 Iowa farmers rounded up by the American Farm Bureau Federation plunked down $1,500 apiece for a four weeks' flying trip to Great Britain and the continent. Said 58-year-old Otis Tuttle of Norway, Iowa: "I am satisfied it will be worth the chips. It might wake us up to the fact that America has a responsibility over there. If Europe isn't brought back on its feet, it will be just too bad for America."

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