Rep. Ron Klink pushed a clunker of a "rider" and it rode off into oblivion

Gettysburg a political playground? Unfortunately, yes it was.

Information from the Feb. 1999 Congressional subcommittee hearing on Gettysburg

Politics at its worst-- Congressman Hansen (retired in 2002) had the dubious distinction of wasting the taxpayers' money on a frivilous investigation in Gettysburg. Read the details below.

By JOHN BUGBEE
For The Evening Sun

A congressional investigation into the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg has found no evidence the organization misused funds for lobbying on Capitol Hill.

Requested by Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, chairman of the national parks subcommittee, the General Accounting Office looked into how the Friends used some $29,000 in visitors' donations collected at the Gettysburg National Battlefield Park visitors center.

The money can only be used by the Friends for improvement projects at the Gettysburg battlefield, such as monument restoration or purchase of historic artifacts, not for political activities.

To safeguard against questions of impropriety, the money is maintained in a separate account and is subject to audit by an independent auditing firm as well as review by the IRS, the GAO said in its report, delivered Dec. 9 to Hansen, who has been an opponent of the controversial park general management plan recently approved by the Department of the Interior.

The report concluded that Friends financial statements and other documentation "do not suggest that moneys from the limber boxes in the visitors center were used for lobbying expenses."

According to a spokesman in Hansen's office, he is out of the country. His staff member on the committee, Todd Hull, was not available for comment. Although he has not seen the GAO report, Gerald Bennett, the advisory commission's chairman, criticized the motives of the Hansen's inquiry.

OUR ORIGINAL ASSESSMENT OF CONGRESSMAN HANSEN'S ACTIONS ...

Documents submitted by the 136th NY are found at pages 119-20 of the published subcommittee testimony.

It was quite obvious to the Descendants of the 136th New York group present at the hearing in Feb. 1999, that Rep. Hansen had his mind made up from his opening statement, even before any testimony was heard. As well, the group he assembled to testify included one man who clearly stated at the hearing that he represented no one but himself... Mr. Silbey.

Let's check page 61 from the hearing-- Testimony of Mr. SILBEY.

"This is what it all boils down to. If the Subcommittee demonstrates all the unexpurgated documentation we still have yet to be able to access, I believe the Subcommittee will find there is yet another story to be told."

"There is now an Adams County criminal investigation into an application for Federal highway funds by an organization (The Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg) enjoying uniquely privileged status in access to the park for fundraising purposes. They have been highly supportive of this project and have generated much of the mail the deputy NPS director quoted when he said there was unanimous public support. I thank you for allowing me to comment."

What exactly happened with this investigation of the Friends group that Mr. Silbey referenced during the Congressional hearing? Nothing!!! Isn't it interesting how Mr. Silbey went out of his way to point out a criminal investigation at the hearing?? (Please note: Mr. Silbey resigned from the board of the Friends group in 1996.) A survey answered by members of the Friends group found that approximately 88% supported the National Park Service proposal.

It was reported in the Feb. 6, 1999, Gettysburg Times, just before the Congressional hearing on Feb. 11th, that an investigation of a Friends' grant proposal was being made. Yet, this "investigation" was unceremoniously ended soon thereafter, when the Adams County, PA, District Attorney dropped the Grant Bid probe as reported in the Feb. 24, 1999 Gettysburg Times -- with NO CHARGES being PRESSED!!!

Mr. Silbey testified under oath in a Congressional subcommittee hearing and managed to smear the good name of the Friends organization on an "investigation" that turned out to be nothing!

Here are letters sent and received by our organization with Rep. Hansen just after his Congressional subcommittee hearing that members of our group attended:

February 14, 1999

U. S. House of Representatives

Committee on Resources

March 3, 1999

Ms. Elizabeth Kaszubski

Descendants of the NY 136th Infantry Regiment

 

Dear Ms. Kaszubski,

 

This is in response to your letter dated February 14, 1999 regarding the oversight hearing held February 11, 1999 focusing on problems with the Gettysburg National Military Park, the general management plan, and the proposed visitors center. I do recognize that you are in favor of demolishing the current visitors center and Cyclorama building. However, there are many other people who are not in favor of tearing down the existing facilities, which have been there for decades. Furthermore, the vast majority of the visitors to Gettysburg have never complained about either of the buildings nor where they are located. I understand your specific concern, but I need to hear from all sides of the situation.

 

I disagree with you that the hearing was biased. We heard from a number of people with different perspectives so that we can fully understand the problems associated with the issue at hand. This is the function of oversight. I am sorry you feel otherwise. Moreover, you intimate that I purposely ignored you and your paper dealing the NY 136th Regiment. Neither is true. I did look over your paper and it will be placed in the record of the proceedings. As for you approaching me, please recall that, when you approached there were approximately ten other people, mostly from the media, crowding around asking for comment. It was difficult, at best, to entertain your specific concerns with all this going on. I'm sorry you felt snubbed. However, we already have two copies of your paper in our Subcommittee office and I felt that we did not need another one. Feel free to send another copy, if you so desire.

 

I do not attack the National Park Service. I examine and explore issues surrounding our National Parks and sometimes I have disagreements with the intent and direction of the Park Service. It is a common misconception held by many, apparently you included, that if there is disagreement on an issue that this constitutes an "attack" on whomever or whatever it may be. This is certainly not the case, especially here.

 

Contrary to your belief, I have been in contact with and have heard from more than, as you put it, "a few outspoken critics" dealing with the Gettysburg General Management Plan and the Kinsley Proposal. In fact, I believe that more of the comments do not support the Plan or Proposal than do support it.

 

In closing, I would like to point out that George Will, in his commentary about Gettysburg, does indeed mention the "overheated rhetoric" in regard to the commercialization of the park and a public presumption of Park Service philistinism.

However, Mr. Will goes on to say that this public presumption is not groundless, i.e., has merit and is warranted. When quoting, it is frequently a better idea to include the entire passage so that the reader can understand the full context of the message.

 

Sincerely, James V. Hansen, Chairman- Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands

March 14, 1999

The Honorable James V. Hansen, Chairman

US House of Representatives

Committee on Resources;Subcommittee- National Parks & Public Lands

Washington, DC 20515-6201

 

Dear Mr. Hansen,

 

The members of our group appreciate the time you took to respond to our letter of February 14, 1999. There are a few points in your letter of March 3, 1999 with which we respectfully disagree. As a scientist, I cannot understand your statement that "the vast majority of the visitors to Gettysburg have never complained about either of the buildings nor where they are located." Is this based on a scientifically conducted survey of visitors or is it merely conjecture? The National Park Service approach seems more scientific.

 

The following is from the statement of Denis Galvin, Deputy Director, National Park Service before the subcommittee on February 11, 1999, "As a part of the GMP process, NPS held 30 public workshops, focus group meetings and Advisory Commission meetings. These included seven workshops held during the 60-day public comment period [ending 10/17/98], as well as two oral hearings, where testimony was recorded. During the GMP public comment period after the Draft General Management Plan was published, more than 500 comments were received, almost 75% of which supported the NPS preferred alternative."

 

You must understand our frustration with how this hearing was conducted and why it appeared biased. There was no cross examination by you of Mr. Powell for statements he made clearly at odds with our position, yet you cross examined Ms. Woodford of NPCA vigorously for agreeing with the Park Service Plan. Why was Richard Moe, (the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation; chartered by Congress in 1949 and now a non-profit organization comprised of more than 270,000 members), denied an opportunity to testify when he requested to be able to do so on behalf of his organization? Was Ted Streeter representing a group as large or as important to the park as the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg (since they were also not asked to testify)? You had Mr. Silbey testify and he readily admitted that he represented no one but himself. You even allowed Mr. Silbey to cross examine Ms. Woodford. You did not allow the Park Service to question any of your panelists. Could it be that bias gave unfair advantages to those who were clearly against the Park Service proposal?

 

In fact, your belief "that more of the comments do not support the Plan or Proposal than do support it" is not substantiated by the record. Actually, this should not be a popularity contest, rather, we should be noting the Park Service mission to protect historic resources and restore battle lines, regardless of the votes on either side.

 

I apologize for interrupting your television interview. At the time, you were stating to the reporters that you were listening to the American people who are opposed to this project. Yet, from the hearing it appeared to us that by not questioning Walter Powell�s testimony, i.e., the Visitor Center should be rebuilt on the same ground, that you had not considered our comments. By your actions it appeared that you had not read our materials that you had received the week before the hearing, so I handed you another copy of it. All you said to me was, "This is on my desk," and handed it back. Until I received your letter this month I still had no idea whether it was still on your desk or whether it had been read by you.

 

You should note that these soldiers are missing from the 136th New York regimental photo in our paper because they died or were mortally wounded defending the Visitor Center location: Aaron Baker, Zack Barber, George Blackall, Daniel Confer, Nicholas Connor, James Doren, Charles Elwell, John Folmsbee, William Franklin, Elias Gage, George Gibbs, James Hanigan, William Hover, Daniel Hull, Simeon Ikins, Henry Limerick, William McWhorter, George Mosher, Lucien J. Smith, Marsena Stout, John Stowell, Arzy West (my family), Zelotas Wiggins, Solomon Wise, Francis Wood, and Richard Youells. The Park Service will honor these men by restoring their battle line.

 

We�ll end this with the finale from George Will�s article, "Given that the vast majority of Americans have never heard a shot fired in anger, the imaginative presentation of military history in a new facility here is vital, lest rising generations have no sense of the sacrifices of which they are beneficiaries." Mr. Will is clearly "for" this proposal.

 

Respectfully,

 

Elizabeth Stead Kaszubski

Founder, Descendants of the 136th New York Infantry Regiment

Imaginative preservation of history is no 'sellout' by George F. Will

 

Gettysburg, PA. - June 11, 1998

 

For every Southern boy 14 years old," wrote William Faulkner, "not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet 2 o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863." It is July 3, with Pickett's brigades poised for a long walk across a field of fire and into legend.

 

There is again conflict here, this time swirling around a proposed use of private money to replace the current visitors' center with one better able to preserve and display artifacts and to attract and educate visitors. There are ringing denunciations of alleged plans to "sell off" American history and to build a "mall" on hallowed ground.

 

Such overheated rhetoric is partly local merchants' commercialism gussied up as patriotism, and partly reflects a dogmatic presumption of philistinism in the National Park Service. That presumption is not groundless, given that in 1974 the Park Service permitted construction of a privately owned 310-foot observation tower, a wicked blight on the battlefield vista.

Disrespect for the national patrimony of Civil War battlefields should be a hanging offense. But the inconvenient fact is that Lee's and Meade's armies collided not in a bucolic setting but at a crossroads town, which was not then preserved, like a fly in amber. It went on growing.

 

The 1993 movie "Gettysburg" caused the number of yearly visitors to surge 400,000, to the current 1.7 million. The visitors' center, built in 1921 and added to 14 times, can display only 7 percent of the artifacts and cannot store the rest in conditions that prevent decay.

 

The new center would be built on ground that during the battle was a staging area, where no clash of arms occurred. The old center would be demolished and the land (including parking lots beneficial to nearby businesses) would be restored to croplands and orchards, as in 1863.

 

Local merchants resent that there will be food services and relevant shops at the new center, as there are at, for example, Washington's National Gallery.

 

With his gray-flecked sandy beard, Gettysburg Park Superintendent John Latschar, 51, could have stepped from a Mathew Brady photograph. He has a Rutgers Ph.D. in American history and he regrets that the current visitors' center is "a curator's museum," holding artifacts in place behind glass. He aspires to build an "interpretive museum" that, using interactive media and other teaching devices, will explain why the war came and why men walked through fields of fire.

 

The Park Service receives just 0.1 percent of the federal budget, but this ludicrous Congress will not fund the $43 million improvement. So the Park Service proposes, in effect, to borrow the money, allowing a private, nonprofit foundation to build and operate the center, which will offer no long-term profit-making: It will revert to the Park Service within 25 years.

 

Pickett�s Charge passed through what now are parking lots of Howard Johnson's, Hardee's and other businesses. But before the Park Service began consolidating the pertinent land, there was a Stuckey's restaurant in the middle of the second day's battle, where Longstreet attacked through the Peach Orchard and Wheatfield.

 

Confusion is common about, as well as in, combat. One visitor here -- a senior military officer, no less -- said he had also visited battlefields at Antietam and Chickamauga and wasn't it amazing so many important battles had occurred on Park Service land. Another visitor expressed skepticism about a guide's description of the fierce fighting because there are no bullet marks on the monuments.

 

Given that the vast majority of Americans have never heard a shot fired in anger, the imaginative presentation of military history in a new facility here is vital, lest rising generations have no sense of the sacrifices of which they are beneficiaries.

 

Will is a syndicated columnist and TV commentator.

Distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.

Readers can contact Will, in care of that syndicate, at 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071.

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