Extensions of Remarks E144 HON. TOM LANTOS
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E144 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Ð Extensions of Remarks February 11, 1998 County, California. Described as a moral, car- 1989, the McLeans took another step in look- Jewish Museum in New York through March ing and generous man by residents in the ing out for their employees when they set up 29, as well as The Varian Fry Celebration, community of Fortuna and the Northern Cali- an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Under which will be on display at the San Francisco fornia County of Humboldt, Mr. McLean is an the plan, the employees will eventually own Main Library after March 8. example of the American Dream. the company. [From the New Republic, Feb. 9, 1998] Mel McLean still greets visitors with a twin- Mel McLean wants to improve the quality of A REAL AND UNLIKELY HEROÐHOMAGE TO kle in his eye and a firm handshake, despite life for all residents of the Eel River Valley. He VARIAN FRY a stroke that limited his speech 11 years ago. has made, and continues to make, generous (By Alfred Kazin) That's appropriate for a man who, for many donations to local groups, schools and organi- The Armistice with Nazi Germany that years, sealed important deals with little more zations. He always treats his employees fairly France had to sign in June 1940 contained a than a handshake. and the respect between him and the workers clause, Article XIX, obliging the French Though he is known locally as a philan- is evident whenever McLean tours the plant. Government to ``surrender upon demand all thropist, Mel got where he is today by hard He always lets each man know he is important Germans named by the German government work, despite setbacks along the way. He and leaves the impression that the entire staff in France, as well as in French possessions, started his career in logging more than 50 is his extended family. colonies, Protectorate Territories, and Man- years ago with various jobs in the woods. In On February the 12th, 1998, Mel McLean dates.'' ``Germans'' originally meant all in- habitants of the greater German ReichÐGer- 1938, he and a partner contracted to run a tie will be honored and named to the Republican mans, Austrians, Czechs, and many PolesÐ mill just following his marriage in 1937 to Hall of Fame in the Humboldt as a devoted but by 1940 it meant every political opponent Grace, his close friend and companion for advocate of Conservative causes. The honor whom the Nazis wanted to get their hands over 50 years before her death in 1989. is well deserved for his generous and fair spir- on. There were American relief organizations The young couple struggled through the De- it. We wish him many years of continued and in France sponsored by the YMCA, the Uni- pression, even hauling away logs discarded by rewarding accomplishments. tarians, and the Quakers. But a group of the loggers. They peeled the bark off by hand f American liberals, outraged by the Nazis' and sold it for 35 cents a truckload. Beans open violation of the right of asylum, formed the Emergency Rescue Committee to bring and potatoes were their supper most nights. HOMAGE TO VARIAN FRY, A REAL AND UNLIKELY HERO political and intellectual refugees out of In 1946, Mel and another partner became France before the Gestapo and the Italian involved in the grocery business, a venture and Spanish Fascist police caught them in that grew to include four stores. Two years HON. TOM LANTOS what their rescuer Varian Fry was to call later he moved his timber business to Hum- OF CALIFORNIA ``the most gigantic man-trap in history.'' boldt County and formed a partnership named IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES The volunteer (there were not many) whom the Committee chose to direct this effort Lindsey Lumber Company. They bought the Wednesday, February 11, 1998 East family sawmill and the logging operation from Marseille was Varian Fry, a 32-year-old Harvard-trained classicist perfectly at home at the Bar W Ranch near Bridgeville, hiring 15 Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, Varian Fry was one of the greatest, albeit one of the most un- in Europe. Indeed, on the surface, with his men. elegant name and his precise manner, he In 1950, a fire destroyed the mill, so they recognized, American heroes of the twentieth may have seemed just a little too refined. moved to McCann. The company grew to own century. As a young relief worker in Vichy With his classmate Lincoln Kirstein, he had 10 tie and stud mills, and built a planing mill France during the early years of World War II, founded the pioneer journal of modernism at McCann. The planing mill was destroyed in he responded to the onslaught of Nazi perse- The Hound and Horn. When I met him at The the 1955 flood, but they rebuilt it and contin- cution with a degree of bravery which stands New Republic after the war, he liked, on our ued operations. In 1958, he and his partner out even when compared to the courage of many walks, a little affectedly, to show off the little dogtricks that he had taught his bought another sawmill just north of Rio Dell. other noble men and women who resisted German oppression. Fry led a small group of French poodle Clovis, whom he had named This was the beginning of Eel River Sawmills. after the ancient king of the Franks. But To keep an eye on his diverse interests, Mel American liberals in creating the Emergency Varian was at heart so pure and intense a became a pilot. His wife, Grace, usually ac- Rescue Committee (ERC), an organization democratic conscience that he could not companied him on these trips. The couple en- dedicated to using every means at its disposal bear the lingering Popular Front senti- joyed visiting other countries, but their hearts to help political and intellectual refugees es- mentality about Stalin on The New Republic; were with the people of the Eel River Valley. cape from Nazi-dominated France. The ERC and he resigned from the magazine in 1945, Mel McLean believes strongly in seeing that operated for two years, from the fall of France just before Henry Wallace took it over. residents of the Eel River Valley have jobs. He in 1940 until its offices were forcibly shut down In fact, for thirteen months in France, in 1942, and its work saved the lives of at Varian was our own Scarlet Pimpernel. He has proved that several times by rebuilding in- was endlessly bold and resourceful in the al- stead of just walking away from the disaster. least 2,000 talented scholars, artists and lead- ways correct manner that was natural to When fire destroyed two-thirds of the mill in ers, including such cultural luminaries as Marc him. And he was forced to leave France be- 1961, he rebuilt immediately, using the sawmill Chagall, Hannah Arendt and Max Ernst. Fry's cause his labors on behalf of Jews and politi- employees in the reconstruction so that not actions led to the founding of the International cal refugees had enraged both Vichy's pro- one man lost his job. Rescue Committee after the war. Fascist bureaucrats and reactionary Amer- The company incorporated in 1963 and built Varian Fry's lifesaving efforts are all the ican consular officials. Varian was one of the a new planing mill. It had about 90 employees, more remarkable in light of fierce opposition great civilian heroes of the war. In the face not only from the pro-Fascist Vichy govern- of the most maddening bureaucratic slights, up from 33 in 1961. The following year was a delays, and hostilities presented by Vichy good one and saw the addition of a new ment, but also from resentful American con- France, Franco's Spain, and the American debarker and a new chipper plant. Then came sular officials. As a result of this antagonism, consul in Marseille (he finally got the the Christmas flood of 1964. More than 8 mil- Fry's heroism went unrecognized in his life- French to expel Varian), my friend organized lion board feet of logs and 5 million feet of time. He died in obscurity over thirty years from a room in the Hotel Splendide the ram- lumber went down the river, along with most ago. shackle yet somehow effective organization of the mill. Varian Fry's contributions have been recog- that helped to get virtually 2,000 people to This gave them a choice, according to nized by Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the safety. Varian is the only American honored Holocaust, where he stands as the only Amer- as a ``Righteous Gentile'' at Yad Vashem, Grace McLean in a 1989 interview. ``It was ei- Israel's memorial to the Holocaust. ther go down the road with a sack on our ican honored as a ``Righteous Gentile.'' Mr. Surrender on Demand, Varian's wonderful back, or hard work and start it over again.'' Speaker, it is long past due for the American account of his noble adventure in France, his For Mel, the answer was clear. The men of government and the American people to pay ``story of an experiment in democratic soli- the Eel River Valley deserved jobs, and he tribute to this heroic champion of human darity . of illegal work under the nose of would provide them. The company reopened rights. I would like to enter into the record a the Gestapo,'' was first published without and had men back on the payroll in 3 to 5 touching and inspiring review of Fry's auto- much effect in 1945, and it has now been months.