National Affairs: End Junkets?

No sooner had the gavel fallen on the 67th Session of Congress, than junketing trips at Government expense began. “Junketing”—a word of obscure origin—means a feast, a pleasure trip, a good time, and has for years been applied to the custom of members of Congress to spend the Congresional recesses in traveling about the world on public funds. Junketing trips find their justification in being ostensibly tours of investigation in the interests of the people. In practice, they are just free vacation sprees. Inspection trips this year will take Congressmen to Panama, Hawaii, Alaska, Russia, and to the U. S. Naval Maneuvers in the Pacific. Coincident with the movement to invoke a cloture rule in the Senate to prevent filibustering, and a rule to resscind the courtesy privilege whereby ex-members have the privilege of the floor, is an organized attempt to put an end to excess junketing.