Statement of Welcome to Rear-Admiral Richard E. Byrd

Admiral Byrd:

I welcome you and your comrades on your return to the United States.

I do this with a sense of high privilege and for two very good reasons.

The first is because of the close association and deep friendship which have existed between you and me for many long years.

The second is because once more you have completed a successful expedition for the gain of human knowledge and the furtherance of the progress of civilization.

It is no small thing to have filled in another large portion of the map of the world which hitherto had remained a blank. It is an equally great achievement to have added valuable information to at least twenty-two separate sciences.

I have been especially interested in the meteorological data obtained by you and your comrades in that Antarctic Continent in which storms and weather changes originate and make themselves later felt in many largely inhabited areas.

To have carried these ship comrades to a dangerous outpost, to have developed your exploratory and scientific work through many months, under the most trying conditions, and to have brought them all safely home to their country and to their families, is an achievement of which the whole Nation is proud.

And so I salute you and your comrades and extend to all of you, in behalf of the American people, a hearty welcome home.