Hello Girls Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2021
This bill provides for the award of a single Congressional Gold Medal in honor of the female telephone operators of the Army Signal Corps, commonly known as the Hello Girls, in recognition of their military service, devotion to duty, and 60-year struggle for veterans' benefits and recognition as soldiers.
[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 692 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
<DOC>
117th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 692
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the female telephone operators
of the Army Signal Corps, known as the ``Hello Girls''.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 10, 2021
Mr. Tester (for himself, Mr. Moran, Ms. Hassan, and Mrs. Blackburn)
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the female telephone operators
of the Army Signal Corps, known as the ``Hello Girls''.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Hello Girls Congressional Gold Medal
Act of 2021''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war
against Germany. As a historically neutral nation, the United
States was unprepared to fight a technologically modern
conflict overseas. The United States called upon American
Telephone and Telegraph (referred to in this section as
``AT&T'') to provide equipment and trained personnel for the
Army Signal Corps in France. AT&T executives in Army uniform
served at home under the provisions of the Act entitled ``An
Act for making further and more effectual provision for the
national defense, and for other purposes.'', approved June 3,
1916 (referred to in this section as the ``National Defense Act
of 1916''), which allowed for the induction of individuals with
specialized skills into a reserve force.
(2) When General John Pershing sailed for Europe in May of
1917 as head of the American Expeditionary Forces (referred to
in this section as the ``AEF''), he took telephone operating
equipment with him in recognition of the inadequacy of European
circuitry and with the understanding that telephones would play
a key role in battlefield communications for the first time in
the history of war.
(3) From May to November of 1917, the AEF struggled to
develop the telephone service necessary for the Army to
function under battlefield conditions. Monolingual infantrymen
from the United States were unable to connect calls rapidly or
communicate effectively with their French counterparts to put
calls through over toll lines that linked one region of the
country with another. The Army found that the average male
operator required 60 seconds to make a connection. That rate
was unacceptably slow, especially for operational calls between
command outposts and the front lines.
(4) During this time, in the United States, telephone
operating was largely sex-segregated. Hired for their speed in
connecting calls, women filled 85 percent of the telephone
operating positions in the United States. It took the average
female operator 10 seconds to make a connection.
(5) On November 8, 1917, General Pershing cabled the War
Department and wrote, ``On account of the great difficulty of
obtaining properly qualified men, request organization and
dispatch to France a force of women telephone operators all
speaking French and English equally well.''. To begin, General
Pershing requested 100 women under the command of a
commissioned captain, writing that ``All should have allowances
of Army nurses and should be uniformed.''.
(6) The War Department sent press releases to newspapers
across the United States to recruit women willing to serve for
the duration of the war and face the hazards of submarine
warfare and aerial bombardment. These articles emphasized that
patriotic women would be ``full-fledged soldier[s] under the
articles of war'' and would ``do as much to help win the war as
the men in khaki who go `over the top.'''. All women selected
would take the Army oath.
(7) More than 7,600 women volunteered for the 100 positions
described in paragraph (5) and the first recruits took the Army
oath on January 15, 1918.
(8) Like nurses and doctors at the time, female Signal
Corps members had relative rather than traditional ranks and
were ranked as Operator, Supervisor, or Chief Operator. When
promoted, the women were required to swear the Army oath again.
(9) Telephone operators were the first women to serve as
soldiers in non-medical classifications and the job of the
operators was to help win the war, not to mitigate the harms of
the war. In popular parlance, they were known as the ``Hello
Girls''.
(10) Signal Corps Operators wore Army uniforms and Army
insignia always, as well as standard-issue identity disks in
case of death, and were subject to court martial for
infractions of the military code.
(11) Unbeknownst to the women operators and their immediate
officers, the legal counsel of the Army ruled internally on
March 20, 1918, that the women were not actually soldiers but
contract employees, even though the women had not seen or
signed any contracts. Military code allowed only for the
induction of men and the code remained unchanged despite the
orders of General Pershing. Nevertheless, legal counsel also
recognized that the National Defense Act of 1916, which allowed
for the induction of members of the telephone industry of the
United States into the Armed Forces, imposed no gender
restrictions.
(12) Four days later, on March 24, 1918, the first
contingent of operators began their official duties in France.
The operators arrived before most infantrymen of the Armed
Forces in order to facilitate logistics and deployment and
spent their first night in Paris under German bombardment.
(13) After the arrival of the operators, telephone service
in France improved immediately, as calls tripled from 13,000 to
36,000 per day.
(14) The Army quickly recruited, trained, and deployed 5
additional contingents of female Signal Corps operators. With
these personnel, calls increased to 150,000 per day.
(15) In addition to standard telephone operating, bilingual
Signal Corps members provided simultaneous translation between
officers from France and officers from the United States, who
were communicating by telephone.
(16) The AEF fought their first major battles in the last 2
months of the war. By that point, the Signal Corps considered
the contributions of women to be so essential that, in
telephone exchanges closest to the front line, the Army
exclusively used women, in rotating 12-hour shifts. In the
rear, the Army established rotating 8-hour shifts and gave male
soldiers the overnight shift when telephone traffic was slower.
(17) Seven bilingual operators--
(A) served at the Battles of St. Mihiel and Meuse-
Argonne under the immediate command of General
Pershing;
(B) staffed the Operations Boards through which
orders to advance, fire, and retreat were delivered to
soldiers in the trenches, to artillery units on alert,
and to pilots awaiting orders at French airfields; and
(C) were awarded a ``Defensive Sector Clasp'' for
the Meuse-Argonne operation.
(18) The Chief Operator supervising the Hello Girls, Grace
Banker of Passaic, New Jersey, was awarded the Distinguished
Service Medal. Out of 16,000 eligible Signal Corps officers,
Banker was one of only 18 individuals so honored.
(19) Thirty additional operators received special
commendations, many signed by General Pershing himself, for
``exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous services'' in
``Advance Sections'' of the conflict.
(20) The war ended on November 11, 1918. As of that date,
223 female operators served in France and had connected
26,000,000 calls for the AEF.
(21) The Chief Signal Officer of the Army Signal Corps
wrote in his official report 2 days after the date on which the
war ended that ``a large part of the success of the
communications of this Army is due to . . . a competent staff
of women operators.''.
(22) After the war ended, some women were ordered to
Coblenz in Germany for the occupation of that country and to
Paris for the Paris Peace Treaty of 1919 to continue telephone
operations, sometimes in direct support of President Woodrow
Wilson.
(23) Two operators, Corah Bartlett and Inez Crittenden,
died in France in the service of the United States and were
buried there in military cemeteries with military ceremonies.
Those operators died of the same influenza pandemic that killed
more soldiers of the Armed Forces than combat operations.
(24) Women of the Army Signal Corps were ineligible for
discharge until formal release. Because of their role in
logistics, those women were among the last soldiers to come
home to the United States. The last Signal Corps operators
returned from France in January of 1920.
(25) Upon arrival in the United States, the Army informed
female veterans that they had performed as civilians, not
soldiers, even though operators had served in Army uniform in a
theater of war surrounded by men who were similarly engaged.
(26) Despite the objections of General George Squier, the
top-ranking officer in the Signal Corps, the Army denied Signal
Corps women the veterans' benefits granted to male soldiers and
female nurses, such as--
(A) hospitalization for disabilities incurred in
the line of duty;
(B) cash bonuses;
(C) soldiers' pensions;
(D) flags on their coffins; and
(E) the Victory Medals promised them in France.
(27) For the next 60 years, female veterans, led by Merle
Egan from Montana, petitioned Congress more than 50 times for
their recognition. In 1977, under the sponsorship of Senator
Barry Goldwater, Congress passed legislation to retroactively
acknowledge the military service of the Women's Airforce
Service Pilots (referred to in this section as ``WASPs'') of
World War II and ``the service of any person in any other
similarly situated group the members of which rendered service
to the Armed Forces of the United States in a capacity
considered civilian employment or contractual service at the
time such service was rendered''.
(28) On November 23, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed
the legislation described in paragraph (27) into law as the GI
Bill Improvement Act of 1977 (Public Law 95-202; 91 Stat.
1433).
(29) The Signal Corps telephone operators applied for, and
were granted, status as veterans in 1979.
(30) Only 33 of the operators who had returned home after
the war were still alive to receive their Victory Medals and
official discharge papers, which were finally awarded in 1979.
(31) One of the women, Olive Shaw from Massachusetts,
returned to the United States after the war, where she worked
on the professional staff of Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers.
Shaw lived to receive her honorable discharge and was the first
burial when the Massachusetts National Cemetery opened on
October 11, 1980. Shaw's uniform is on display at the National
World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri.
(32) Upon receipt of her honorable discharge at a ceremony
in her home in Marine City, Michigan, ``Hello Girl'' Oleda
Joure Christides raised the paper to her lips and kissed it.
The only thing Christides ever wanted from the Federal
Government was a flag on her coffin.
(33) On July 1, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into
law Public Law 111-40 (123 Stat. 1958), which awarded the WASPs
the Congressional Gold Medal for their service to the United
States.
(34) For their role as pioneers who paved the way for all
women in uniform, and for service that was essential to victory
in World War I, the ``Hello Girls'' merit similar recognition.
SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.
(a) Award Authorized.--The Speaker of the House of Representatives
and the President pro tempore of the Senate shall make appropriate
arrangements for the award, on behalf of Congress, of a single gold
medal of appropriate design in honor of the female telephone operators
of the Army Signal Corps (commonly known as the ``Hello Girls''), in
recognition of those operators'--
(1) pioneering military service;
(2) devotion to duty; and
(3) 60-year struggle for--
(A) recognition as soldiers; and
(B) veterans' benefits.
(b) Design and Striking.--For the purposes of the award described
in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury (referred to in this
Act as the ``Secretary'') shall strike the gold medal with suitable
emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary.
(c) Smithsonian Institution.--
(1) In general.--After the award of the gold medal under
subsection (a), the medal shall be given to the Smithsonian
Institution, where the medal shall be available for display, as
appropriate, and made available for research.
(2) Sense of congress.--It is the sense of Congress that
the Smithsonian Institution should make the gold medal received
under paragraph (1) available elsewhere, particularly at--
(A) appropriate locations associated with--
(i) the Army Signal Corps;
(ii) the Women in Military Service for
America Memorial;
(iii) the U.S. Army Women's Museum; and
(iv) the National World War I Museum and
Memorial; and
(B) any other location determined appropriate by
the Smithsonian Institution.
SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS.
Under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, the
Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold medal
struck under section 3 at a price sufficient to cover the costs of the
medals, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and
overhead expenses.
SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS.
(a) National Medals.--Medals struck under this Act are national
medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.
(b) Numismatic Items.--For purposes of section 5134 of title 31,
United States Code, all medals struck under this Act shall be
considered to be numismatic items.
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Introduced in Senate
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
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