[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 13 (Thursday, February 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: February 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
SPEAKER TIP O'NEILL--A GIANT OF THE HOUSE
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the death of our friend Speaker Tip
O'Neill last month has deprived the Nation of one of its most beloved
leaders. Tip was a giant in every way--a giant of a man, a giant of a
Speaker, a giant of a friend. He never lost the common touch.
Massachusetts has lost one of the greatest public servants it ever had,
and all of us whose lives he touched have lost a wonderful friend.
By his side, through all those great years, was another great
O'Neill, the woman who means so much to all of us and who meant the
world to Tip, the woman he always called the biggest contributor to all
his campaigns--Millie O'Neill. They had five extraordinary children who
share so many of the finest qualities of their parents--Tommy and Kip
and Michael and Susan and Rosemary.
I think Tip finally got tired of waiting for the Red Sox to win the
pennant.
Tip liked to call his friends ``old pal''--or call us ``beautiful.''
But in truth he was the best old pal and the most beautiful one of all.
What extraordinary memories he leaves, especially the laughter from
his endless supply of stories, and the sheer joy we had in listening as
he told them.
There was the time, shortly after the Supreme Court's decision in Roe
versus Wade in 1973, when Cardinal Medeiros called Tip and asked to see
him on a matter of great urgency. With some trepidation about the
purpose of the visit, Tip agreed to see him right away.
As it turned out, Cardinal Medeiros was extremely concerned about a
powerful hurricane that had just devastated the Cape Verde Islands. He
had a specific request for Tip--to see if $8 million in emergency
relief could be included in the foreign aid appropriations bill. Tip,
with that irrepressible twinkle in his eye, replied, ``Your Eminence,
I'll put $16 million in, if you won't mention Roe versus Wade.''
One of Tip's most famous stories concerned the gift by Henry Ford of
$5,000 toward a new hospital in Ireland. Unfortunately, the local
newspaper the next day reported that the gift was $50,000. The editor
apologized profusely for the mistake, and said he'd run a correction
right away, explaining that the gift was only $5,000. It took Henry
Ford about 10 seconds to realize what was happening, and he said, ``No,
don't do that. I'll give you the $50,000, but on one condition--that
you put a plaque over the entrance to the hospital with this
inscription--``I came unto you, and you took me in.''
There's also the story he said he told at a hundred bankers'
conventions, and they loved it every time. An Irishman was applying for
a loan, and the banker said, ``You can have it on one condition. I have
a glass eye and a real eye, and if you can tell them apart, you've got
the loan.''
The Irishman studies each of the banker's eyes, and finally said,
``The glass eye is the left eye.''
``Correct,'' said the banker. ``But how could you tell?''
``It was easy,'' said the Irishman. ``The left eye has the warmth in
it.''
And of course, all of us in Congress quickly learned to host
fundraisers the way Tip O'Neill did it--a thousand dollars if you came,
and two thousand dollars if you didn't.
Tip was scrupulously neutral in the 1980 Democratic primaries between
President Carter and myself. But he told me that every night, before he
went to sleep, he was secretly getting down on his knees and praying
that we would have another Irish President of the United States. The
prayer was a little ambiguous--but Tip's friend Ronald Reagan was very
grateful.
There was never any secret about the genius of Tip O'Neill. In his
years as Speaker of the House, the entire Nation came to know him and
love him as we did in Massachusetts. He was a Speaker who was never
afraid to speak out for the average man and woman--the worker trying to
keep a job, the child going hungry in the night, the family struggling
to make ends meet, the senior citizen trying to live in dignity in
retirement.
All of those Americans are better off today because of Tip O'Neill.
When his political opponents tried to make him a symbol of the past,
they succeeded only in turning him into an even greater national hero
than before. He was the glue that held the Democratic Party together in
the Reagan years, and no one could have done it better.
He was also the only man we knew in Washington who was bigger than
the budget deficit. One thing for sure about Tip O'Neill--when you saw
him, no one ever said, ``Where's the beef.'' And no one ever said that
about his bedrock beliefs either.
We loved to compare our diets and joke about them. People often tell
me that I have to lose more weight if I want to stay in public life. It
seems that they don't care about my vision of the country, as long as I
can see my toes. I told that to Tip once, and he said ``What are
toes?''
And of course, when Tip told the story, my toes were in the punch
line.
He was also Irish to the core, with the map of Ireland on his face,
and the warmest Irish heart and personality I have ever met--
overflowing with compassion and concern for all those who need our help
the most.
In the days after his death, in looking through some of his speeches,
I came across the remarks he made to the Massachusetts State Democratic
Convention in 1981, and they captured his philosophy of public life. He
said:
For over 50 years with brief exceptions, the Democratic
Party has been the first choice of the American people to be
the principal governing party of this Nation. When in the
past we have lost, it was not because our supporters joined
the opposition. It was because our supporters believed we had
lost touch with their concerns. The reason we were the first
choice of the American people in the national elections for
the past 50 years was that FDR made the Federal Government
responsible for guaranteeing a decent standard of living for
every American--not only enough to live by, but something to
live for.
Those words were his enduring ideal--the essence of Tip O'Neill. He
never mortgaged his beliefs to the passing fashions of the time. He
walked with Presidents and Kings, but his favorite stroll was always
down the street in Cambridge to Barry's Corner. He became one of the
most powerful men in the world--but he never forgot the worker in
Somerville, the senior citizens in East Boston, the barker in North
Cambridge, the young family starting out whose grandparents he knew.
His Irish smile could light up a living room, the whole chamber of the
House of Representatives, and the entire State of Massachusetts.
The congressional district he served had also been President
Kennedy's district when my brother was in the House--and my grandfather
Honey Fitz' before that.
President Kennedy thought the world of Tip. There were few whose
company he would rather share. They had started out on opposite sides
in the famous primary of 1946, Jack's first race for the House. Tip
backed his friend Mike Neville. One afternoon late in the campaign, Tip
called Neville and said, ``I'm taking a cold shower, and you better
take one too.'' ``Why?'' said Neville. ``Well,'' said Tip, ``I've been
going door to door for two days, and all I hear is Kennedy, Kennedy,
Kennedy, Kennedy.'' Tip and Jack were never on opposite sides again.
After my brother's reelection to the Senate in 1958, he called Tip
and asked him about the results in Cambridge. Tip said that my brother
had done well. To test him, Jack asked, ``How'd I do in Ward 1,
Precinct 1? And Tip said, you won by 1003 votes to 12. I won by 999 to
16.'' Jack asked, ``What happened, Tip?'' And Tip said, ``It was the
Lefebvre family--they're off on me for some reason.''
Well, at the Inauguration in 1961, Jack saw Tip and they talked about
the 1960 results in Cambridge. Tip said, ``A thousand more people voted
this time. You won by 2003 to 12, and I won by 1999 to 16.'' And Jack
said, ``Well I see the Lefbvres are still off on you, Tip.'' Tip could
tell that whole story from memory--and the numbers always added up.
There was no better way to spend an evening than to hear my brother
swapping Irish stories with Tip. Jack loved him, and so did all the
Kennedys. I'm sure that in heaven now, Tip is leading them all in a
glorious round of ``I'll Be With You in Apple Blosson Time.'' It may be
apple blossom time up there, but here on earth, a beautiful blossom is
gone.
Still, the Speaker will always be with us in our mind's eye, in the
hearts of thousands of his friends, and the tens of millions more who
never met him, but whose lives are better today and whose hopes are
brighter because he was a Speaker who spoke so powerfully for them.
In an era so much pretension and superficiality and polldriven
decisions in public life, Tip O'Neill was the real thing, and we were
fortunate to have him as our leader.
Near the end of the Pilgrim's Progress, there is a passage that tells
of the death of Valiant:
Then, he said, I am going to my Father's. And though with
great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not regret me
of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My
sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage,
and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and
scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me, that I have
fought his battle who now will be my rewarder.
When the day that he must go hence was come, many
accompanied him to the riverside, into which, as he went, he
said, ``Death, where is thy sting?'' And as he went down
deeper, he said, ``Grave, where is thy victory?'' So he
passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the
other side.
We loved you Tip, and we always will.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article from Yankee
Magazine in July 1978 may be printed in the Record. Its title is
``Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.: The Man from Barry's Corner.'' I can hear Tip
speaking now.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Yankee Magazine, July 1978]
Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.: The Man From Barry's Corner
(By Richard Meryman)
Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, is six feet, three inches tall, admits to
260 pounds--``I've lost hundreds of pounds in my lifetime''--
and describes himself as a man with ``a bulbous nose,
cauliflower ears, and a shock of white hair.'' This memorable
figure moves through the neoclassic corridors of Congress
like a particularly large, affectionate teddy bear.
Figuratively--and often physically--he puts his arm around
stranger and colleague alike. When Hubert Humphrey, dying of
cancer, returned to the Capitol, Tip O'Neill kissed him,
enfolding Humphrey in such a bear hug that onlookers feared
he would snap the frail figure in two.
This same man is considered by many to be, after Jimmy
Carter, the second most powerful man in Washington. It is a
remarkable achievement because, to say the least, O'Neill's
is a House divided. No longer does a coterie of shrewd,
senior congressmen dominate the House of Representatives,
treating freshman congressmen like so many Rosencranzes and
Guildensterns. Rule changes have given myriad congressmen a
piece of the power. And a multitude of independence power
blocks exert their special pressures. There is a new-members
caucus, a steel caucus, a black caucus, a rural caucus, a
suburban caucus, a blue-collar caucus, a women's caucus--and
so on. Tip O'Neill has been amazingly successful at
assembling this babel behind Party and Presidential policies.
He is also one of the big changes in the House. Unlike his
predecessors--Sam Rayburn, John McCormack, Carl Albert--Tip
O'Neill is accessible and approachable. Said one congressman
recently, ``Tip makes it easy for you to complain to him.''
O'Neill's knack is making men feel valuable--while exciting
their sympathy and loyalty. His arm-around-the-shoulder
quality, an attribute enlarged into a spontaneous art, was
bred into Tip O'Neill during his youth in North Cambridge,
Massachusetts. To an extraordinary degree, the man is an
extension of the boy.
He was indelibly influenced by his father, an admired local
politician, and by the intense sense of community in Irish
North Cambridge, symbolized by a street corner--Barry's
Corner--the center of his orbit. As the Speaker of the House
answered Yankee's questions, it became clear that he has
managed to transplant the comradeship of Barry's Corner to
the United States Congress.
My father, Thomas O'Neill, taught me, number one, loyalty;
number two, to live a good, ethical, honest life; number
three, that I truly am my brother's keeper; number four,
always remember from whence you come. When he was a kid he
had it tough; the day I was born, while my mother was
delivering me, he was a union bricklayer carrying a strike
sign against Harvard University which was using non-union
bricklayers.
I am from the working class. Those are the people who sent
me to Congress. I've never tried to leave them. I truly
believe in what I call a family-saving wage--that every
American is entitled to a vacation with his family, working
hours that permit him to be with his wife and family, enough
money for education and medical needs. Now there are those
that come down here to Washington--I've seen it happen many
times--and they get away from their people. They get
affluent; move into the country club style of life, and they
don't think the way they used to. They get more conservative.
I don't think I've changed.
My grandfather and his three brothers were brought over
from Ireland around 1845 by the New England Brick Company. I
have a deed for a plot in the Cambridge cemetery dated 1845;
people had seen so much death in Ireland during the potato
famine that the first thing they did here when they had a few
dollars was buy a plot to be buried in--just in case. My
father was born in 1874 in North Cambridge, the section they
called Old Dublin. When I was a kid there Gaelic was still a
language spoken fluently in many homes. Everybody earned his
livelihood working for the brick company or Hugh's Pottery.
My father worked in the brickyard--rough, tough work digging
with a pick and an ax down in those clay pits, loading the
clay on the tram, with a horse pulling it up the slope from
the pit. Nothing mechanized. They were tough workers and they
worked from sunrise practically until sunset--a six-day week.
The Irish didn't want their kids in the clay pits, and in
1900 or so the French Canadians migrated to North Cambridge,
by 1920 it was the Italians working in the pits--each
generation moving their own out, getting them educated--
clergymen, lawyers, doctors. The fields of insurance and
banking were not open to them. The old aristocracy--the
Brahmins, the Yanks--held that for themselves.
It's interesting that the Irish who immigrated to
Charleston, South Carolina, about 1797, after one of many
Irish revolutions, became the cream of society. They moved
into an area where somebody had lived, and built the whole
establishment themselves. They collected $25,000 to help
bring over the Irish Catholic people who arrived in Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
When the Irish came to Boston, the British had been here
since 1620. A lot of poor English saw the Irish as an
economic challenge--like the Negro today. The Irish had to
fight for their rights and that drove them into politics. A
politician was valuable to them.
My father became a successful bricklayer--he had a small
contracting firm in the neighborhood. In 1900 he was elected
a city councillor in North Cambridge, and became
superintendent of sewers. With an elementary school education
he passed the Civil Service exam in competition with fellows
from M.I.T. In the winter, when men couldn't work on the
streets and sewers because of the frost, he could put a
fellow to work shoveling snow. He could help his people.
Even in my days when I was Speaker of the Massachusetts
Legislature. I remember meeting a fellow coming out of a bank
and he said, ``You know, I didn't get the job because I was a
Catholic.'' I said, ``I don't believe that. I'm going in and
see the president of the bank.'' I told the president, ``I
want you to know that $33,000 of our St. Vincent DePaul money
is in this bank. Ever since I was a kid the school children
in our parochial schools have put money in your banks. I'd
say that 85 percent of your funding is out of the area in
which we live, which is Catholic, Irish, French Canadian.
I'll tell you something, I could walk from here to Fresh Pond
Parkway, telling them you're a bigoted son of a B and you
won't hire Catholics. I could have a run on your bank in 24
hours.'' Within a week they three Catholics working there.
My mother died of tuberculosis when I was nine months old.
One of the nuns came and took care of me so my father could
go to the funeral. In the early part of my life, going to
school, they knew I didn't have a mother and they watched
over me. Some of those nuns--Sister Agatha; Sister Cloretta--
still play a part in my life.
You know there's a terrible feeling among people, truly,
that Irish politicians aren't of the cleanest of honesty.
That isn't true of the ones that I have been with, the Eddie
Bolands, the Jimmy Burkes. We had parochial school
educations, the teaching of nuns. We are church people. We
live our lives in an open bowl. We're human; we err on
occasion. But we do not have any elasticity of conscience.
When I grew up, life was in the community, the local
organizations and the affairs they ran--the North Cambridge
Knights of Columbus, the baseball team, the annual dances and
picnics, field days, parish parties, the weekly dance at the
high school.
I used to be able to walk from the high school to my house,
which was half a mile, and I knew every person in every
house--start at Barry's Corner and go down the line: Eddie
Jones, Wee Wee Burns, Skinny McDonald, Fat McDonald, the
Moose, Big Red. I was, in a sense, brought up on a street
corner--Barry's Corner--and my father when he was a boy, he
hung on Barry's Corner. Every baseball team emanated from
Barry's Corner and the ice hockey team, the basketball team.
Before you went on a date, you went to Barry's Corner; there
was a clubhouse there. And what respect we had for the law!
And what respect for womanhood! Those fellows . . . there was
never any loose talk about women or anything like that. Not
that we were prudish but we just . . . we had tremendous
respect.
There was real comradeship in the Barry's Corner crowd.
Loyalty--that was inherent. It stemmed from the persecution
of the Irish in the old country. Even when they moved to this
country, woe be to the informer. I've had loyalty ingrained
in me all my life in politics.
Jack Barry was a sportswriter for the Boston Globe and one
of his jobs was compiling all the averages of the baseball
players. There wasn't a kid on the corner who wouldn't sit in
the back room with Jack dividing the times at bat into how
many hits. Everybody was a walking encyclopedia of
statistics, especially for the North Cambridge baseball team,
which in the early 1920s was New England champion. If they
played in Gardner, Massachusetts, the whole town would go to
see them play. There was loyalty.
It was amazing that all those great ballplayers would be
born in the same locale--Jay O'Connor, Gaspipe Sullivan. They
could have been big leaguers, but they made more money
playing semi-pro ball on Sundays. The big leagues didn't play
them because you weren't allowed to charge admission to a
game on Sunday. What the semi-pros did was--at one o'clock
there would be a band concert and it cost 50 cents to get in.
There were 12,000 seats there, and the game started at two
o'clock. If you didn't pay to hear the concert, you didn't
get a seat at the ball game.
My father established the North Cambridge team. In the
community he was the sort . . . well, he was ever mindful of
the needs of others. I'll tell you, in our house, we never
threw anything away. There was always a family in the
neighborhood far needier than ours. He made $35 a week, good
money in those days. When I got into public office, we had an
O'Neill Club, and in those days you had Christmas baskets and
Thanksgiving and Easter baskets for the needy. You really
didn't do them for political purposes. You went in the dark
of night and left them at the person's home because of the
pride of the person. They didn't want to accept welfare; you
were sending them a gift.
When a snowstorm came . . . like my father before me, I
would have maybe 50 snow buttons from the city of Cambridge,
50 from the Boston Elevated Railway, 50 from the
Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, for men who wanted a job
shoveling snow. The men wanted to work for the city because
it paid $4 a day, and everybody else paid $3. Those were the
days of the WPA and you put an awful lot of people to work.
There was a time when a postal employee in our district
couldn't get a Christmas job unless he applied through his
congressional office. I delighted in public service. There
wouldn't be a night when my wife Milly and I were first
married that I wouldn't have a dozen people come to my home.
That stayed with me through the years. I prided myself on the
fact that a call to the people's congressman was only ten
cents when they called the house on a Sunday afternoon.
But to be perfectly truthful . . . well, I married Mildred
Miller thinking I'd like to be mayor of Cambridge and be a
businessman and a home person and all that. She's a very
strong woman--German and French aristocracy that goes back to
the revolutionary days--and she brought up the family while I
spent my life down here in Washington and commuted and spent
a great deal of my time at home with the people of the
district, campaigning, going to affairs, and being in my
office--doing the duties of a political person and for a long
time an unknown political person. I didn't grow up with my
family.
I tell the young fellows who come down here now, ``Bring
your wife down immediately and bring your family down because
you don't appreciate the things that you miss.'' You're down
here evenings, and most of my life was spent with men down
here--playing cards, going to restaurants, being over at the
Democratic Club. There's a tremendous sense of loneliness
when you go back to an apartment at night, and the colleague
that you're living with may be there or may not be there.
There's nothing like going home to a family. A fellow misses
that through the years. There's a lot of heartbreak and
sorrow that goes with being in public life.
You get seasoned to the attacks in the press. But it hurts
your family, and because it hurts your family it hurts you,
especially when you feel you've led an honorable, ethical
life and you've devoted yourself to the good of the community
and the good of the nation. You have to take into
consideration that since Watergate there's been a change in
the press of America. I think that ever since Bernstein and
Woodward, there are thousands of reporters around the country
who want to emulate them. They're highly imaginative; they
take out of perspective the things that happen, and they
sensationalize them.
But if I didn't love it here, I'd get our. I love the
political life. I love the art of campaigning. I'm gregarious
and open. I love to be with people. I love the crowds, the
atmosphere, being active in the local community.
When I started politics I never had a thought that I would
be in it for a lifetime. My father was a leader in our area;
his support meant something and the mayor of the City of
Cambridge--Edward Quinn, respected, affable, a fine orator--
was often in our house. The people in the Irish
neighborhoods, they looked at him with awe. So I had that
ambition that someday I'd like to be mayor.
I loved politics, the local loyalty, the comradeship. Get
the most votes out for one of the boys from our part of town.
I worked for Charlie Cavanaugh, a state representative who
lived in the neighborhood, when I was 15 years old. I just
loved organization; I loved it when Red Fitzgerald and I in
precinct 2 in the Orchard Street block were getting out the
vote in the Al Smith campaign. We were about 14 years old.
There was an automobile and we'd ring Mrs. Murphy's doorbell,
and Mrs. Sweeney's, and have them out in the street so the
car could pick them up to vote, and by the time it came back,
we'd have the next person out in the street. We harassed
them, but we got them out--every person in the precinct
except four and they were out of town. The leading precinct
in the city. It was a challenge. Everybody said,
``Remarkable, remarkable. A couple of young kids. Boys, this
is your line, all right!''
Today anybody who doesn't run a campaign with a
professional is foolish. The basis is still the same--people
like to be asked for their vote. I've never forgotten that.
But now they use computers--how many medical men, how many
senior citizens in the district. Everything is packaged. Use
the media. When I was a kid, campaigning was getting a permit
and having a rally at the corner of Dudley Street with red
lights and automobile parades. It was a form of entertainment
and people would follow the rallies from street corner to
street corner. They loved the oratory; they loved the show of
the whole thing, the debating, the hecklers. And you would be
hoping that Curley would be a speaker because he would draw
4000 to 5000 people.
I'll tell you a story about Curley. One evening when I was
Speaker of the House in Massachusetts I had to go to a
banquet and speak for a leader in another area, a man I'd
never met. I had to get up and gild the lily for him. I was
exhausted after a long legislative day; I had no enthusiasm.
I sat down and Curley said to me, ``You were awful. I want
you to come over to my house Friday morning.'' So I went over
and he said, ``I'm going to give you a little lesson in the
art of speaking so you'll never be stuck that way again. I
want you to memorize ten poems.'' Each one was for a
particular occasion, like a group of old friends:
``Around the corner I have a friend. In this great city
that has no end. The days go by and the weeks go on. And
before you know it a year is gone.'' And so on. Curley said,
``You can weave into that.'' He gave me ``If'' by Kipling,
and Polonius' advice to Laertes--``Never a borrower or a
lender be''--Brutus' farewell address--``I met no man, but
he's been true to me.'' There was one for labor--``The
Deserted Village''--``The bold worker, his county's pride,
if once destroyed can never be revived.'' That was a good
lesson.
When I ran for the state legislature right out of high
school, I was one of the first ones who ever went from house
to house, knocking at the door in the morning. ``Mrs. Murphy,
I'm Tom O'Neill. I'm a candidate for the state legislature.''
``Are you the Governor's son?'' they'd ask--that was my
father's nickname. ``Oh, my God, I've known your father for
so many years. He helped me with this; he helped my son with
that.'' He was a great asset to me.
People came to my father with their problems, and I think I
grew up the same way. I was captain of the North Cambridge
football team. I was captain of the basketball team. I wasn't
a good athlete. But the other kids were coming to me with
problems--should the team play there? What should we do? I
had some kind of leadership abilities that . . . well, my
life has been one of leadership in the legislature all the
way along the line.
I truly believe that one of the reasons I became leadership
material in the Congress was that for years when I was a
member of the Rules Committee--all important legislation goes
to the Rules Committee--I would have members of the House
calling me. They would say, ``Tip, that bill is going to be
up on Wednesday. How badly would it affect me at home if I
were to miss the vote?'' I could make a judgment and say,
``There's nothing that affects the economy of your area.'' Or
I would say, ``That bill is going to be extremely
controversial. There's a couple of quirks along the line, and
when it comes to the floor, it's going to be very, very
argumentative and some amendments will be offered to try to
knock that out. You'd better be there. There will surely be
roll calls on it.'' How do you acquire knowledge of how
legislation is going to go? Is that inherent? I don't know.
To me two of the best readers on legislation in the House are
Tom Foley, he's an Irishman, and the other is Danny
Rostenkowski and he's Polish. He was part of the Chicago
operation, where they play the same hard politics they play
in the Boston area. If you're going to move, if you're going
to be a leader, you've got to know the rules of the ball
game.
To be successful in political life you've got to be a
strong fellow. You can't equivocate and you can't waver.
You've got to do your homework. I may be talking in my office
with the largest industrialist in America who may have the
greatest and keenest mind in America. But I know when he sits
here in this room with me, that we are not equal. Because
he's come in to talk to me about government and politics, and
the Congress of the United States. And nobody knows more
about it than I do. They're talking in my field. They're
talking to a man who sets the schedule, who knows where the
legislation is, who knows the policy we're going to follow,
where the priorities are, what the Congress will do.
In Congress I love the maneuverability. I love the basic
Democratic Party philosophy. I enjoy the whip organization,
the policy committee, the caucuses better than I enjoy the
actual legislation on the floor itself. It's being able to
set priorities and find a way out of a dilemma.
You do have a lot of power in the House. You appoint ad hoc
and special committees. When two men stand on the floor, you
have the right to recognize the one you choose. That's a
tremendous power--but I try to be honorable and make my
decisions fairly. In the Democratic caucus, the leadership
meetings, the steering and policy committee, the whip
organization--I'm considered to be the leader of the party.
But you know . . . well, what is power? Power is when
people assume you have power. That's when you have it. I've
never looked for power. We've got the trappings here, the big
office; no question I can get the President on the telephone
within a matter of minutes, or any corporation big wheel or a
governor of any state. Is that power? I don't know. If I make
a telephone call to an agency, I'll get more attention than a
freshman member of the congress. But I've never looked for
power. I've never tried to pull rank. That's not my style.
For years on the wall of my office I had a sign that said,
``It is better to be nice than important.'' You have to
remember that whoever comes into this office, comes in
because that's the most important thing in his life at that
particular time. To you it may be trivial; to him it's
crucial. I've talked with the mighty of the world, and I've
talked with the poor, indigent person who has come to my
house on a Sunday, seeking some assistance that I can give
him. I try to treat them exactly the same way.
I suppose my heritage is Ireland. But what is actually my
heritage? When I was a kid I used to go up to a little
cottage near Jaffrey. New Hampshire, with no running water. I
can still reflect back on waiting for the dairy man or one of
the farmers to come by so I could go up to Jaffrey town. I
remember going out blueberrying; I remember the muskrats, the
deer. Millie and I bought the house later and fixed it up.
The delights I got climbing Mt. Monadnock. I tell people all
over the world, ``There's nothing like New England in
October; the blending of the foliage. I love Cape Cod, the
dunes, the quietness of it all; the blending of the people.''
And the house I live in now on the corner of Orchard
Street--a skirmish happened in the orchard with the British
who were retreating from Lexington. As a kid, where some
played cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians, we played
colonists against the British. We knew the maps of where they
came from and where at the corner of Beach Street three
people had been killed. I love the Old North Church, the Old
South Meeting House, Paul Revere's home, the State House. I
love it all. My father loved it exactly the same way.
The biggest kick I get out of anything--I don't know what
it proves--but over in Copley Square a statue of an
abolitionist sits so majestically there. And the inscription
says ``Born in Boston, lived in Boston, and died in Boston.''
I always look at that sign and I think, ``Boy, you can't get
any more parochial than that.'' Then I think ``Now that's
good enough for me.'' My life is politics and all politics is
local.
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