[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 20 (Tuesday, March 1, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     ANNIVERSARY OF PUERTO RICAN TERRORIST ATTACK ON HOUSE CHAMBER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Klein). Pursuant to the Speaker's 
announced policy of February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Kanjorski] is recognized for 5 minutes as the majority leader's 
designee.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I see my colleague coming down the center 
aisle by the name of Bill Emerson. I saw Bill Emerson walk down that 
center aisle 41 years ago when he and I first met each other as 
congressional pages. I was a wide-eyed young man from Pennsylvania at 
the age of 16, and young Mr. Emerson had just removed the straw from 
his mouth in Missouri, and we were both committed to government service 
and trying to get a beginning start to understand what democracy was 
about. So I welcome my colleague from Missouri, the Honorable William 
Emerson, who represents the Eighth Congressional District of Missouri 
today as I address the House of Representatives and the Speaker to call 
their attention to the historical moment that today represents in 
parliamentary history in the United States.
  Bill Emerson and I some 40 years ago today were both present on the 
House floor as congressional pages when the independent movement of 
Puerto Rican terrorists entered the gallery up here on my extreme left 
and stood and unfurled an independent flag of Puerto Rico and started 
to openly fire on the individuals that were occupying the floor of the 
House of Representatives, striking five of those Members, several of 
them seriously, and causing the first historically recordation of a 
democratic parliamentary body having been fired upon in the entire 
world.
  That of course occurred sometime in the afternoon of March 1, 1954, 
when Bill and I were young men. I was in the far corner of the Chamber 
where the Democratic pages sit now and where they sat then. And when 
the firing started, it initially in this Chamber sounded like 
firecrackers. But I became aware of the fact that they were bullets by 
being sprayed by one of the pieces of marble when one of the bullets 
hit the marble and sprayed it in the area where the pages were located. 
It caused me to hit the floor at the time, and then over the ensuing 15 
or 20 minutes after that Bill and I joined several of our colleagues in 
taking the Members that were struck by the bullets out to the 
ambulances from the floor of the Capitol.
  I now welcome my good friend and I guess my oldest friend--it is 
terrible to say it, is it not, Bill--my oldest friend in the country, 
and somebody I have shared so many happy moments with and so many sad 
moments with over the last 40 years, the Honorable William Emerson of 
Missouri.
  Mr. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I have 
reserved some time also so I think we may go in tandem here for a few 
minutes.
  In the gentleman's absence this morning I inserted in the Record an 
account that Mr. Johnson and Mr. Brown, the Parliamentarians, had shown 
to me that had been written within hours or at least within a day or so 
of the event, an account written by Mr. Metzger who was once a Clerk to 
the Parliamentarian here. And it is as faithful as an account as I have 
seen anywhere.
  The gentleman and I were very busy that day. Immediately following 
the shooting there was an attempt by the pages, I remember Arthur 
Cameron in particular who was the overseer of the pages in the 
Democratic Cloakroom spent many minutes, probably 15 or 20 minutes, 
trying to persuade various hospitals and ambulance services that the 
event that had occurred had indeed occurred. Most people thought it was 
a joke, because terrorist events just did not occur in 1954. But he 
persuaded a couple of entities to send ambulances. I recall one arrived 
from Bethesda Hospital, all the way out in Bethesda, and another from 
the old Emergency Hospital in Northeast.
  As the gentleman will recall, and here is a photograph that I have 
asked Mr. Pierson to bring to us, a picture of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Kanjorski] and myself with my mouth wide open there 
trying to get out this door of the Capitol to go down the steps to 
take, I believe, that was Mr. Bentley of Michigan on the stretcher 
there. This other page is Bill Goodwin who was a page from Michigan, 
and here is former Congressman Wayne Hayes between you and me in this 
photograph.
  They only sent drivers with the ambulances, no stretcher bearers or 
anything. And as I recall, we accompanied in the ambulance Mr. Bentley 
and Mr. Fallon to the old Emergency Hospital in Northeast. Some 
accounts that I have read said three Members went to the Emergency 
Hospital. But if the gentleman's memory coincides with mine, there were 
really two. I think it was Mr. Bentley and Mr. Fallon who went in the 
ambulance that you and I accompanied over to Northeast, and Mr. Jensen 
and Mr. Roberts and Mr. Davis were in the ambulance that went to 
Bethesda. Am I correct in that?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. My best recollection is that you and I carried three 
of the five Members down, but we did get in an ambulance with two. And 
I think the less serious cases were sent to the other hospital.

                          ____________________