[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 24 (Tuesday, March 8, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        A TRIBUTE TO TIP O'NEILL

  Mr. DODD. Madam President, on January 10, 1994, I attended the 
funeral of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and a 
great American, Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. It was with a heavy heart that I 
said goodbye to a dear friend. Whether it was his aggressive and 
determined style of politics or his genuine sympathy for the people of 
Massachusetts, Tip was a role model to an entire era of Members of 
Congress.
  I think those of us in attendance would have to agree that the 
service was both moving and beautiful. Each speaker brought back 
cheerful and heartwarming memories of Tip, and shared some new 
anecdotes, typifying the Speaker we all came to know. Mr. President, I 
would like to take this opportunity to cite two individuals whose 
extraordinary comments captured the spirit of Tip O'Neill and added 
comfort and grace to such a difficult day.
  J. Donald Monan, S.J., is the president of Boston College in Chestnut 
Hill, MA. It was with great eloquence that Father Monan detailed Tip 
O'Neill's reverence for God and strong faith in mankind. His 
captivating retrospective of a loving husband and father will 
undoubtedly remain with those present at the service for years to come. 
Those of us who know Tip O'Neill understood how important his spiritual 
beliefs were to him. I commend Father Monan for capturing the essence 
of the great Speaker we all came to love.
  In addition to Father Monan's touching speech, one of Tip's five 
children, Thomas P. O'Neill III, also provided a moving reflection of 
the special father-son relationship he cherished so much. His 
recitation of Charles Hanson Towne's poem, ``Around the Corner,'' 
illustrated a side of Tip that perhaps many of his colleagues were 
never fortunate enough to witness.
  Madam President, at this time I ask unanimous consent that both the 
address from J. Donald Monan, S.J., president of Boston College, as 
well as Charles Hanson Towne's poem, ``Around the Corner,'' be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

        Funeral Mass of Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., January 10, 1994

                       (By J. Donald Monan, S.J.)

       Your Eminence, Cardinal Law, President Ford, President 
     Carter, Vice President Gore, and members of the Cabinet, 
     Ambassador Flynn, Governor Weld, Members of the Congress and 
     the Massachusetts Great and General Court, Mayor Menino, 
     Mayor Reeves, Mrs. O'Neill (Millie), members of the O'Neill 
     family, and my dear friends.
       Our human family's loves and its losses have taught us many 
     ways of expressing grief. In the clear, cold air of this 
     weekend, flags flew at half-staff in the Nation's Capitol and 
     here at home. The Speaker's Chair in the House of 
     Representatives wore a mantle of black. Silent lines of 
     people, plain and powerful, filed into the State House. If 
     there are times when symbols and individual physical presence 
     to each other are more expressive than words, surely this is 
     such a time. Mrs. O'Neill (Millie), Susan and Rosemary, Tom 
     and Michael and Kip, the presence of each person here this 
     morning is an expression of deepest respect and esteem for 
     Speaker O'Neill; but it is even more an effort to ease your 
     grief because we respect you so much in your sorrow and 
     because your grief is ours as well.
       On Wednesday evening, the Speaker wearily told Tom of the 
     irresistible tiredness over him and peacefully closed his 
     eyes for the last time. His sleep awakened not only the 
     brilliance of the nation's writers; they responded with their 
     hearts as well. Every step along the upward route of his 
     public career has been carefully retraced. But it was clearly 
     the man himself--in his humor and his inexhaustible desire to 
     help, his courage and his compassion and his sheer goodness--
     that came through to his chroniclers and inspired them to 
     masterfully faithful portraits that those who loved him will 
     always cherish.
       Those portraits I will not attempt to recreate this 
     morning. There is, however, one feature of the background in 
     each of those portraits that perhaps could not have been 
     painted in, until this morning--in this sacred place. Every 
     captivating account of the Speaker's momentous achievements 
     in public life, of his easy familiarity with the world's 
     greatest leaders, remarked that he never lost touch with his 
     roots. And this was no mere metaphor. Those roots remained 
     the source of his lifeblood and his identify as a person to 
     the very end. The friendships of Barry's Corner, his love for 
     Boston College, the comfortable streets of North Cambridge 
     were as much a part of him as were his Speaker's gavel and 
     his intense loyalty to his staff and colleagues in the 
     Congress. But perhaps older than any these--this parish, to 
     which he returned this morning, has been a figure in the 
     background of every change in family and political fortunes. 
     It is just not a matter of ritual that in this parish he 
     received the name of Thomas Junior at baptism; before this 
     altar as a young man he knelt with Millie to pronounce their 
     marriage vows; and for 35 years in the Congress, he returned 
     humbly to reaffirm his worship that God was his origin and 
     his destiny and that what he did with his enormous talents 
     and his opportunities mattered to God as well. The truth is 
     that God was as real to Speaker O'Neill as were you or I.
       The Role that faith plays in any of our lives is as elusive 
     to describe as it can be powerful and pervasive. It was not 
     something that Speaker O'Neill often put into language. (He 
     was not a man given to self explanation, but to action.) And 
     yet faith was a recognizable dimension of everything he did 
     in public and in private life. It was never a badge or an 
     ornament to make others uncomfortable, but always a star he 
     checked before setting his own course. Nor was his 
     understanding of faith ever woodenly fixed, incapable of 
     growth and development. Those of us who have lived through 
     the decades since the 30's of dramatic change in the moral 
     dilemmas that modernity brings, in the crises of wars and 
     threats of war, in more nuanced understanding of our own 
     religious convictions--those of us who have lived through 
     these changes realize that Speaker O'Neill's legendary sense 
     of loyalty, either to old friends or to God, was no dull or 
     wooden conformity. It has been a creative fidelity to values 
     pledged in his youth that he kept relevant to a world of 
     constant change by dint of effort and imagination and at the 
     cost of personal sacrifice.
       What did the Speaker gain from his faith? A vantage point 
     that gave him lifelong perspective on himself and his 
     relationship to the world around him.
       One of the most important ingredients to a portrait or to a 
     human life is perspective--a sense of priority and of 
     proportion among the parts. Over the past several days, 
     countless commentators have remarked upon the extraordinary 
     balance Speaker O'Neill maintained within an almost limitless 
     range of commitments. Indeed, his spontaneous enthusiasm 
     could easily have swept away any sense of proportion or 
     perspective. For Speaker O'Neill was large-hearted in his 
     every approach to the world around him. He was large-hearted 
     in his compassion and in his humor; large-hearted in his 
     understanding of people; large-hearted in his love of all 
     things human, from family and friends to work and politics 
     and sports. To Speaker O'Neill everything was important--
     but nothing was so important that it was worth sacrificing 
     fairness to one in need or a favor to a friend or the 
     honor and integrity he owed God.
       How many stories have been told and retold of Speaker 
     O'Neill's walking with royalty but never losing perspective 
     on himself or on every person he befriended. Each of those 
     stories recognized that leadership in high public office 
     invariably confers power and power has a potent magic twist 
     perspective and turn the heads of those who hold it. Speaker 
     O'Neill possessed the antidote to that powerful magic. He did 
     not frame it in abstruse theological language, but in the 
     simple realization in faith of who he was and where he came 
     from. He lived it in his unwavering sense of gratitude for 
     his roots--in his recognition that his most valuable traits 
     were gifts from family and friends and teachers and fellow 
     workers--and ultimately were gifts of God himself. And for 
     the person who knows his roots, for the person who knows 
     gratitude, power and high position and large-hearted love 
     pose no dangers. They are, rather, even more effective 
     instruments to be of service to the least.
       The luminous sketches of the Speaker that have appeared 
     this week are almost complete. In the foreground stands a 
     grateful Commonwealth and a grateful Nation of countless 
     individuals who owe their job, their education, their 
     citizenship, indeed, their life to the friendship or the 
     wisdom or the simple encouragement of this great man. In the 
     background of the portrait stands the Christ, the measure of 
     his own self-understanding and for his unabashed humility and 
     the guarantor of the infinite importance of everything he did 
     for the least of those he met.
       But there is one more stroke of the brush that has been 
     left unnoticed. If the Speaker's faith gave him perspective, 
     the love of a great woman gave him the confidence that he 
     could do whatever the Nation and whatever God asked. The 
     pride of the Speaker's lfe was not the Medal of Freedom nor 
     the Legion of Honor; it was the love of his beloved Millie 
     who gave courage to his struggles and measure to his success 
     and loving understanding through his illness.
       Those of us who live among the terraces of mountains are 
     too close to their grandeur to take an accurate measure of 
     their height. And during these many years and you and I who 
     have known him and all of the staff and colleagues he 
     esteemed so highly, have been like those individuals so 
     familiar with their landscape that we are unable to grasp its 
     dramatic proportions.
       But this morning, with the gavel finally silent, and the 
     last story told, and the last anxious heart put at ease, we 
     now know that his stature rose higher than all the rest. And 
     we know the blessing of having known him as a friend and we 
     ask only that his generous soul enjoy the presence of the 
     Risen Lord, whom he worshipped.
                                  ____


      Poem Read by Thomas P. O'Neill III at Tip O'Neill's Funeral


                           around the corner

                       (By Charles Hanson Towne)

     Around the corner I have a friend,
       in this great city that has no end.
     Yet days go by and weeks rush on
       and before I know it a year is gone.
     And I never see my old friend's face,
       for life is a swift and terrible race.
     He knows I like him just as well
       as in the days when I rang his bell
       and he rang mine. We were younger then
       and now we are busy, tired men.
       Tired with playing a foolish game,
       tired with trying to make a name.
     Tomorrow, I say, I will call on Jim
       just to show that I'm thinking of him.
     But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
       and the distance between us grows and grows.
     Around the corner yet miles away,
       here's a telegram sir, Jim died today.
     And that's what we get and deserve in the end,
       around the corner a vanished friend.

                          ____________________