[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 52 (Wednesday, May 4, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      REMEMBERING SPEAKER O'NEILL

                                 ______


                          HON. BILL RICHARDSON

                             of new mexico

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 4, 1994

  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, since the passing of former Speaker Tip 
O'Neill earlier this year, I have come across countless numbers of 
tributes about our former colleague.
  While many citizens across our great Nation have spoken in glowing 
terms about Speaker O'Neill and his glorious career, I want to share 
with my colleagues one eloquent speech by Charlie Ferris which 
beautifully captures Speaker O'Neill, both as a person and as a public 
servant.
  Mr. Ferris delivered the following speech to a large gathering at 
Boston College, the Speaker's alma mater, earlier this year.

 A Tribute to Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.--Robsham Theater, Boston College--
                            February 3, 1994

       After accepting the honor of participating in this 
     afternoon of memory about Tip O'Neill, I wondered what I 
     could add to the wonderful outpouring of emotion that has 
     taken place since his passing--and especially those eulogies 
     at St. John the Evangelist in North Cambridge three weeks 
     ago. That funeral service lasted more than two hours and it 
     wasn't a minute too long. It was a different experience for 
     me--different than any other funeral I had attended, and I 
     think it was so as well for most in that church who had known 
     Tip. There was a deep sense of loss but no grief for what 
     might have been. It was in the main a joyful celebration of 
     an extraordinarily successful and meaningful life--and I 
     don't think that can be explained simply as another case of 
     the traditional Irish send-off for one of our own. It was the 
     celebration of a giant who had lived long at the summit of 
     life.
       I had the great good fortune to work for three magnificent 
     public figures after finishing law school here at BC in 1961. 
     First, at Robert Kennedy's Justice Department, then with Mike 
     Mansfield during his tenure as Senate Majority Leader, and 
     then with Tip O'Neill when he was first Speaker of the House. 
     All three happened to be Irish and Catholic; each so very 
     different, so very strong; each who made lasting 
     contributions to the fullness of America.
       But each will be remembered in their own way. And with Tip, 
     all of us who have been touched by him can tell stories that 
     echo down familiar halls of history and memory and warm 
     friendship. In all the stories, there is the glint of shining 
     yet very human spirit. And that in essence is the mark of his 
     life--it was a truly joyful experience.
       But how does a freshman or sophomore at Boston College 
     connect with Tip, a man who perhaps except in death never 
     appeared on your cognitive screen? The class of '95 or '96 
     was in primary school when Tip O'Neill retired from public 
     life. I still don't know who was Speaker of the House when I 
     was in sixth grade, and never until this day have I even 
     thought about finding out.
       But for those at BC, there is a special meaning and 
     connection. All the years of his life, wherever he was, Tip 
     O'Neill never really left BC and, with the magnificent 
     library that bears his name, he never will. And hopefully one 
     of the memories recalled today might return to you on some 
     future occasion as you enter that library, to remind you of a 
     remarkable man who succeeded so fully in life by helping 
     others up instead of climbing over them. He was a great, 
     hearty, good man who did well. He was lucky, but he also 
     had a gift of understanding that was close to genius. He 
     lived in the arena of compromise--and better than anyone 
     else, he understood when to take half a legislative loaf, 
     knowing full well that the bakery would open again 
     tomorrow. But his compromises were of timing, not of 
     principle. What a tremendous and envious accounting of a 
     life--to be so true to your values that reflections and 
     reminiscences at your passing are not tinged with sadness 
     by the regrets for at least some roads wrongly taken. Were 
     the stars so perfectly fixed for Tip that his life in this 
     respect was unique? I don't think so, but there was a 
     nearly perfect alignment between his conduct and his 
     belief.
       Tip also had a keen appreciation of what was important. He 
     has a sense of who he was and what he stood for very early in 
     life. He had the great good fortune of knowing before he 
     graduated from BC what he was going to do. As a senior in 
     1936, he didn't rely on the BC placement office for career 
     counseling. His job that summer was to win a seat in the 
     Massachusetts Legislature that Fall. He did, and he was in 
     elected public life for the next 50 years. The people of 
     North Cambridge and eventually their surrounding suburbs, 
     including Boston, continued to employ him for half a century. 
     Tip O'Neill never forgot who hired him and he never outgrew 
     that constituency. He never became other than one of them, 
     and he continued to listen to them decade after decade. And 
     that is another attribute of Tip O'Neill. He has mastered the 
     art of listening and he did it no differently in 1986 than in 
     1936.
       The techniques of listening in politics are now high tech. 
     The science of polling supposedly provides exquisitely 
     accurate determinations of what the people think. But I never 
     saw a poll as insightful as Tip O'Neill. And relying on polls 
     displaces not only the need to listen as Tip did in his 
     Saturday morning treks across his district, but the 
     discomfort of feeling the pain. Tip never yielded to the 
     temptation to insulate himself from the pain.
       Even in his later years, when his daily schedule was 
     dictated by the duties of Speaker, he still maintained the 
     remarkable quality of conveying to the person he was with 
     that there was no better use of his time at that moment. He 
     could move through the Capitol building toward a meeting with 
     even a President, be hailed by an ordinary and obviously 
     untitled stranger, and he would stop and chat and not give 
     any indication that there was anything more pressing or any 
     other place he had to be. I never saw him look over the 
     shoulder of the person he was talking to to see if he was 
     missing an opportunity to talk with someone more important. 
     He knew what was important and each person he met felt that 
     impact as strongly as the grip of his handshake.
       But it wasn't just in listening that Tip gave of himself. 
     He had no sense of conservation in the use of his energy and 
     personal capital. When he undertook your effort, he never 
     held back because there might be a more worthy endeavor or 
     more worthy supplicant next week or next month or because he 
     might wear out his welcome. Every undertaking on behalf of 
     another received the same intensity of effort. Tip never new 
     what it was to be faint hearted. I suspect he must have 
     flunked Latin when at BC because he never understood the 
     meaning of ``pro forma.'' When he championed your cause, it 
     was his only cause and that was clearly and unambiguously 
     conveyed upstream and downstream. Duplicity was a stranger to 
     Tip his entire life.
       Is there a better definition of genuineness? Is there a 
     better predicate for developing the sense of loyalty?
       A big part of your experience at BC will be to assemble 
     your personal building blocks for a successful life? The 
     desire to succeed is strong in all of us. It was in Tip! 
     Those of you in school today have a journey ahead of you and 
     if you are realistic, it is filed with uncertainty. Very few 
     will know with the certainty of Tip O'Neill what you want to 
     do when you graudate, what it is that will ultimately match 
     your energies and your talents. And the desire to succeed and 
     achieve will stay with you all the way. But your real 
     challenge will be how you channel that energy in defining a 
     fulfilling life. Tip O'Neill's course and his success and 
     achievement were always rooted in service to others. He 
     served the nation so well because he was so committed to 
     serving his neighborhood--three generations of constituents 
     in Cambridge and its surrounding area. And in his 50 year 
     span of service, he never looked beyond his present job to 
     greater opportunity. Greater opportunity came to him. His 
     life was a legendary example of the best preparation for your 
     next job is doing your present job well.
       Tip had the good fortune of being positively influenced by 
     his father, the Alderman, the Sewer Commissioner and the 
     local leader of the Irish Community. From him he learned a 
     concept of public responsibility that lighted his spirit 
     throughout life. He was fortunate to be able to see clearly 
     that he would follow in those footsteps and to rejoice that 
     it was an honorable calling. The values he learned at home in 
     North Cambridge and nurtured here at Chestnut Hill still 
     reach across the years and could be summed up in scriptural 
     command: feed the hungry, house the homeless and care for 
     those in need--those the system passes by.
       His good fortune never blurred his understanding of a 
     simple but profound truth--a truth that is often overlooked 
     in today's self-congratulatory pride--that none of us picks 
     his or her own parents--nor the color of our eyes or our 
     skin--and that those of us who, through no merit of our own, 
     receive gifts of health, energy, family or just plain good 
     luck, have a special obligation to others less fortunate. 
     To spend time with Tip O'Neill was to be vaccinated 
     against the disease of indifference.
       But this quality of knowing who you are is a search that 
     takes some more than a whole lifetime. Tip discovered very 
     early who he was and was comfortable with himself, all the 
     way from the wooden three-deckers to the pinnacle of the 
     Speaker's rostrum. What a rare and wondrous boon; no wonder 
     he left such a pathway of hope and decency and joy through 
     his entire life. His comfort with himself and his work gave 
     him the luxury not to waste personal energy on shoring up his 
     image. Your image needs polishing only when a scrutinizing 
     light needs to be reflected away.
       Tip could mash syntax better than anyone I know. He 
     appeared to relish this imperfection, especially since it 
     almost seemed to enhance his ability to clearly and more 
     credibly communicate where he stood and what counted in life. 
     No one in North Cambridge could ever feel inhibited talking 
     to Tip. He sat with Presidents and Kings but he made it a 
     point to talk with them as he would his constituents.
       There was no mistake where he stood on any issue. It was 
     hard to get a mixed signal from Tip. And he was tough as 
     nails in pursuit of his agenda. But why the absence of rancor 
     in assessing Tip's life? It is not politeness.
       As I read over the past three weeks the remarks of those in 
     high office and the friends from childhood, there is a 
     universal thread--it was a personal joy to know him, a 
     celebration of life itself. All who met and knew Tip 
     considered him a friend. Not because he was weak or worked to 
     please, but because he was strong enough to be open and 
     always ready to laugh at pretense or foibles--even his own.
       Bob Dole, the Senate Minority Leader, who came to Congress 
     in 1960 and who has established a national reputation as a 
     brutally honest assessor of political figures, commented that 
     Tip O'Neill will go into history as one of the great 
     political leaders. ``I consider him one of my best friends in 
     all the time I've been in Congress.''
       No different an assessment than John Gimigliano, his shoe 
     repairman, and Frank Minelli, his barber, from North 
     Cambridge, both of whom referred to him as their greatest 
     friend.
       In an era when the stereotypical politician is considered 
     lean and slick, he was ruddy and shaggy. His hair was often 
     in his eyes, but his vision was always clear. His heart was 
     in the right place; his conscience was on call; his spirit 
     was as tireless as it was vast. And when it left him, and his 
     loss left such a void, all I could think was that so many 
     others strive to be acclaimed as great, he never did--and he 
     was--and his life will live on, for his example will outlast 
     all our years.
       So as the towers on these Heights now reach with his name 
     to the heavens own Blue, we can all so more justly sing a 
     proud refrain because he was a man whose heart was true.

                          ____________________