[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 13 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H485-H486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


    MR. GINGRICH'S PERSONAL ATTACKS ON FORMER SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE

  (Mr. WILLIAMS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and to include extraneous 
material.)
  Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, 3 days ago Speaker Newt Gingrich referred 
to former Speaker Jim Wright as, quote, a 
[[Page H486]] crook. Formerly Congressman Newt Gingrich had 
alternatively referred to former Speaker Tom Foley, former Speaker Jim 
Wright, and America's beloved Speaker Tip O'Neil as traitors, thugs.
  Jim Wright was asked for a response to the current Speaker's most 
recent attack and, although I do not have time in this 1 minute to read 
former Speaker Wright's account, I will herein place it in the Record 
and would read the first sentence which said, ``It would demean the 
office of the Speaker and the institution of Congress itself for me to 
respond in kind to Mr. Gingrich, and I shall not do so.''
  Mr. Speaker, the remainder of former Speaker Wright's speech is calm 
and measured, and I place it in the Record so my colleagues may see it:

                        Statement of Jim Wright

       It would demean the office of the Speaker and the 
     institution of Congress itself for me to respond in kind to 
     Mr. Gingrich, and I shall not do so. It is not for me to call 
     him ugly names or attribute dishonesty to his business 
     transactions. I guess I'm just not a piglet who likes to 
     wallow in the mud.
       So far as my personal integrity is concerned, it needs no 
     defending from remarks by Mr. Gingrich who seems to devote a 
     great portion of his career to trying to malign other people. 
     That's not my style, and I like to think my 72 years of 
     living and serving speak for themselves.
       When I resigned from the Speakership in 1989, I expressly 
     offered up my job ``as a propitiation for this season of ill 
     will,'' thus hoping to help Congress move forward without the 
     distractions of the bitter name calling and ``mindless 
     cannibalism'' which had characterized a series of deliberate 
     personal attacks that I regarded as unworthy and most people 
     realized were untrue.
       I am saddened by the lack of dignity and civility which any 
     Speaker must endeavor by example to instill.
     

                          ____________________