[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 95 (Monday, June 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8133-S8134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        TRIBUTE TO ARMAND COCCO

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, with the death of Armand F. Cocco, Sr., I, 
and I might add Senator Roth, have lost a good friend, and my State of 
Delaware has lost one of its most conscientious citizens. With his wife 
and constant teammate of 47 years, Anna Zebley Cocco, he devoted a 
lifetime to energetic service to others.
  Mr. Cocco, a member of the Delaware Industrial Accident Board, was a 
45-year member of the Plumbers & Pipe Fitters Union Local 74, acting as 
their political liaison for the union and testifying in court for 
workers who had been diagnosed with asbestosis. He had no formal 
education beyond high school, but he was a student of human nature and 
a skillful advocate who gained impressive achievements for his 
community without ever claiming any character other than that of an 
ordinary citizen. He was my friend for more than 25 years, but he could 
still surprise me with interests and talents of which I had been 
unaware. He never stopped.
  I first met Armand Cocco when I was a young man, a member of the New 
Castle County Council and a candidate for the U.S. Senate. It was then 
that he and his wife asked whether I would meet with them, and they 
came charging full-blown into my office with their usual brisk 
enthusiasm about a plan that was going to widen a four-lane highway, an 
expressway through one of our oldest suburban communities. As they saw 
it, they were going to convert this modestly busy local road into an 
expressway that would divide and overshadow their community, literally 
divide their community right down the middle. And as Anna said, it 
would amount to a ``Chinese wall'' in this older, stable community. 
They were determined to stop it, with the determination they shared, 
confidently and persistently, with Delaware public officials of both 
major parties.
  I know it will surprise no one in this body that energized citizens 
often change the outcome of a predetermined decision. A quarter of a 
century later, that expressway still stops literally at the threshold 
of the community they were so resolute in defending.
  If Armand and Anna Cocco were a political force to be reckoned with--
and they certainly were--they were also friends whose support could be 
counted on by public officials in both parties, as our Democratic 
Governor Tom Carper could tell you and my Republican colleague, Senator 
Roth, as well as my Republican colleague, Congressman Castle could 
testify.
  Armand Cocco was an adroit and accomplished political activist but no 
party could claim his exclusive allegiance. No party could claim a 
narrow partisan interest on his part, but he consistently worked for 
the public interest. He was a very demanding citizen, but he never 
asked more than he was willing to give. And shoulder to shoulder, along 
with his remarkable [[Page S8134]] wife, Anna, he would work with 
whomever was willing to work for the public interest. Anna survives 
him, and I am confident she will continue to get things done, although 
she has lost a very, very potent partner.
  Mr. President, no one, no community, can lose a friend like Armand 
Cocco without feeling sad, but the sadness attending his passing has an 
especially melancholy quality for me and many of his friends because we 
fear that in losing him we are also losing one of the last examples of 
American value and of an American personality that we can ill-afford to 
move on without--the public-spirited private citizen with a traditional 
sense of community responsibility that has historically enabled us to 
deal with a range of social problems that simply lie beyond the 
capacity of government alone to resolve. The balance between public 
interest and private interests, the tension between individualism and 
community responsibility, has been losing the equilibrium that de 
Tocqueville identified over 150 years ago as the secret to our American 
democracy.
  That growing imbalance is perhaps our greatest national problem 
today, but it was never a problem for Armand Cocco. He was as strong a 
personality with a keen sense of the individual as anyone I have ever 
met. But he knew how to strike a proper balance between his personal 
aspirations and the needs of his community. He was and will always 
remain among all those who knew him a model of good citizenship in a 
democratic society, and an assurance that our democracy will survive if 
we take his lifelong example to heart.
  Mr. President, a very personal note. He was also a loyal friend to my 
deceased wife. When she passed away, it was Armand Cocco who went to 
the citizens of that small community and asked that the park be 
dedicated in her name, the name of which it still carries.
  And lastly, I was on my way down here to vote on Friday, but the 
funeral was Friday. I thought it was important to vote, but I decided--
and I must say it publicly to my constituents--it was more important 
for me to go to the funeral because of a public man like him, who had 
contributed so much; so I did not come down. I went and expressed my 
sympathies to his wife, Anna, and to his daughter, and all of the 
family.
  I thank the Chair for its indulgence and allowing me to speak.
  

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