[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6723-H6724]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             AMERICA WILL MISS BILL EMERSON, I MOST OF ALL

  (Mr. KANJORSKI asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise 
today to pay tribute to my oldest and dearest friend, Bill Emerson. 
Bill and I knew each other for 43 years. We met in this Chamber as 15-
year-olds when both of us were young. Bill was an exceptional young 
man, very bright, very focused and very dedicated. As a matter of fact, 
I used to think of him as an American Churchill or a Midwestern 
Lincoln: a person of great potential ready to be molded, with a big 
heart and an understanding love for America and what this great 
democracy is all about. You know, a lot of my friends on both sides of 
the aisle will miss Bill because he was truly bipartisan in most 
everything he ever did.
  A lot of us know him and know him in different ways, but one does not 
know Bill Emerson unless one knows he was not really Bill Emerson. When 
I first met him, he struck out his hand and he introduced himself as 
Norville William Emerson of Missouri. Being a young man from 
Pennsylvania, I had never heard of a Norville William Emerson from 
Missouri before, particularly one who talked with a Midwestern twang 
and almost had hayseed in his hair. But clearly the light and 
brightness of his mind reflected through his eyes, and he and I became 
the dearest of friends, roommates for 2 years and fellow pages. And it 
did not stop there. We spent time together. He visited my home and I 
visited his, and our families became the closest of friends from my 
childhood days. We went on to colleges; we shared the hopes of young 
men and the witnesses of the great sacraments in marriage. And as we 
went on through life, we gave advice and thoughts to one another and 
always remained friends.
  We even shared the history of the 90th anniversary of Gettysburg 
together. I drove through the battlefield yesterday. That is 43 years 
ago that we stood up there, and I remember Bill well, telling me about 
his understanding of this great Civil War, this great battle that 
preserved democracy for America and individual rights for every 
American then and unborn into the future. He had such a fundamental 
understanding of it that truly I thought that he could be the next 
Lincoln coming along.
  Well, Bill and I went through life together and shared all those 
years between then and 1980. He and I ran in 1980 for the House. He was 
a better politician than I. He got elected, I did not. But we remained 
close friends and in 1984 I had the good fortune of winning my seat, 
and we joined each other again after a period of 40 years of having 
known each other as very close friends.
  In this House we tried with other Members, Mickey Leland being one, 
to form an organization uniting Members across the aisle. We tried to 
put Republicans and Democrats together as

[[Page H6724]]

human beings, as friends, and as Americans, rather than as politicians 
interested in short-term advantage. Bill was a great bridge builder. 
Bill had that magnificence to reach out and be understood and trusted. 
It was not until recently, when I saw him afflicted with his last 
challenge that I understood the reason why: he had a profound 
understanding of the basic good nature of man, and that was reflected 
in his every action.
  And, Mr. Speaker, people trusted him rightly so., He had a wonderful 
grandfather. We shared a love for him together. He has a beautiful 
mother, a wonderful wife and four beautiful daughters. They will all 
miss him. We will miss him. America will miss him. But I think, Mr. 
Speaker, I will miss him most of all.

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