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




                  MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE BILL EMERSON

  (Mr. MICA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, there is an empty seat in the House of 
Representatives today, and there is a great void that will never be 
filled, and that is the void created by the death of my friend and our 
colleague, Bill Emerson. We will miss him. We send our condolences to 
his family.
  Some of the previous speakers have reflected on Bill and his many 
contributions. I am not sure if the pages and Members all know about 
Bill's great legacy, but Bill came here as a page and served in the 
Congress. I remember seeing back in the Cloakroom, there is a photo of 
Bill as a young man helping when the shooting occurred in the House of 
the Representatives. When nationalists fired into the House Chamber, 
Bill was one of the young pages helping Members back then who were 
wounded. That picture still hangs in the Cloakroom.
  Mr. Speaker, I came here as a freshman just several years ago, and 
Bill was doing the same thing, helping Members along the way, new 
Members like myself, to learn more about the House of Representatives 
and its procedures and how to go forward. He never changed his role.
  Bill Emerson was a tough bird, too. I remember talking to him as he 
was undergoing his treatment and giving him encouragement and also 
asking about some of my own dealings here. Should I move forward? 
Should I proceed? Sometimes I am pretty aggressive in my service. Bill, 
whether he was in the wheelchair taking chemotherapy or whether he was 
advising me as a new Member, he always said, ``Mica, give 'em hell.'' I 
always admired his counsel and his advice and his determination that we 
should serve this body with every ounce of vigor that we can muster, 
and he did that right to almost his last days. Now he has been taken 
from us.
  I remember him coming into this Chamber in his wheelchair and his 
concern was, and he expressed it to me, was not about his treatment but 
he said: ``Oh, darn it.'' He did not use those exact terms. His concern 
was that he did not want to miss his obligations to this body, his 
service to the House of Representatives. That was his concern right to 
the end, that he complete his service. We have an example by a life of 
an individual who served first his family, and then his State, 
Missouri, and this is a great loss also for our Nation to not having 
his service here. This Congress has a great void without the Bill 
Emerson who had a tough veneer but had a warm heart and a great record 
of service to this body that will never be matched.
  Bill, we miss you. But I want to tell you that I will be out here, 
Bill, and I will continue to ``give 'em hell,'' as you directed, and do 
the best I can to serve the constituents of my State like you served 
your State and our Nation. So long, Bill.

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