[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H6725]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO BILL EMERSON

  (Mr. COX of California asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, there is hanging in the 
Republican Cloakroom a photograph of Bill Emerson taken on March 1, 
1954, when he was a page here. As all of us know, he served as a page 
on that fateful day when the House of Representatives was attacked by 
terrorists, and the photograph shows Bill Emerson carrying on his 
shoulders the prone body of Alben Barkley, a Representative here, who 
was in fact shot during that attack. That was very early on in Bill's 
congressional career.
  When the first Republican House of Representatives, the first 
Republican majority in 40 years, was sworn in and the gavel was banged 
in 1995, in January, it was Bill Emerson who was in the chair. He was 
the only current Member of the House of Representatives who had been 
here during the last Republican majority because he had been here as a 
page. Probably, as a result, no one had more knowledge of this 
institution; and as so many speakers have pointed out this morning, 
more care for it, more understanding, and more love for the Congress of 
the United States.
  It is natural for each of us to express ourselves at a time like this 
by giving a speech on the floor of the House. That is what we do. Bill 
himself gave many speeches. He was a fine speaker, but, more important 
than the Congressional Record, a history of what Bill Emerson did here, 
was what those of us who worked with him saw and watched. His example 
is a powerful one. I am sure Bill would want us all, on the occasion of 
his death, to do more than to remember him; to do this, to follow his 
example, to be like him.
  Perhaps he would not have thought so highly of himself, as we do, 
that he would have held himself up as an example for all of us in that 
way, but Bill had a special quality of being able to disagree, which we 
do here on the floor every day when we engage one another in debate, 
without being disagreeable. So each of us can pay tribute to Bill 
Emerson today, and all the rest of our days, in no better way than by 
trying to be a little bit more like him.

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