[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 4 (Tuesday, January 21, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S140-S141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO FORMER SENATOR PAUL TSONGAS

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is with great sadness that we learned 
last weekend of the death of our former colleague from Massachusetts, 
Paul Tsongas. Paul served in the House of Representatives for 4 years, 
from 1975 to 1979, and in the Senate for 6 years, from 1979 to 1985. 
All of us who knew him respected him and admired him.
  Paul was a great friend, a great Congressman for the people of 
Lowell, a great Senator for the State of Massachusetts. He had a 
special dedication to public service that began as a Peace Corps 
volunteer in Ethiopia in the 1960's and endured throughout his 
brilliant career, including his 1992 Presidential campaign.
  As a Lowell city councilor, a county commissioner, Congressman, 
Senator, and Presidential candidate he had a special vision of America 
as it ought to be. Above all, he had an extraordinary personal and 
political courage. It was a courage demonstrated during his long 
illness and in all aspects of his years in public service. He often 
took stands that were unpopular. He had strongly held beliefs and he 
fought hard for them regardless of the passing political cause. He 
cared more for the truth than public opinion. And the people of 
Massachusetts loved him all the more because of it.
  President Kennedy would have called him a ``profile in courage.''
  One of his enduring legacies is the Lowell National Historic Park, 
which symbolized a great deal about his commitment to Lowell and to 
that entire region of our State. He had the vision to conceive the park 
and the skill to achieve it. In a larger sense, it also typified his 
unique ability to find new ways to see old problems. Where others saw a 
fading mill town, Paul saw the opportunity for rebirth, growth, and a 
thriving new economy.
  He applied that same dedication to new ways of thinking in everything 
he did in our State, our country, and our common planet, yet he had 
both a realistic and idealistic vision of a better future and a 
powerful commitment to reach it so no one would be left out or left 
behind.
  He reminded me of Robert Kennedy. As my brother often said, ``Some 
people see things as they are and say, why. I dream things that never 
were and say, why not?'' That was true of Paul Tsongas as well. We will 
miss him very much. Our hearts go out to his wife Niki, his sisters, 
Thaleia and Vicki, all the members of his wonderful family, his three 
daughters, Ashley, Katina, and Molly.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that editorials from the 
Lowell Sun and the Boston Globe be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Lowell Sun, January 20, 1997]

                              Coming Home

       When he stood in the raindrops at Boarding House Park, Paul 
     Tsongas spoke of embarking upon his ``journey of purpose'' to 
     become the President of the United States.
       We in Lowell knew better.
       We in Lowell knew Paul Tsongas' purposeful journey began 
     long before he tossed his hat into the presidential ring, and 
     endured long after his candidacy came to an end.
       For Citizen Paul Tsongas, his journey to make his city and 
     his world a better place began as soon as he was old enough 
     to make a difference, and continued--with as much passion and 
     purpose as ever--until it ended all too soon Saturday night.
       Let others talk about Sen. Tsongas' extraordinary 
     contributions to the national landscape--as they should and 
     will.
       Let us in Lowell talk about contributions far more 
     significant and enduring.
       Let us talk about a man who brought a remarkable wife to 
     Lowell, and a father who raised three wonderful children in 
     the city of his birth.
       Because before all else--before all the politics and the 
     presidential campaigns--Paul Tsongas devoted his life to his 
     beloved and cherished wife and daughters. And even if his 
     journey consisted ``only'' of Nicola, Katina, Ashley and 
     Molly, he would have succeeded--grandly--in making this city 
     and this world a better place in which to live.
       If a man's legacy is first and foremost his family, Paul 
     Tsongas' journey has left us all with a living legacy to 
     cherish and honor as we do his own life.
       For years, we in Lowell have needed Paul Tsongas. Now it is 
     time for all of us to begin to repay our debt to him by 
     reaching out to Nicola, Katina, Ashley and Molly with our 
     arms, our hearts and our prayers.
       They surely don't need us to tell them, but we should let 
     them know just how proud we are of her husband and their 
     father, and how much we, too, will miss him.
       For those who knew Paul Tsongas--and so many in this city 
     were privileged by his friendship--we knew him first as a 
     husband and a father. In these parts, he was not Sen. 
     Tsongas. He was ``just'' Paul Tsongas, a guy who clearly was 
     happiest not on the firing lines of City Hall or Capitol 
     Hill, but rather in his back yard on Mansur Street.
       `Our' Paul Tsongas was not a politician or a presidential 
     candidate. He was something much more special than that.
       He was Tsongy--our neighbor and our friend. A guy who may 
     have been better at driving his kids to school than he was at 
     driving legislation through the U.S. Senate. A hard-working 
     environmentalist whose most beloved contribution to the 
     greening of America was surely cleaning up and landscaping 
     Kittredge Park, on his hands and knees, as content as a man 
     could be.
       Let others applaud and exalt the contributions Rep. and 
     Sen. Tsongas made to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts--as 
     they should and will. Let the national pundits and 
     politicians ponder what contributions a President Tsongas 
     would have made to the country--as surely he would have.
       We in Lowell need only walk through our city to celebrate--
     every day--what Paul Tsongas did for his hometown.
       A national park here, a Boarding House Park there. The Wang 
     Towers over there, and an arena going up just over here. And 
     here's one of our new middle schools, not too far from our 
     downtown hotel. And just over there, where the river bends, 
     we're going to have a brand new ball park for Lowell's own 
     minor league ball club. You know, the Spinners, the team Paul 
     Tsongas brought to town.
       Let those on the national stage talk about the bumpy, 
     bizarre and truly incredible road which Paul Tsongas nearly 
     traveled to the White House.
       Here, in Lowell, we'll walk and talk about the most 
     important roads in Paul Tsongas' life--Highland Street, where 
     he lived as a child. Gorham Street, where young Paul toiled 
     in his father's dry cleaning store. And Mansur Street, where 
     Paul Tsongas of Lowell lived and raised his family.
       Let other congressmen and senators and presidents talk 
     about the unique contribution Paul Tsongas made to deficit 
     reduction and our grandkids at the Concord Coalition.
       Here, in Lowell, we'll reminisce about the first and most 
     important budget Paul Tsongas ever balanced in his life--the 
     one in that dry cleaning shop on Gorham.
       We knew The Road from Here would always lead back to 
     Lowell.
       And even though his journey of purpose often took Paul 
     Tsongas to bigger cities and

[[Page S141]]

     faraway lands, we all knew that his journey began here, drew 
     its strength from here, and will end, too soon, when he is 
     buried here.
       Paul Tsongas' journey of purpose may have been all to 
     brief, but like a meteor blazing across the civic skyline he 
     so loved, it was brilliant, intense and unforgettable.
       ``Lowell is my home. It is where I drew my first breath. It 
     is where I will always derive a sense of place and a sense of 
     belonging.
       ``It is what I am.''
       Amen.
       Think of Paul Tsongas whenever you take your kids to a 
     Spinners game. We think he'd like that.

                 [From the Boston Globe Jan. 19, 1997]

                         Paul Tsongas of Lowell

       Paul Tsongas, 55, relished the uphill fight but was unable 
     to beat back his most formidable opponent and succumbed last 
     night to complications from the lymphoma that dogged him 
     since 1988.
       His seemingly inexhaustible ability to rally from a battery 
     of grueling medical procedures, including two bone marrow 
     transplants, was testimony to his grit and a spur to anyone 
     tempted to complain about life's lesser challenges.
       Tsongas was a tough taskmaster in his political life too, 
     always willing to challenge conventional wisdom and unafraid 
     to give people bad news if he felt it would fix an ailing 
     system. In 1980 he faced a hall full of doctrinaire liberals 
     at a convention of the Americans for Democratic Action and 
     told them it was time to ``escape the '60's time capsule.''
       Probusiness, open-minded about nuclear power, a relentless 
     deficit hawk but at the same time unstinting in his support 
     of civil rights, gay and women's issues and the environment, 
     Tsongas was a ``New Democrat'' long before it became trendy.
       Since voting for the controversial Lowell connector highway 
     as a city councilor in his hometown in 1972, Tsongas built a 
     reputation on following his political conscience despite the 
     odds.
       He was a long shot in his successful 1978 U.S. Senate race 
     against Ed Brooke and was the first Democrat to challenge 
     President George Bush. Asked about the near-empty Democratic 
     field for the 1992 presidential race, he replied: ``Its a 
     medical problem: gonads, not lymph nodes.''
       Independent, thoughtful, passionate, he was as devoted to 
     his family as he was to fighting the good fight. He quit the 
     Senate in 1984 so he could spend time with his wife Niki and 
     three daughters. ``They're going to lay me in the ground 
     someday,'' Tsongas said in a 1992 interview with the Globe. 
     ``I want to do the things I would have wanted to have done 
     when that happens so my grandchildren will feel good about 
     me.''
       Paul Tsongas has left all of us much to feel good about 
     even as we mourn his passing.

                          ____________________