[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 86 (Thursday, June 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3927-H3928]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO THE LATE BILL EMERSON

  (Mr. KANJORKSI asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, Bill Emerson was a colleague to all the 
Members that are here on the floor. To me, he was my oldest and dearest 
personal friend.
  As all my colleagues have learned, as we go through life, 
particularly in politics, friends and associates come and go, but our 
real friends are from our childhood. Bill and I were fortunate enough 
to meet at the tender age of 15, and I do not think there was ever a 
year that went by in our lives that we did not have an opportunity to 
get together, visit with each other or talk with each other. I went 
through many of his trying times and many of his joys in his lifetime.
  Bill Emerson represented something that I want to speak to, because I 
think it is germane. Maybe we should think about forming the Emerson 
Society. Because Bill, whenever I look in the back of the Chamber, I 
see a little smoke and I know that you are still standing at the rail.
  He was the type of guy, although he was a Republican and I a 
Democrat, with whom I could argue and disagree on philosophy and on 
ideology. But on humanity we agreed.
  He was a man that understood the traditions of this great body and of 
opportunity. He and I served here as young pages and then came back to 
this great House as Members.
  He suffered great pain as he saw the stress of conflict that grew in 
the 1980's in this House. And toward the end of his life, I think that 
was the most disappointing part that Bill experienced--that Members 
could lose civility, comity, and respect for each other above and 
beyond the disagreement that they had; that it had started to go to 
personalities.
  If Bill were here today, he would say, wait a minute, life is very 
short; we are here in a very honored and sacred House that has great 
traditions. From a small Nation in its formation in 1789 until 1995, we 
have become the model, the ideal of the world, and the hope for 
humanity. He would ask why can we not walk across the aisle and get to 
know each other as human beings, identify what we have in common, and 
find that we have much more in common than we have in disagreement. He 
would also say that when we disagree, they should be honorable 
disagreements. Because Bill reflected that most of all, as the 
gentlewoman from Missouri, Mrs. Jo Ann Emerson, has said.
  I remember Bill talking about his most honored day when he thought 
about leaving the House, because he thought the Republican Party would 
be the perpetual minority. And I am probably a little bit to blame, 
because I said it was my prediction that his opportunity in the Sun was 
just around the corner. And he stayed that extra term or two and 
finally made it.
  The most important moment of Bill's life, I think, was on the first 
day of the 104th Congress, where after 14 years of

[[Page H3928]]

having been in the House of Representatives and 43 years since the last 
Republican majority, he had the opportunity to assume the gavel and the 
Acting speakership of the House.
  Those Members that were here during Bill's term know that when he 
exercised that gavel, he was truly a Speaker pro tempore for the whole 
House. He was not just a Republican.

                              {time}  1100

  I hope that my friends on both sides of the aisle--and I have been on 
both sides of the aisle in my life--take a moment to reflect that, when 
we lose our bearing, when we let anger rule over our reason, that there 
were people like Bill Emerson that understood what this institution is 
all about. That is, we should go to the basic core of humanity, reach 
across the aisle, take the opportunity to walk and sit with our 
adversary, find out what we can agree upon, and work toward it 
together, as opposed to conflict, arrogance, and just meanness.
  Bill would be disappointed today if he saw the continued decline in 
of the demeanor of the House. I would hope that maybe we can think 
about putting together the Emerson Society and say this is the bottom 
and let us get together. It is very close. We have a lot of work to do. 
Let us try to do it in the tradition and in the spirit of my friend, 
Bill Emerson.

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