[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 107 (Friday, July 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H5808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IN HONOR OF TOM ROGERS OF MOLINE, IL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Leach] is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friends, the 
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Burr] and the gentleman from 
Arkansas [Mr. Dickey], for their wonderful accolades and the minority 
leader for agreeing to let the three of us without request speak in 
order.
  Mr. Speaker, if ever an individual personified the ideal that the 
human condition can overcome any handicap, it was Tom Rogers. Tom was 
everybody's all-American boy. An active athlete and budding scholar, 
Tom left Moline in 1952 to attend Cornell University. At the end of his 
freshman year at the age of 19, just before the widespread introduction 
of the Salk vaccine, he was struck so severely with polio that he was 
paralyzed from the neck down. He came to be able to breathe only 
through the laborious technique of swallowing air. In a circumstance 
which would have led most of us to give up, to turn inward in 
bitterness, to be prone to shriveling up and spiritually dying, Tom 
took the opposite course. He determined that even though he could not 
move a finger, he would widen his horizons and become a functioning 
member of society.
  Tom studied to become a stock analyst and broker and soon had as 
dedicated a following as anyone in his profession in the country. Using 
methods and machines he designed, he came to be able to read stacks of 
material and spreadsheets placed on a bookstand or reflected in 
magnification off the ceiling.
  Tom's two principal avocations were bridge and travel. One of the 
most competitive bridge players I have ever known, he would call on his 
unsorted cards to be played from a specially made wooden tray placed on 
the table in front of his wheelchair. My mother, who was a life master 
many times over, used to tell me Tom was her favorite partner. Now and 
again during high school summers, I was privileged to be able to play 
against the two of them.
  To watch Tom successfully defeat three no trump doubled was to watch 
the joyful triumph of an engaged mind. Despite his physical paralysis, 
he could precipitate action and when he won a hand, his eyes would 
impishly twinkle, causing his opponents to redouble their effort yet 
never begrudge being thumped by this remarkable soul.
  The one Christmas card friends in the Quad cities waited for every 
year would be one Tom would send showing a cartoon of himself, his 
wheelchair and generally a reindeer or two boating the Mississippi, 
playing bridge, or standing against a vista or symbol of whatever State 
or city he had visited that year. One of my favorite memories was the 
trip Tom made to Washington in the van he had converted to indulge his 
love of travel.
  I toured the Capitol with him and then we had lunch together in the 
Members dining room. Everyone who encountered Tom soon forgot the chair 
and brace, the interruptions in this conversation as he gulped to 
breathe, and saw and heard only the image and voice of a vibrant and 
captivating human being. Amelia Earhart once wrote, courage is the 
price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, 
knows no release from little things.
  The little things we take for granted, even being able to breathe 
unaided, were very big things to Tom Rogers. But no one handled the big 
or small challenges of life with greater joy. I recently spoke with a 
former colleague and one of Tom's boyhood chums, Tom Railsback, and his 
dear friend and dedicated doctor, Lou Sears. Each could only describe 
in awe the emancipating cheerfulness of an individual who addressed 
each new day with such boundless optimism.
  I am convinced that God gave us Tom Rogers because he wanted to 
provide a lesson in the preciousness of life and the need for 
perspective. There is no single person whoever came into contact with 
Tom who did not walk away murmuring, my troubles are vastly smaller but 
I pray to God I can learn to handle them with one hundredth of the 
courage and good nature as this man from Moline.
  Tom's peace has finally been granted. His friends honor him this 
weekend with a groundbreaking of a nature center to be built in his 
honor on a beautiful island in the Mississippi. No friend could be more 
missed than Tom Rogers. He remains an inspiration to us all.

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