[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 49 (Thursday, April 5, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E550]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TRIBUTE TO REPRESENTATIVE JOE MOAKLEY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. MICHAEL E. CAPUANO

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, April 4, 2001

  Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, on the day all of Washington serves tribute 
to my friend and mentor Congressman Joe Moakley for his exceptional 
contribution to our nation, I recognize the apt words of another 
friend, John Silber, Chancellor of Boston University. John's op-ed 
appeared in the Boston Herald on February 23 of this year, and I submit 
it into the Record. It expresses what all of us who know Joe know 
best--he is one of the greatest legislators the House has ever known.

                      Moakley Follows Adams' Lead

       Although some call the Senate the ``upper branch,'' the 
     Founders entrusted the crucial power to initiate money bills 
     to the House. As a consequence, for more than two centuries 
     some of our greatest statesmen have understandably had no 
     higher ambition than to serve their fellow citizens in the 
     House of Representatives.
       And from the beginning, Massachusetts has been pre-eminent 
     in the quality of those it has sent to the House. A high 
     example was set early when John Quincy Adams, having held a 
     remarkable array of the highest elective and appointive 
     offices, won a seat in the House following his defeat for re-
     election as president.
       In the 18 years that followed, he forged a record of 
     courage, integrity and intellectual distinction that rivaled 
     his achievements on the path to the White House. In 1848, in 
     the midst of a debate in which he was opposing the immensely 
     successful and popular war with Mexico, he suffered a stroke 
     and, too sick to be moved, died in the Capitol building two 
     days later.
       Adams set a standard for Massachusetts congressmen that has 
     never been surpassed. But generations of Massachusetts 
     politicians have stretched to reach the benchmark he 
     established.
       In our own time, three members of the Massachusetts 
     delegation have won the highest accolade of their colleagues: 
     Joseph W. Martin, John W. McCormack and Thomas P. O'Neill 
     Jr., each in his turn elected speaker.
       The present dean of our delegation, J. Joseph Moakley, has 
     worthily continued this great Massachusetts tradition.
       For more than a quarter of a century, he has demonstrated 
     that mixture of profoundly local constituent relations and 
     profoundly national and international vision that is not 
     unique to, but utterly typical of, and pioneered by, 
     Massachusetts. His constituents responded to his service with 
     such enduring approval that when he was asked to speculate on 
     the identity of his successor, he replied, ``Until two weeks 
     ago, I didn't think my successor had been born yet.''
       This is not to say that everything went Joe's way. It would 
     be accurate but inadequate to describe Joe Moakley's later 
     years as those of a survivor. He survived the death of his 
     beloved Evelyn, and he survived medical problems that would 
     have driven most people into retirement to snatch a few years 
     or months doing what they had really wanted to do.
       But as Joe has told us, for 30 years he's been doing 
     exactly what he wanted to do. To adapt the words of William 
     Faulkner in his Nobel acceptance speech, Joe Moakley has not 
     merely endured, he has prevailed. And it is the courage and 
     stamina of such men as Joe Moakley that ensure democratic 
     government will prevail.
       As he has told us, with his usual calm candor, his own 
     prognosis is not encouraging. He has said that he will not 
     seek another term, and that he may not finish this one. But 
     whenever Joe Moakley's term ends, it will be said of him what 
     Thomas Hart Benton said of John Quincy Adams: ``Where could 
     death have found him but in the place of duty?''
       Joe Moakley has, at least in one respect, been more 
     fortunate than Adams: For Joe, the place of duty is not only 
     an obligation, but a pleasure.
       Joe Moakley exemplifies for our time an earlier type of the 
     Irish Democratic politician. Like Al Smith, he is a happy 
     warrior. And we--in Massachusetts and the nation--have been 
     and will be happy in the life and work of this incomparable 
     exemplar of the American dream.

     

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