[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 103 (Thursday, July 25, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H5620]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE TONY HALL

  (Ms. CARSON of Indiana asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. CARSON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to run to the floor when 
I saw that this was under way to give my own personal and special 
tribute to the Honorable Tony Hall, who has had now a higher calling, 
one of ambassador to the United Nations for Food and Agricultural 
Agencies, all the way in Rome. What a beautiful place to be, in Rome.
  I have not known the Honorable Tony Hall for as long as many of you 
have, and certainly do not hail from the same State from which he is 
elected; but Tony Hall has the kind of spirit that radiates across 
boundary lines, geographical lines, State lines.
  When you understand Tony Hall, the genuine spirit that he emits, 
knowing that he has reverence for the world's hungry and for food 
safety around the world, you cannot help but consider him a comrade, a 
colleague, regardless of the State from which he hails.
  Tony Hall is willing to make this sacrifice, to give up a very safe 
seat in the United States House of Representatives, to go on to what I 
consider, Tony, to be a higher calling, but a much more important 
calling. As the speaker before me recalled from Scripture, ``When I was 
hungry, did you feed me?"
  I do not want to get emotional about this, but when you think of all 
of the children around the world who need a Tony Hall there to advocate 
there for them, kids who go to bed hungry, kids who wake up hungry, 
kids who are dying from malnutrition, kids who are orphans, perpetuated 
by the unabated rise of AIDS and HIV and tuberculosis and lack of 
immunization, when their lives could be spared and their bellies could 
be fed, to think that you and your lovely wife are going to go out 
along the highways and the byways and truly be a Good Samaritan along 
life's highway, you remind me often of what I describe for people like 
you: you live not just because, but you live for a cause, living for 
God's people.
  You are reminiscent of the poet that said, ``If I can just help 
somebody as I am walking through, then my living will not be in vain.''
  The nice thing about this, Tony, is for you to be able to sit here 
and hear this, because oftentimes when we lose a Member, we are 
memorializing the Member.

                              {time}  1530

  But you have an opportunity to sit here and know that people love you 
and that people are going to miss you. I know one thing, after a speech 
like this in tears on national television, you better give me your 
address so I can come to Rome and tell the security there, I know Tony 
Hall, I am one of his former colleagues, and to be one of your 
colleagues.
  But to make this kind of commitment to good work, you are what I call 
an unsung hero, one that does not seek the spotlight. But you certainly 
will eternally have the high light, and that is far more important than 
prizes and accolades and all of those kinds of things. You have a high 
light that radiates eternally.

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