[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 148 (Friday, November 15, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2075-E2077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SPECIAL JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 14, 2002

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I rise to 
introduce the remarks that I delivered in connection with the Special 
Joint Session of Congress convened in New York City on September 6, 
2002. Along with my remarks, I would like to introduce the remarks of 
Mrs. Susan Magazine, Assistant Commissioner of the Family Assistance 
Unit of the Fire Department of New York City, Senate Majority Leader 
Tom Daschle, and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
  I believe that the nature and occasion of the event necessitates that 
these remarks be entered into the Record, so that along with the events 
at the Special Joint Session, they can be recorded for posterity.

       Rangel. You people look beautiful. (Laughter.)
       Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Governor.
       On behalf of our New York delegation, and especially Ben 
     Gilman, who has been my friend for over 30 years, who leave 
     us--where are you, Ben? (Applause.)
       ... and our entire delegation, which I hope would rise at 
     this time, the supporters of our resolution . . . (Laughter.)
       ... I want to thank the leadership in the House and the 
     Senate for supporting this resolution, our mayor and governor 
     for giving it its political support, Ms. Annenberg for giving 
     us our financial support, and most importantly all of you who 
     took time from your busy schedules, and indeed our 
     legislative schedules, to come to our great city to give us 
     an opportunity to say thank you. History is a strange thing 
     when you're making it. You're just not aware of the courage 
     you may have or the shortcomings that you may have. And as 
     the mayor, in telling you about the attributes of New York, 
     it could be perceived that most of us from New York City have 
     a little more self-esteem than we really need to get by. 
     (Laughter.)
       Rangel. But when we were hit, we were afraid, we were 
     scared. We didn't know whether we were going to be hit again. 
     And Jerry Nadler, who's district was hit, was one of the 
     first to get there.
       And as the mayor said and the governor said, people came 
     from all over. Not just our heroic policemen and firemen and 
     emergency workers, but kids came, flags were there, foods 
     were there, doctors were there. Everyone wanted to help.
       Most of the New York congressional delegation in the city, 
     we were there because it was a primary day. And so when we 
     got back to Washington, we didn't know what to expect. We 
     went by car. We went by bus. We went by train. And when we 
     saw our colleagues there, singing ``God Bless America,'' we 
     recognized that we were not just New Yorkers; that we were 
     Americans. It wasn't just . . . (Applause.)
       It wasn't just our great city that was hit, it was our 
     great country that was attacked. And we did come together, 
     not as Republicans and Democrats and liberals and 
     conservatives, but we came together in support of our 
     president and our legislative leaders to let all of our foes 
     know that we were united in our resolve to make certain that 
     we would do all that we could to see that this does not 
     happen again.
       And even now as we gather to praise those that fought so 
     hard for our country, that became our heroes, we send a 
     message to our

[[Page E2076]]

     enemies that it is our resolve to say once again: ``Don't 
     tread on the United States of America; that we are prepared 
     to do whatever is necessary to seek out and to destroy those 
     who seek to destroy our way of life.''
       Rangel. And we come back to where the Congress has met over 
     200 years ago, and I cannot but be emotionally involved in 
     believing how proud our forefathers should be of us, to come 
     back after 200 years, and to see what we have done with their 
     Constitution, how much we treasured it, how much we expanded 
     it, and how much today as we meet are we prepared to protect 
     it. How little did they know that those who picked cotton 
     during those days, those that would come into our country to 
     build our roads and our railroads, those that would come from 
     foreign countries seeking religious and economic freedom, 
     would be coming here as a part of the United States Congress 
     200 years later. (Applause.)
       U.S. history is strange because not only are we living it, 
     but to give New Yorkers an opportunity to say thank you to 
     our colleagues in the House means that we're saying thank you 
     to America. We are basically saying, as New Yorkers, ``God 
     bless this great country, that gives us an opportunity to 
     have our diversity, and to continue to believe that a part of 
     the legacy that we are going to leave to those to follow us, 
     is that we're not going to allow terrorism to instill terror 
     in our heart; that our basic commitment has to be that while 
     we would not allow an enemy to intimidate us, we're not going 
     to allow terror to take away our basic freedoms; that we're 
     not going to strike any unknown country without knowing where 
     the enemy actually is; and that the opportunities that we 
     have been given as a people, of education, of Social 
     Security, of health care, of opportunity that we're going to 
     make certain that, as we protect this country, we protect 
     those civil liberties that have been passed on to us so that 
     when the next Congress meets, no matter where they meet, they 
     will be saying that we protected the Constitution that was 
     given to us over 200 years ago.'' (Applause.)
       Rangel. My mother, your mother, everyone always said that 
     during times of pain, that you'd have to seek and you can 
     find some good in it. But the truth of the matter is that 
     when we were struck, it was hard to believe that we could 
     find some good.
       But there was good that we found out; that America gave us 
     an opportunity to say thank you to each other. America gave 
     us an opportunity to see how blessed we were; that we could 
     look at each other without seeing color, without seeing party 
     label, without seeing where we came from, and recognize that 
     we had an obligation to protect what we have.
       Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, thank you for giving us the 
     support of bringing us together. And now we can say that we 
     really owe a lot to each other, because we need each other. 
     We hope this never happens again, but thank you, Congress, 
     for helping us when you needed us, and not withstanding our 
     attitude, we deeply appreciate the opportunity. (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. More than 2,800 people lost their lives at the 
     World Trade Center, but the toll could have been far, far 
     worse if it were not for the valor and professionalism of our 
     local and regional firefighters, police officers and 
     emergency service personnel. (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. Showing tremendous courage, they effected the 
     rescue of more than 25,000 people from the World Trade 
     Center, the largest and most successful emergency evacuation 
     in modem history. Their heroism inspired the nation.
       Three hundred and forty-three members of the Fire 
     Department of New York City gave their lives for freedom on 
     9/11. We will never forget their bravery and their sacrifice.
       It is now my privilege to introduce Susan Magazine. She is 
     the assistant commissioner in charge of the fire department's 
     Family Assistance Unit. She is also a woman who lost her 
     husband Jay, who worked at the World Trade Center.
       Susan? (Applause.)
       Magazine. Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg.
       Mayor, Governor Pataki, distinguished members of Congress, 
     honored guests, I am honored to have been asked to come here 
     this afternoon to speak with you. I came here because I think 
     it's very important that you, our nation's leaders, hear 
     directly from someone who lost a loved one, a family member 
     last September 11.
       As the mayor said, my husband Jay was one of the more than 
     2,800 people who perished at the World Trade Center on that 
     day. Jay and I spent our entire adult lives together. On 
     October 17th of next month, we would have celebrated our 20th 
     wedding anniversary.
       We have two children. Melissa is 14 and Andrew is 11. 
     Melissa starts high school next week, and Andrew starts 
     middle school.
       Jay was the catering sales manager at Windows on the World, 
     the spectacular restaurant at the top of the north tower. One 
     of our favorite shared family memories was all of us--Jay, 
     me, Melissa and Andrew--going up to the restaurant all 
     wearing hard hats during the construction work to reopen 
     Windows on the World.
       Magazine. What a beautiful restaurant it was. When you were 
     up there you felt like you were on top of the world.
       And Jay loved it. He loved working at Windows. He loved 
     working in the Trade Center. He loved the vibrancy of 
     downtown Manhattan.
       I recently attended a dinner for a hunger relief 
     organization that Jay was involved with to present the first 
     annual Jay Magazine Award of Excellence. The recipient of the 
     award was Jay's friend, Michael Lomonaco, who was the chef at 
     Windows.
       When Michael accepted the award he told a story about how 
     he and Jay would meet almost every morning in the Windows 
     cafeteria for coffee. And every morning as they were leaving, 
     Jay would turn to Michael and say, ``You know, we're the 
     luckiest guys in the world to be working here.''
       When our kids went to visit Jay, which was often, they 
     would look out of his office window. You felt like you could 
     see all of New York City from there. And he would tell them 
     that if they looked really, really hard uptown that they 
     could see our apartment. It was so magical up there. Now, 
     like thousands of other families, Melissa, Andrew and I are 
     trying to figure out how to move on and how to live our 
     lives. That doesn't mean that we will ever forget. It doesn't 
     mean that we're trying to get back to normal. Normal does not 
     exist anymore for any one of the families that lost someone 
     that they loved on that day.
       It means that each one of us has to find a new normal. We 
     have no choice. And my family is doing that. We're surrounded 
     by incredible family, wonderful friends and support of 
     communities. And we're doing it with the assistance of our 
     neighbors, of our communities and you, our policy-makers. And 
     we are extremely thankful for all of the support that we have 
     received from people everywhere.
       Let me illustrate with a personal story. Our family held a 
     memorial service for Jay at the end of September. Jay had 
     always been in the catering and restaurant businesses and had 
     many friends, colleagues and clients all over the country.
       At that service blank cards were distributed with envelopes 
     addressed to our children. People were asked to write down 
     their memories of Jay, to tell us stories about the Jay that 
     they knew. The response was unbelievable. Hundreds and 
     hundreds of cards have come back from people who knew Jay. 
     And then, we got cards and letters from people who didn't 
     know Jay, but had heard about him and had heard about our 
     family, and wanted to somehow try to connect and try and give 
     some comfort to an individual family.
       Experiences like that continue to be repeated every day for 
     the families who have been affected by September 11th. As our 
     nation's leaders, you should know that at the Family 
     Assistance Unit of the fire department, we spent hours each 
     day responding to letters and gifts from all over the 
     country: from your states, and your districts. And we respond 
     to each one of them. We received cartons of letters from 
     schools, camps, houses of worships, individual people from 
     all over the country, teddy bears, quilts, pictures, books, 
     offers of weekends away for family members, paintings, 
     scholarships for children, songs, poems, prayers. Whatever it 
     is that people have to give, they want to reach out to 
     individual family members and somehow try and make a 
     difference to each family.
       And these are the people that you represent. Please tell 
     the men and the women and the families in your home districts 
     and your states how much it means to us that so many 
     Americans have offered us their generosity and their 
     kindness.
       The events of September 11th were an attack on our nation 
     and they were attacks on individuals and individual families. 
     Every one of the people who perished on that day was a 
     husband, a father, a son, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a 
     brother, a sister, a neighbor, a friend. Over 2,800 
     individual people were lost on that day.
       And it's been remarkable to me how many Americans truly 
     understand that each of us were real people, were real 
     families who have experienced this enormous tragedy in very 
     individual, very personal and very immediate ways.
       Every day the people who work for the city of New York go 
     to enormous lengths to do whatever they can for us, for the 
     families. The city, the state and the entire nation have 
     given us their support. Thank you.
       And when you go home, thank your constituents for their 
     kindness, for their generosity and for never, ever letting 
     anyone forget. Thank you. (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. Susan, thank you.
       And to you and to all the families, all we can really say 
     is, ``Those we lost are in our prayers and God bless.''
       For the terrorists, the attack on the World Trade Center, 
     as devastating as it was, was a failure. It did not 
     accomplish what they hoped it would. It did not weaken us. 
     Instead, it united us. It brought us together as a nation 
     determined to defend our freedoms and to punish those 
     responsible for this despicable act.
       Ordinary Americans showed the goodness in their hearts. 
     They responded to 9/11 as if their own home communities had 
     been attacked. An unprecedented outpouring of support flooded 
     into New York from across the nation.
       The following video you're about to see is our way of 
     saying, ``Thank you, America.''
       (Videotape presentation).
       Bloomberg. I want to thank the Interpublic Sports and 
     Entertainment Group chairman, Mark Dowley, for producing that 
     video and donating their services. (Applause.)
       The power, majesty and proud heritage of the United States 
     are expressed in our national symbol, the American bald 
     eagle. On

[[Page E2077]]

     behalf of the people of New York City, I am pleased to 
     memorialize this historic joint session of Congress in our 
     city by presenting a commemorative Steuben glass eagle to the 
     House of Representatives.
       Minority Leader Gephardt? (Applause.)
       Thank you on behalf of all New Yorkers.
       Gephardt. Thank you so much. I accept this on behalf of all 
     of our members. And, Charlie, I don't think you have an 
     attitude at all. (Laughter.)
       Thank you. (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. The city is also proud to present a 
     commemorative eagle to the Senate. Minority Leader Lott, 
     would you come up to the podium, please? (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. On behalf of all New Yorkers, thank you, sir.
       Lott. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. On behalf of the 
     United States Senate, we express to you our appreciation for 
     all you've done, and for this. Senator Daschle and I will 
     find a special place for this great eagle. Thank you. 
     (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. Thank you.
       Speaker? (Applause.)
       And Tom Daschle. (Applause.)
       Hastert. On behalf of the U.S. Congress, we have a unique 
     gift: a token of that day, and a token of the strength of 
     this nation.
       Over the Capitol of the United States flew the flag of the 
     United States of America. And on September 11th, we took that 
     flag down. We kept it. We weren't sure exactly how we were 
     going to use that flag. But we think it's very appropriate 
     today to give it to the city of New York as a memento of what 
     this Congress believes in: the ability and strength of the 
     people of New York, the spirit of the people of New York is 
     truly the spirit of America. Thank you. (Applause.)
       Daschle. On September 11th, when the people of South Dakota 
     saw what happened, they dropped everything. One ranch couple, 
     themselves struggling right now, sold 100 head of cattle, and 
     donated the proceeds to the victims and their families. A 
     class of second graders collected pennies, thinking that they 
     might be able to collect or raise a couple of hundred 
     dollars. They raised $1,776.05.
       I'm sure you could find similar stories from Speaker 
     Hastert's constituents in Illinois, Senator Lott's in 
     Mississippi, Congressman Gephardt's in Missouri.
       But in reaching out to help the people of New York, we 
     realized it was the people of New York who were helping us. 
     Your courage helped steady a wounded nation.
       So today, I join Speaker Hastert, on behalf of all of those 
     you inspired, to present you this flag. We hope it'll find a 
     home in the memorial you build to the victims of September 
     11th, to let all New Yorkers know that they didn't just 
     inspire a city, they inspired a nation. (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. Dick, would you come up? And, Trent, and if you 
     could come up here as well. (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. Thank you.
       Earlier, I proudly, perhaps boastfully but accurately, 
     referred to New York City as the nation's cultural capital. I 
     will now demonstrate that this was not an idol boast.
       It is my great pleasure to introduce a great composer, 
     arranger, conductor, musician, and in my book most 
     importantly an educator. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for 
     music, and the artistic director of jazz, at Lincoln Center, 
     Winton Marsalis. (Applause)
       (Musical presentation.) (Applause.)
       Bloomberg. As to my boast about culture, I will rest my 
     case. (Laughter.)
       Thank you.
       Well, thank you for joining us for this historic event. The 
     members of Congress will now exit, en masse to visit ground 
     zero and to pay their personal respects to the more than 
     2,800 people who died for freedom. Governor Pataki and I will 
     go with them.
       But to facilitate their orderly departure, I would ask that 
     all other guests please remain seated until the members have 
     left for the ballroom.
       Thank you for your cooperation. And thank you for showing 
     your support for the greatest city on Earth.

     

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