[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14647]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO THE HON. TONY HALL

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise along with my dear colleagues, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), the gentlewoman from North Carolina 
(Mrs. Clayton), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hobson), the gentlewoman 
from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), to pay lasting and precious tribute to our 
colleague and dear friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall).
  Without question, this is a gentleman of the House. I think his 
appointment to the Committee on Rules and to that particular position 
which governs our deliberations as a body is a testament to the talent 
that he brought to our institution and the manner in which he has 
executed it and risen in the esteem and effectiveness as a Member of 
Congress.
  He has served honorably through the quarter century that he has given 
to the Congress and the people from his home district in the Greater 
Dayton, Ohio area.
  At every fork in the road, he has elevated this institution as a 
person and also as a political figure. So rarely do those that really 
do good get their day in the sun. The newspapers tend to cover those 
who may have strayed from the straight and narrow, and it is 
particularly a pleasure today as an Ohioan to say that this man 
deserves our attention and appreciation.
  I have watched the gentleman change over the years. Not that the 
goodness and the caring was not always there, but I have watched a 
depth of concern grow for the suffering of the world, in forgotten 
places, whether it is in our country or on another continent far from 
places where most Americans will ever travel. He has confronted the 
face of suffering. He has held dying children in his arms, and he has 
not walked away from that horrible, horrible thought of the fragility 
of life and what he as a person can actually do about it.
  I have seen other concerns become less important. Some, in fact, of 
the unimportant moments that consume so many of the hours here 
sometimes in a day, the procedural motions and all of the paraphernalia 
that goes with holding together a large country like ours and its 
governing institutions, but for Tony, the depth, the passion that has 
grown because of what he has seen globally has transformed him and 
helped transform us through association with him to a greater 
understanding of our needs as a people; and, indeed, the people of the 
world.
  As I watched Tony with some of his friends, Mickey Leland and Bill 
Emerson, also distinguished Members for so many years, I watched them 
travel together and bring back to us knowledge that we did not have. 
Through those efforts to change the way in which America feeds the 
world, to change the way in which we look at hunger, to create the 
Congressional Hunger Center here, to bring the young people of America 
to the Nation's capital and to get them engaged in one of the most 
perplexing and searing experiences one can have, and that is to meet 
people who do not even have enough food to survive for one day.
  We see in Afghanistan and other places people eating dirt to stay 
alive, and it is difficult to imagine that any one of us in our own 
lives would ever confront that and actually take on a position where 
that becomes the norm. Yet to fly in the face of that and to keep 
walking is what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) means to me.
  I have seen the photos of his trips to Africa and North Korea; and I 
have also been with him in Dayton, Ohio, going through empty food 
pantries, trying to work with farmers that he tried to get to donate 
apples, and to bring those into these feeding centers, to try to find 
excess food that would be available in that metropolitan area and to 
make it available to the poor in his region and our State. He has been 
unrelenting in his commitment.
  I think that the President has made an extraordinary appointment in 
nominating the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) as our ambassador to the 
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. He will do a 
stellar job.
  I know that every single person whose life he touches and what he 
brings back to us and what he can tell us about how to be better 
citizens of our country and the world is something that he alone can do 
and will do for us. We will again be the better for that service.
  I will say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) that I will miss him 
very much. As an Ohio Member, I have truly enjoyed serving with him, 
getting to know him and Janet, his family, the kindness and the 
gentlemanly behavior you have always demonstrated toward me, and I know 
is the same with every other Member in this Chamber. God bless you and 
keep you safe and healthy in your travels. It has been my honor to 
serve with you, Tony. Come back often. You are a great American. Some 
day that Nobel Prize, I hope, will find its way into your home.

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