[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24260]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO MILLIE O'NEILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, Millie and Tip O'Neill were members of the 
Studs Terkel generation. They were Democrats because they saw the 
Democratic Party as a vehicle to help the common people of this 
country. They were Democrats who accepted human nature. They did not 
try to change people. They simply tried to appeal to their better 
natures. They just did not appeal to their common sense. They appealed 
to their sense of common justice.
  Millie loved her man. She knew her man. She knew he was a strong man, 
but she also knew that he could be even stronger buttressed by love, 
and she gave of it fully. Millie would make every congressional spouse 
feel like she or he were welcome as family. They were two strong and 
good people who made their community and their country better for 
everybody.
  In my view, Tip O'Neill's finest hour as a defender of this 
institution outside of the Watergate era came on a day after the 
regular order of business was done, just like today. Only in those 
days, during this period known as Special Order, the camera did not pan 
the Chamber. The camera simply focused closely on the person speaking 
in the well; and on one famous occasion, a young Newt Gingrich, later 
to become Speaker, took the well of the House and began a speech 
attacking Members on this side of the aisle, and with the camera close 
upon him, he challenged Members who were not there, but the camera gave 
the appearance that the Chamber was full. Mr. Gingrich challenged 
Members in an empty Chamber to answer him if his allegations were 
wrong.
  Tip felt that that was a fundamental misleading of the American 
people. So he rushed to the House floor and told Mr. Gingrich what he 
thought of that kind of conduct. In my view, what he said may have been 
a technical violation of the rules; but in my view and in Millie's 
view, it should not have been, because in Tip's view and in her view 
and in the views of many of us, we thought that what Tip was saying was 
the truth. Unfortunately, as was pointed out, sometimes truth is not a 
defense on this floor under the House rules, and so Millie was proud of 
the fact that Tip stood up for what he felt was right, as were we all 
that day.
  I find it ironic that Millie died last night, just as the Boston Red 
Sox were winning the right to move on to the post-season series by 
seeing the last pitch of the game go the Red Sox way. As a huge, huge 
Red Sox fan, I know Tip would have been thrilled to see that; but with 
Millie's dying at that same time, she could at least rush and tell Tip 
the good news. So I think all of us are hoping that for the next 2 
weeks Millie and Tip will have a good box seat in heaven, watching the 
Red Sox hopefully playing the Cubs in the World Series.
  They brought grace to their State. They brought grace to this 
institution, and they brought good feelings and warmth and cheer and 
respect to all of us who knew them both; and I know that, as will the 
family, we will all miss both of them greatly.

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