[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1676-1678]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO PAUL TSONGAS

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, 10 years ago today, this country lost a 
leader and this Chamber lost a colleague, and Massachusetts lost a 
favorite son. Ten years ago today, cancer took Paul Tsongas from us 
prematurely at 55 years of age. He left three wonderful daughters: 
Ashley, Katina, and Molly, and his special and extraordinary wife Niki, 
and he left an enormous number of friends and people whom he touched 
and affected across the country, those who joined him to help reform 
our politics.
  Paul was a very different kind of public person. He walked his own 
path. He walked to his own tune. Today we remember him and we join the 
people in Merrimack Valley and across Massachusetts and so many others 
who came to appreciate and respect him and learned a lot about him 
through his Presidential campaign. We honor a life that elevated those 
whom he knew, and the countless people he never met, but whose lives he 
affected through the things he fought for and believed in.
  Paul Tsongas inspired with his optimism and his drive, his disarming 
humor, and his love of causes both distant and local. He was proud of 
his Greek heritage, proud of his roots as the son of a drycleaner, 
proud of Lowell, and he became a champion of environmental protection 
and expanding opportunity so the full measure of the American dream 
that he came to see as a young person himself was accessible to 
everybody else.
  He set a high standard for public service which he continued even 
after he left the Senate. He continued out of office to work across the 
aisle proving, with former Senator Warren Rudman and their Concord 
Coalition, that balancing the budget was not a partisan agenda item and 
that fiscal discipline could, in fact, invigorate and not stifle the 
American economy. Paul Tsongas was a Democratic deficit hawk before it 
was popular and, I might add, together with Senator Gary Hart, was part 
of that new vanguard that helped to define the defense issues of our 
Nation in a modern context.
  He understood also that being a Democrat did not mean being 
antibusiness. In Lowell, Paul served as a city councilor and then later 
as a reformed

[[Page 1677]]

county commissioner. He loved Lowell. He loved that old mill town where 
he was born. Even at the end of his life, he knew every single person 
there, from Main Street through the largest businesses, and he could 
still see where he had grown up from the house where he lived in his 
last days.
  Paul came to Washington, where he worked with Tip O'Neill, Joe 
Moakley, Republican Sil Conte, and Ed Brooke in a bipartisan, golden 
age for the Massachusetts delegation. Paul's love of ideas and his love 
of Lowell helped trigger one of the earliest sparks of high-tech 
innovation in Massachusetts. Through his championing of early computer 
companies such as Wang and others, he helped to fuel the whole era of 
such stunning ingenuity that it changed the face of America and 
enhanced our technological leadership in the world. Paul helped Lowell 
reinvent itself after years of decline, and in 1978, he was elected to 
the Senate. After one term only in the Senate, he gave up his seat in 
order to be with his family and fight cancer. He was sustained by the 
loving support of his sister, his wife, and his daughters, whom he 
treasured. Paul at age 7, had lost his own mother to tuberculosis, so 
this idea of being with family during that kind of crucial time was 
particularly poignant to him.
  As a friend of Paul's famously told him: No man ever died wishing he 
had spent more time with his business. Paul was first diagnosed with 
cancer in 1983 and he fought it courageously from that day forward. 
Right to the end of his life, he was tenacious in his support for the 
causes he believed in, in his fight against the devastating disease 
that eventually took him but never stole his spirit. Instead, he 
brought to the fight the same optimism and determination that made him 
so successful in the Peace Corps. In 1992, when in remission, Paul ran 
for the Presidency, and he ran one of the most bracingly honest and 
politically courageous Presidential campaigns of our time. His was a 
campaign defined by common sense and by that wry sense of humor more 
than it was defined by fiery oratory. He managed to win Democratic 
primaries in New Hampshire and three other primaries and four State 
caucuses before the man from Lowell finally ceded the nomination to the 
man from Hope.
  Paul reached across the country to the distant shores of the Pacific 
as coauthor of the Alaska Lands Act, which protected millions of acres 
of pristine wilderness. He made an admirable contribution to our 
environment. His aggressive policies to protect our natural resources 
were truly an investment in our future. He made life-long friends in 
Ethiopia as a result of his Peace Corps service in the early 1960s, 
proving even as a young man that his sense of the world reached beyond 
the horizon and to cultures far from his roots.
  Today, in Lowell, the name Tsongas graces a museum of industrial 
history, part of the National Park Service, where the full story, both 
good and bad, of the industrial revolution and the textile industry in 
Massachusetts is presented for thousands of visitors, young and old, 
every year. Today, the name Tsongas graces an arena where athletic 
excellence, a passion dear to Paul's heart, is practiced along with 
political conventions and trade shows.
  So I rise today not only as the Senator who inherited his seat; I 
rise as an admirer and a friend. To know Paul Tsongas was to see up 
close what this business we work in means in people's lives, and the 
full arch of his time on Earth illuminates the larger impact each of us 
can have on our communities, on our State, and on our Nation.
  That is why this day is special for this Chamber, a sad, proud memory 
for Lowell and for Massachusetts, and a moment to reflect on Paul's 
life and his contributions. It is hard to believe Senator Tsongas has 
been gone for 10 years. If he were with us today, Paul would be a 
strong voice full of insight, humor, and wisdom, all in that inimitable 
style, once modest, but incredibly forceful, the style we came to know 
and appreciate so much. Lowell, MA will miss Paul Tsongas, America 
misses him, but we remember him today.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to join my 
colleague, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, to mark a significant 
and sad anniversary. Ten years ago today, America lost a great patriot, 
Massachusetts lost a great advocate, and John Kerry and I lost a great 
friend when Paul Tsongas passed away after a valiant and courageous 
fight with cancer.
  Paul Tsongas was the epitome of a public servant. From his time in 
the Peace Corps in both Ethiopia and the West Indies in the 1960s 
through his spirited campaign for the Presidency in 1992, Paul lived by 
the words my brother Jack believed so strongly, that each of us can 
make a difference and all of us should try.
  Paul Tsongas tried his best to do so, all his life, and he made a 
large and continuing difference. To the people of his beloved Lowell, 
he proved that our great industrial cities can be reborn and renewed, 
with a creative emphasis on reshaping their great history to meet the 
needs of our current high tech economy. In the 1970s and 1980s, when 
America was moving inexorably to the suburbs and so many of our great 
urban centers were being hollowed out, many of our people found it 
increasingly difficult to see a bright future for urban areas decimated 
by the decline of manufacturing.
  But today, across the country, a new movement has been born to 
encourage creative investment in our cities, and one of the first 
models for how such efforts can succeed is the vision Paul Tsongas had 
for Lowell, MA.
  F. Scott Fitzgerald may have said there are no second acts in 
American life, but Paul Tsongas could have responded, ``Let him come to 
Lowell.''
  Paul served in the House and joined me in the Senate in 1978. He was 
someone I knew I could always count on to fight hard for the people of 
Massachusetts, and the Nation. He was tireless, determined, and always 
well prepared. Sometimes we would disagree on policy matters, here and 
there, but if you were going to challenge Paul, you had better have 
your facts straight because he knew what he was talking about.
  He also was an outstanding campaigner. The conventional wisdom in 
politics has always been--at least as long as I can remember--that 
candidates with difficult to pronounce names have a small additional 
hurdle.
  Paul had a silent ``t'' at the beginning of his name, and I will 
never forget how brilliantly he turned that small disadvantage into a 
major asset in his victorious campaigns for elective office.
  He ran hilarious ads that had all these people struggling to 
pronounce his name, and none of them could do it. But by the end of the 
campaign, every voter could do the silent ``t'' and everyone loved the 
candidate who made fun of himself on TV.
  Its is a lesson that Paul would carry on throughout his courageous 
battle against cancer. Everyone faces obstacles--some great and some 
small. It's how we choose to deal with them that makes us who we are.
  Paul Tsongas was an inspiration to all who knew him. The son of a 
Greek immigrant father and a mother who died of tuberculosis, he 
demonstrated again and again that through hard work, commitment, and a 
passion for doing what is right, all things are possible in our 
America.
  He charted a new course for the city he loved. He authored the Alaska 
Lands Act to protect millions of acres of American wilderness, and he 
founded, with our former colleague, Warren Rudman, the Concord 
Coalition, which has become a highly respected force for fiscal 
responsibility since its creation in the early 1990s.
  When the diagnosis of cancer was made, he left the Senate to spend 
more time with his wonderful wife Niki, his loving sister Thaleia, and 
his three daughters, Ashley, Katina, and Molly.
  After completing his rigorous treatment, he threw his hat in the 
Presidential ring in the 1992 primaries and his candidacy helped fuel 
the movement to make Government accountable for its fiscal policies. He 
left an immense and enduring legacy.
  We miss you, Paul. We miss your bravery and your commitment. We miss 
your friendship and concern, but we know you are resting in peace today 
after an extraordinary and well-lived life.

[[Page 1678]]

  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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