[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17826-17828]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          MY FAREWELL MESSAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my 
colleague from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman very much.
  Now, on Barney Frank, Barney Frank is at the same time the smartest 
Member and the wittiest Member of the United States Congress. That is 
quite a double to be able to pull off. He has a nuclear power plant for 
a brain. There is absolutely nothing that he cannot recall when he 
needs it here in this legislative process.
  Now, over his career, he is usually right, but too soon for many 
people to be able to accept. That is how far ahead he was on so many of 
the issues which we worked on here in the House of Representatives. His 
political philosophy is, if you want to negotiate, he wants peace. He 
would love to negotiate with you. He knows that he will out-negotiate 
you. But if you want political war, he enjoys that, too, because he 
does not see it as a sprint but as a marathon heading towards that day 
when the truth will ultimately prevail.
  When he was in the State legislature, when I served with him, when we 
had monumental battles on whether or not to reinstitute the death 
penalty in Massachusetts, whether or not we were going to have a black 
senate seat in Massachusetts, it was Barney Frank who led the efforts 
to sustain the veto that would make sure that our State would still be 
the leader in progressive causes.
  Here in Congress, the debate on NATO burden sharing, the way Barney 
would frame it for people is, we helped these people, it's now late 
into the last century and into this century, and we can't any longer 
take from the poor people's programs in this country in order to, in 
fact, pay for the defense of Europe. It was time for Europe to pick up 
their own fair share of the burden. The same thing was true with 
fighting for fishermen. The same thing was true with issue after issue 
out here on the House floor.
  Dodd-Frank, which was debated right here on the House floor, the same 
place where Abe Lincoln was trying to get the votes to abolish slavery, 
same seats, Barney Frank led the effort to create the new financial 
services constitution for the 21st century in not just the United 
States but on the whole planet. And there were some provisions that 
were so important, that is, creating a Consumer Protection Bureau, that 
they would rather have Elizabeth Warren as a Senator than have her be 
the head of the Consumer Protection Bureau inside of Dodd-Frank, and 
that's just a small part of the totality of that bill.
  Barney's message always was to stand up and have courage. Stand up 
for what's right, even if you don't win early. He has been a 
parliamentary and a substantive cop on the beat walking around here on 
the House floor, using the microphone as his nightstick in order to 
make sure that nothing happened here that was wrong would go 
uncommented upon so that people would know what should have been 
happening.
  Back in the Massachusetts legislature in the early seventies, the 
mid-1970s, Barney decided to make amendments on gay rights. 
Discrimination was rampant, but no one was raising the issue across the 
country. And so we started to have votes in the Massachusetts 
legislature. Barney was on the losing side. He knew he would lose early 
on. But, ultimately, those defeats led to the victories which we talk 
about today. Out here on the House floor, Barney was the lead opponent 
of the Defense of Marriage Act. He knew that even if he was on the 
wrong side, he was going to stand up and make sure that everyone else 
knew ultimately what the right side would look like.
  There was one day I was standing right here at this microphone, and I 
was talking about oil subsidies that I felt were unjustified, and I 
said:

       Giving a subsidy to an oil company recording record profits 
     would be like subsidizing a fish to swim or a bird to fly. 
     You just don't have to do it.

  I was feeling quite good about myself. I finished, and I just walked 
over here, and Barney stood up and came over to me, and he said, you 
know, you didn't finish that. And I said, finish what? Well, the whole 
stanza:

     Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly.
     I'm gonna love that man till the day I die.

  That man is Jim Ready, and Barney is now married to him.
  It's because of his efforts in making it possible to change the 
culture in our country that Barney is going to love that man until the 
day he dies. But it took a lot of courage, and it took a lot of 
foresight to know that that day would arrive.
  So, yeah, and Nancy Pelosi said it--the Mount Rushmore of 
Massachusetts: Congressmen Tip O'Neill, Joe Moakley, and Barney Frank. 
He's going down in history. And we all know it. On so

[[Page 17827]]

many different fronts, he changed the way America thinks. And it's 
quite a gift that he had and that he gave to the country.
  So for both of them, it has been just an enormous privilege for all 
of us to serve with you, and I think everyone on both sides of the 
aisle knows that there was greatness in our delegation and that it was 
an honor, John and Barney, to have been able to serve with you for all 
of these years. Thank you all so much.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, let me just follow up on what 
was just said and say that Barney Frank and I have had a lot of 
differences over the years, but we've also found times when we could 
work together. In fact, we even cosponsored a bill one time.
  So Barney and your colleague, I wish you both the very best, and 
hopefully we will run into each other along the road in the future.
  Madam Speaker, let me just make a couple of comments to my two 
colleagues who are going to follow me on this Special Order. They have 
told me if I talk too long they're going to hit me in the head with a 
ball bat, so I'm not going to talk too long tonight. But I do want to 
say a couple of things.
  First of all, let me start off by saying that Daniel Inouye, Senator 
Inouye, I never met, but I read in the paper many years ago the 
exploits of Daniel Inouye when he was in the military. A Japanese young 
man whose family was put in a camp during World War II, and he 
volunteered to go into the military. He became an outstanding member of 
the military. In Italy there were exploits that he performed that won 
him the Congressional Medal of Honor. And you don't get that unless you 
are really an extraordinary human being.

                              {time}  2010

  He took out an enemy position, a German position, when he was hit 
again and again and again. He lost one of his arms, and he just kept 
going. I wish he were still here today. I called him on the phone when 
I found out about that, and I told him I had never met him, but I 
wanted him to know that there were Members of the House who really 
thought he was an extraordinary man. And he was, and I'm sure he's 
going to be missed.
  I've been here 30 years, and I'm retiring at the end of this term. I 
thought I ought to have at least a little bit of a swan song, maybe 5 
or 10 minutes where I could talk to my colleagues a little bit about 
what's happened over the 30 years.
  When I first came here, I was a very young man, and I knew 
everything. You couldn't tell me anything. Now that I've been here 30 
years, I realize I didn't know much of anything, and I probably know 
less now than I did then. In fact, I just found there were a couple of 
things I missed along the boat with the Parliamentarian.
  There are a couple of things I would like to comment about, and that 
is we have 435 Members in this House and 100 Members in the Senate. We 
start working with each other and we work together, but we really don't 
know much about each other. I don't know much about your background, 
Madam Speaker. I don't know much about my colleagues' background. We 
work together, and we don't know whether we were poor, rich, well 
educated, or uneducated; and we work together.
  The thing that really has bothered me as the years have gone by is 
that I see things happen to my colleagues about whom I know very 
little, and it bothers me. One of the leaders on the Democrat side of 
the aisle lost his wife a few years ago, and it wasn't for several 
months that I even knew about it. I've had a number of my colleagues 
who've lost their kids, who have gone through all kinds of tragedies in 
their families, and I think many of my colleagues don't know much about 
it. We just go on, and we continue to have the vitriolic conversations 
and debates that we have, and we don't realize that we haven't walked 
in the other guy's shoes very much.
  I thought tonight I would just maybe take a minute or two--and I'm 
sure that most of my colleagues are out doing something else, but maybe 
they'll get a chance to hear what I'm saying tonight. But whether we're 
Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, we ought to think 
about the other guy and the other gal who's working so hard to get 
their points across and who may be going through tragedies that we 
don't even understand or can't even imagine. We need to think about 
walking in their shoes just a little bit before we're so critical.
  Time goes by so fast. I've been here 30 years, and I can remember the 
first day I walked up the steps of the Capitol with my family and the 
television camera was following me. I thought, man, this is going to 
last forever. I thought my kids would be with me forever, my staff 
would be with me forever, and my wife would be with me forever. She 
passed away about 11 years ago. Fortunately, I have another wonderful 
wife. But you go through all these tragedies, and it goes by so fast 
and you just don't realize it. And you don't take the time to smell the 
roses until you're just a little bit older and have missed so much.
  If I were saying something to my colleagues tonight, I would say, Do 
your very best and explain yourself the very best that you can, but 
realize that the other guy who has a different point of view than you 
really believes most of the time in what he's doing, and we ought to be 
a little more tolerant and don't criticize him too much until you've 
had a chance to walk in his shoes.
  According to General Patton in the movie ``Patton,'' he said, All 
glory is fleeting. It's true. I see these young guys come in who are 
like me and these young ladies come in, and they're going to whip the 
world; they're going to change this world overnight. I try to talk to 
them in an elderly, fatherly way, I guess you would say. I'd say, Have 
you ever been around the Capital and looked at all the statues? And 
they'll say, I've looked at a few of them. I'll say, Have you ever seen 
some of pictures around here? They'll look and they'll say, Oh, yeah, 
we've seen them. I'll say, Do you know who they are? And they'll say, 
Well, no. I'll say, Well, they were Speakers of the House and Vice 
Presidents and Presidents of the United States, and you don't know who 
they are. And they'll say, That's right. I say, Remember this. You 
think you're going to be remembered. You're going to do your best, but 
you're just going to be a footnote in history, one line in a history 
book. So don't take yourself so seriously. Do the best you can, and 
fight for the things in which you believe, and stick by your 
principles. But don't go around thinking that you float on air and that 
you're something special because you're just another Congressman. We've 
had about 12,000 Congressmen and Senators in our history, and you're 
going to be one of them. It's an honor to be able to be numbered among 
those; but remember, there were Ceasars who ruled the world, and you 
don't even know who they are. So be a little more realistic when you 
start thinking about how important you might be because, really, all 
glory is fleeting.
  I want to read to you something here, a couple of poems. Bear with me 
for just a minute. The first poem is called ``A Bag of Tools'':

     Isn't it strange how princes and kings,
     and clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
     and common people, like you and me,
     are builders for eternity?
     Each is given a bag of tools;
     a shapeless mass; a book of rules.
     And each must make, ere life is flown,
     a stumbling block or a steppingstone.

  I hope my colleagues will all try to make their lives a 
steppingstone.
  I want to talk about a guy that served not in this Chamber, but 
another Chamber. He was a House Member. I'll tell you a little bit 
about him, and it's in a poem. It says:

     A squalid village set in wintry mud.
     A hub-deep ox-cart slowly groans and squeaks.
     A horseman hails and halts. He shifts his cud
     And speaks:
     ``Well, did you hear? Tom Lincoln's wife today.
     The devil's luck for folk as poor as they.
     Poor Tom! Poor Nance!
     Poor young one! Born without a chance!
     A baby in that God-forsaken den,
     That worse than cattle-pen!
     Well, what are they but cattle? Cattle? Tut!
     A critter is beef, hide and tallow, but
     Who'd swap one for the critters of that hut?

[[Page 17828]]

     White trash! Small fry!
     Whose only instinct is to multiply!
     They're good at that,
     And so, today, God wot! Another brat!
     A squawking, squalling, red-faced good-for-naught
     Spilled on the world, heaven only knows for what.
     Better if he were black,
     For then he'd have a shirt upon his back
     And something in his belly as he grows.
     More than he is like to have, as I suppose.
     Yet there be those
     Who claim 'equality' for this new brat,
     And that damned democrat
     Who squats today where Washington once sat,
     He'd have it that this Lincoln cub might be
     Of even value in the world with you and me!
     Yes, Jefferson, Tom Jefferson, who but he?
     Who even hints that black men should be free.
     That feather-headed fool would tell you, maybe
     A president might lie in this new baby!
     In this new squawker born without a rag
     To hide himself! Good God, it makes me gag!
     This human-spawn
     Born for a world to wipe its feet upon
     A few years hence, but now
     More helpless than the litter of a sow,
     And--oh, well! Send the women-folks to Nance.''
     ``Poor little devil! Born without a chance!''

  Then I want to say to my colleagues one more thing, and then I'll 
stop. This is when you speak on the floor. I hope my colleagues will 
get a chance to read this because it's really important:

     Drop a pebble in the water: just a splash, and it is gone;
     But there's half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on,
     Spreading, spreading from the center, flowing on out to the 
           sea,
     And there is no way of telling where the end is going to be.
     Drop a pebble in the water: in a minute you forget,
     But there's little waves a-flowing, and there's ripples 
           circling yet,
     And those little waves a-flowing to a great big wave have 
           grown;
     You've disturbed a mighty river just by dropping in a stone.
     Drop an unkind word, or careless: in a minute it is gone;
     But there's half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on.
     They keep spreading, spreading, spreading from the center as 
           they go,
     And there is no way to stop them, once you've started them to 
           flow.
     Drop an unkind word, or careless: in a minute you forget;
     But there's little waves a-flowing and there's ripples 
           circling yet.
     And perhaps in some sad heart a mighty wave of tears you've 
           stirred,
     And disturbed one who was happy, ere you dropped that unkind 
           word.
     Drop a word of cheer and kindness: just a flash and it is 
           gone;
     But there's half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on,
     Bearing hope and joy and comfort on each splashing, dashing 
           wave,
     Till you wouldn't believe the volume of the one kind word you 
           gave.
     Drop a word of cheer and kindness: in a minute you forget;
     But there's gladness still a-swelling, and there's joy 
           circling yet.
     And you've rolled a wave of comfort whose sweet music can be 
           heard
     Over miles and miles of water, just by dropping one kind 
           word.

                              {time}  2020

  So, if I were talking to my colleagues tonight, I'd say to think 
about your colleagues and their families and the troubles that they 
have and the heartache they're feeling, and to think about the words 
that you're saying to them and the kind of attitude that you're 
creating in your colleagues and their families by the things you're 
saying. Fight for the things you believe in, but remember, there's 
another human being over there who can be helped or hurt just by what 
you're saying on the floor of the House of Representatives or in the 
United States Senate.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________