On the recordJanuary 25, 1994
I would like to start by thanking the dean of our Massachusetts delegation, Mr. Moakley, for organizing this opportunity to join with my colleagues from Massachusetts in tribute to a great speaker and a truly great man, Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill. For those of us who live in Massachusetts his passing is especially sad. I offer my condolences to his entire family. As a young man growing up on the streets of his beloved North Cambridge neighborhood, Tip learned the compassion, the caring and the integrity that were the hallmarks of his long and distinguished career in public service. He rose to become the first Democratic speaker of the Massachusetts great and general court, a body in which I served for 22 years. From his election in 1952 to his retirement in 1987, the people of the Eighth Congressional District of Massachusetts chose Tip O'Neill to represent their interests in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has been said that the Speaker never forgot his roots. The sting of his defeat in an election to the Cambridge city council spawned his often repeated quote ``All politics is local.'' The famous quote, that came from his father, served as his guiding principle. He always asked for your vote and offered his record as evidence for why he deserved it. He may have been the Speaker of the House, but he was still the same man the people sent to Washington.
