Maurice Hinchey: “I first met Jerry almost a quarter of a century ago. I had just been elected to the New York State Legislature, and it…”

“I first met Jerry almost a quarter of a century ago. I had just been elected to the New York State Legislature, and it was late in the year, 1974, I think December. And I was going through the legislative office building, and the place was pretty dark and empty. I walked down the hall, and all the offices were dark. There was no one there, except I came upon this one office with the door opened. I looked inside, and there was someone working assiduously at a desk. It turned out to be Jerry Solomon. Mr. Speaker, that is the first time I met him. He made an impression on me that particular occasion, only because I remember it after all of these years. And that impression was not a false one. It was a very accurate one. The impression was simply this: that this was a man who was dedicated to his work; this was a man dedicated to his profession and to the people who elected him; this was a man dedicated to his work. He has lived up to that impression every single day that I have known him in the intervening 24 years.”