Hon. Michael G. Oxley: “it is a tribute to Bill Emerson that we are here in going on now 2 hours eulogizing him and remembering him. He was a…”

“it is a tribute to Bill Emerson that we are here in going on now 2 hours eulogizing him and remembering him. He was a Member of my class, the 97th class, even though I caught up with him about 7 months later because I came in a special election in 1981. Bill was one of the first people to come over and extend a hand and help me with this great transition from the State legislature to the Congress. Recently I had an opportunity to participate in a congressional study group on Germany meeting in Bill's district in Cape Girardeau and, unfortunately, Bill was unable to attend because he was having treatment back here at Georgetown. As a result, some of the Members that were out there listened to Bill call in, and we were there with members of the German Bundestag, and it was so evident what pride Bill took in his district and his constituency. He even gave us a book from Mark Twain that had a specific part of the book marked where Mark Twain talks about Cape Girardeau and that area, and the German members of the Bunderstag were so impressed with Bill's commitment and his strong feeling about German-American relationships and the strong number of German-Americans that were in his district. He was a person who everybody in this House could look up to and yet feel that they were a friend on an equal basis. We will miss his great honesty, his humor.…”