James T. Callahan: “Joe Moakley was a friend, a true friend. In reflecting on Joe's history here in this House of Representatives, he…”

“Joe Moakley was a friend, a true friend. In reflecting on Joe's history here in this House of Representatives, he recognized something that very few first-term Members of Congress, very few second-term Members of Congress recognize: that this is an institution that runs solely on respect. It is an institution of compromise where you must compromise. You do not compromise your principles; you compromise the issue of the day in order to keep our country running. Joe Moakley chaired the Committee on Rules when we were in the minority. Mr. Speaker, I told this to Joe Moakley, that sometimes he could come up with some of the darnedest recognitions of power that that committee has of anybody I have ever known. Some of the statements that he was in the minority when he was ranking member on the Committee on Rules, I accused Joe at dinner one night of going back into the 1980s and extracting some of the opposition's opposition to a rule. We were fighting the same rule that Joe Moakley had devised then. And now Joe Moakley was fighting the same rules that Joe Moakley had devised. This institution, it is a mystical institution; and few people understand what we are all about. They do not think that we have families and that we love one another in this House, that we have respect for one another. The only thing they see is partisan division. Well, Joe Moakley and I overcame that. We would have dinner quite often together, and we would not talk about issues on the floor.…”