Political Quotes

“I rise today to join my senior colleague, Senator Reed, in tribute to the memory of a great public servant and a great friend, Jay Joseph Garrahy, former Governor of Rhode Island, who passed away last week at the age of 81. At his funeral services this week, he was remembered by an enormous crowd for his warmth, for his kindness, and for his steady leadership of our State. Joe Garrahy was born in Providence, RI to a blue-collar, Irish immigrant family. He worked his way through Catholic school, and he served in the Air National Guard and in the Air Force during the Korean war. He came back home from the war and went to work as a beer salesman for our Narragansett Brewery. He was what they fittingly called a Narragansett Goodwill Man. And, as Senator Reed has explained, Joe Garrahy brought good will wherever he went. He turned to politics and to public service with the 1960 Presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy. Joe followed his path himself, ultimately, with election to the Rhode Island Senate, and then he was elected statewide as Lieutenant Governor, and then served two terms as Rhode Island's Governor--serving as Chief of State in the very statehouse where his mother had once cleaned floors. It was a beautiful American success story for him to rise to lead the statehouse that his mother had cleaned.…”