Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Ohio mentioning Lane Evans. The point of this time is to recognize two of our colleagues who have have passed. We want to remember them. I appreciate Marcy for those kind words about Lane Evans.…
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Ohio mentioning Lane Evans. The point of this time is to recognize two of our colleagues who have have passed. We want to remember them. I appreciate Marcy for those kind words about Lane Evans.
I am going to manage this hour. So with respect to my colleagues who are down here, I would like to yield to Congressman Hultgren.
I thank my colleague. It is great that you took the time out to come. A lot of our colleagues want to come down but are caught up with time issues.
General Leave
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
As I said, Mr. Speaker, we want to recognize two colleagues whom I served with. Congressman Hultgren mentioned Phil Crane and Congresswoman Kaptur mentioned Lane Evans. Both were colleagues of mine that I was fortunate to serve with, so I am going to talk about both of those at this time.
Lane was born in Rock Island, Illinois. On August 4, 1951, he joined the Marines at the age of 17. He had orders for Vietnam, but he served in Okinawa, Japan, as a security guard because his older brother was already deployed in the war.
In 1982, Lane was first elected from his western Illinois district and served for an additional 12 terms. He worked for more than a decade after his Parkinson's diagnosis, but announced in 2006 that he wouldn't seek reelection because of his deteriorating health.
As a Congressman, he fought for the rights of veterans and became the senior Democrat on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. He pushed legislation to help those exposed to agent orange and to give former servicemembers' rights to judicial review in pursuing their benefits. He also campaigned for veterans grappling with post-traumatic stress disorders and other health problems.
As I know Lane, he was very adamant and focused on serving the veterans. He also was one of the first to start talking about the concerns of veterans in finding jobs after their service. President Obama credited Lane Evans with aiding his own political rise, saying once that he wouldn't have made it to the U.S. Senate without early support from his fellow Illinoisan.
Lane is survived by his three brothers.
Lane and I bordered each other in our congressional districts. We split the community of Adams County and a little bit of a town called Quincy. When you share congressional border lines with a colleague, you do numerous events together. And when they are of different parties, they are even more important because there are so many things that unite us. A lot of times there is a view that there is always division here, but back home when we are working on issues like infrastructure, roads, bridges, and veterans' benefits, it really is a chance for the public to see Members working together.
So I relished my time meeting and serving with Congressman Evans as we shared a congressional boundary line. He gave his all to his country. He gave his all to this country through his service as a Member of Congress, and he fought a very tough fight against Parkinson's. He would still be here today had he not had this debilitating disease that forced him to leave public service.
I will remember Lane well. I wish God's blessing to his family.
We also want to take this time to remember Congressman Phil Crane.
Congressman Crane was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 3, 1930. He received his undergraduate degree from Hillsdale College in 1952, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in history from Indiana University in 1963. He also served in the United States Army from 1954 to 1956.
In 1969, Phil Crane won a special election race triggered by the appointment of then-Illinois Congressman Donald Rumsfeld to the Nixon administration. He served in that seat from 1969 until his defeat in 2004.
In the 1970s, Congressman Crane was instrumental in founding, as was mentioned by my colleague, Congressman Hultgren, the Republican Study Committee, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Conservative Union, stalwarts of the view of conservatism who lead the way in the debate of conservatism in this country.
So I reached out to friends of mine this afternoon, Don and Wanda Weder, who reside in Highland, Illinois, because they were very close to Congressman Crane, and I would like to read from some remembrances that were put down on my behalf to submit for the Record:
We met Phil in 1964 when my father arranged for Barry
Goldwater, Jr., and Phil to speak at the Highland High School
auditorium concerning the Presidential campaign of Barry
Goldwater. Phil and Barry, Jr., delivered excellent speeches.
My father, Wanda, and I were amazed at Phil's intellect and
the fact that he spoke eloquently, including detailed budget
numbers and cogent economic theory, all without notes.
Let me interject here, for those of us who served with Phil, that was true then and it was true when he served here in Washington.
At that time, Phil was a professor of history at Bradley
University. In 1966, I transferred from the University of
Illinois to Bradley, at my father's suggestion, to enable
attending Phil's classes and those of Professor Nicholas
Nyaradi, the former Minister of Hungary prior to and during
World War II. The first of Phil's classes I attended was a
lecture series with about 300 students.
Phil typically arrives in the auditorium about 5 minutes
after his aides had imposed order on the students. He entered
impressively, at a brisk pace, and with the Chicago Tribune
and other papers under his arm.
Placing the papers on the podium, he greeted the class and
began a wonderful lecture, citing facts, dates, describing
personalities, and humorous anecdotes, all with no reference
to notes. His most memorable lectures were those on the
Spanish American War and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt.
His lecture on TR was so memorable that I could recite most
of it today: TR commandeering two leaky boats to transport
the Rough Riders to Cuba; TR being down to his last pair of
glasses at the time of the charge up San Juan Hill; the
deficiencies of the Rough Riders' lever-action Craig rifles
being outranged by the Spanish 1898 Mausers; and the real
hero at the Battle of San Juan Hill, a young second
lieutenant recently graduated from West Point and leading a
platoon equipped with Gatling guns.
In 1969, Donald Rumsfeld was appointed by President Nixon
to head the Office of Economic Opportunity, and Phil decided
to run for the congressional seat vacated, the 13th Illinois
District.
I graduated from Bradley that spring and spent a good deal
of my time attempting to be of some service to Phil in his
campaign. He referred to his philosophy as conservatism, an
approach I thought daring at the time. He attended many
``teas'' throughout the district and was always received,
especially by the lady voters who were the primary attendees.
In subsequent campaigns, I had the privilege of flying Phil
around Illinois. Phil frequently introduced me generously as
his best student and a Bradley summa cum laude.
I recall him sitting next to me in a single-engine Cessna
on a trip from Springfield to Vandalia when I asked him what
he intended to say to the group of voters in Vandalia. Phil
commented, ``I have no idea. I will have to think fast.''
On another occasion, I asked him if his exceptional
speaking skills came to him naturally. He said, ``No. I
developed them by forcing myself to speak publicly and turn
the cobwebs in my brain into high voltage electrical
cables.''
Phil was not only exceptional mentally. Hunting rabbits and
quail with my father and me, he demonstrated considerable
skill
with a shotgun. His endurance was phenomenal.
In 1980, Phil ran in the primaries against Ronald Reagan,
John Connolly, and others. Phil campaigned on an intellectual
plane. He was obviously the most capable and sincere
candidate.
Had Phil been elected, he would have made his best efforts
to move the country to smaller government, greater personal
liberties, and a more nearly free market economy. Phil
enjoyed the New Hampshire debates and commented that Reagan
was well-received, primarily as a result of the old B movie
lines he used.
During President Reagan's second term, I commented to Phil
that the President had not actually made any real progress in
reducing the size of government and establishing a free
market economy. He invited my father and 11 other people to
meet about twice monthly in Washington to advise him.
My father was hospitalized prior to an early meeting of
this group, and Phil asked me to attend. Thereafter, the
group asked me to be the 13th member of group. Phil's
campaign accountant left the campaign. We could not find the
financial records. His political adviser had not had a bad
day. He also left the campaign.
His lead staff person left the campaign and joined the
Reagan campaign, later to receive an appointment under the
Reagan administration. Phil wound down the campaign and
stumped for Reagan.
A few months later, he commented to me, ``I have not had a
bad day since the campaign ended.'' In 1987, Phil told me
that President Reagan always treated him courteously but
seldom sought his input. He believed that the First Lady was
adverse to him because he sought the nomination in 1980.
Phil and Barry Goldwater, Jr., delivered eulogies at the
funeral of my father and mother in 1987 and 2005. Both
recalled many years of happy times and were most touching.
You know better than I Phil's legislative contributions.
Two major successes in which he played a significant part
were the bill that legalized ownership of gold by private
citizens and the Freedom of Information legislation.
Phil was an inspiration to his students, his constituents,
and the many advocates of personal liberty who heard him
speak or read his literary works. His passing represents an
irreplaceable loss of knowledge, capability, and spirit to
our society and all who pursue the ideal of liberty.
So I couldn't put into words any better than what my good friends Don and Wanda Weder did in a short time in doing remembrance of someone they knew very well.
I know I have other colleagues coming down to make sure they make their voices heard. I was fortunate to serve with Phil. I was fortunate to go sit in his office in the Cannon Building, around with colleagues talking about public policy issues of the day. It will be times that I fondly remember.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.