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Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, with the death of Armand F. Cocco, Sr., I, and I might add Senator Roth, have lost a good friend, and my State of Delaware has lost one of its most conscientious citizens. With his wife and constant teammate of 47 years, Anna Zebley Cocco, he devoted a lifetime to energetic service to others.

Mr. Cocco, a member of the Delaware Industrial Accident Board, was a 45-year member of the Plumbers & Pipe Fitters Union Local 74, acting as their political liaison for the union and testifying in court for workers who had been diagnosed with asbestosis. He had no formal education beyond high school, but he was a student of human nature and a skillful advocate who gained impressive achievements for his community without ever claiming any character other than that of an ordinary citizen. He was my friend for more than 25 years, but he could still surprise me with interests and talents of which I had been unaware. He never stopped.

I first met Armand Cocco when I was a young man, a member of the New Castle County Council and a candidate for the U.S. Senate. It was then that he and his wife asked whether I would meet with them, and they came charging full-blown into my office with their usual brisk enthusiasm about a plan that was going to widen a four-lane highway, an expressway through one of our oldest suburban communities. As they saw it, they were going to convert this modestly busy local road into an expressway that would divide and overshadow their community, literally divide their community right down the middle. And as Anna said, it would amount to a `Chinese wall' in this older, stable community. They were determined to stop it, with the determination they shared, confidently and persistently, with Delaware public officials of both major parties.

I know it will surprise no one in this body that energized citizens often change the outcome of a predetermined decision. A quarter of a century later, that expressway still stops literally at the threshold of the community they were so resolute in defending.

If Armand and Anna Cocco were a political force to be reckoned with--and they certainly were--they were also friends whose support could be counted on by public officials in both parties, as our Democratic Governor Tom Carper could tell you and my Republican colleague, Senator Roth, as well as my Republican colleague, Congressman Castle could testify.

Armand Cocco was an adroit and accomplished political activist but no party could claim his exclusive allegiance. No party could claim a narrow partisan interest on his part, but he consistently worked for the public interest. He was a very demanding citizen, but he never asked more than he was willing to give. And shoulder to shoulder, along with his remarkable wife, Anna, he would work with whomever was willing to work for the public interest. Anna survives him, and I am confident she will continue to get things done, although she has lost a very, very potent partner.

Mr. President, no one, no community, can lose a friend like Armand Cocco without feeling sad, but the sadness attending his passing has an especially melancholy quality for me and many of his friends because we fear that in losing him we are also losing one of the last examples of American value and of an American personality that we can ill-afford to move on without--the public-spirited private citizen with a traditional sense of community responsibility that has historically enabled us to deal with a range of social problems that simply lie beyond the capacity of government alone to resolve. The balance between public interest and private interests, the tension between individualism and community responsibility, has been losing the equilibrium that de Tocqueville identified over 150 years ago as the secret to our American democracy.

That growing imbalance is perhaps our greatest national problem today, but it was never a problem for Armand Cocco. He was as strong a personality with a keen sense of the individual as anyone I have ever met. But he knew how to strike a proper balance between his personal aspirations and the needs of his community. He was and will always remain among all those who knew him a model of good citizenship in a democratic society, and an assurance that our democracy will survive if we take his lifelong example to heart.

Mr. President, a very personal note. He was also a loyal friend to my deceased wife. When she passed away, it was Armand Cocco who went to the citizens of that small community and asked that the park be dedicated in her name, the name of which it still carries.

And lastly, I was on my way down here to vote on Friday, but the funeral was Friday. I thought it was important to vote, but I decided--and I must say it publicly to my constituents--it was more important for me to go to the funeral because of a public man like him, who had contributed so much; so I did not come down. I went and expressed my sympathies to his wife, Anna, and to his daughter, and all of the family.

I thank the Chair for its indulgence and allowing me to speak.

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