EMERSON'S LEGACY

It isn't every day that the White House chief of staff, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the House minority leader, both U.S. senators and a large delegation of Congress arrives in Cape Girardeau for a funeral. Such was the case Thursday morning, however, for Rep. Bill Emerson's historic services at the First Presbyterian Church.

The service was a stirring memorial tribute. It had Bill Emerson stamped all over it, from the ritual to the Bible verses to the unforgettable solos of Pastor Wintley Phipps to the congregational singing, including five hymns selected for the occasion by the good Presbyterian boy from Hillsboro himself.

Between Bill's death Saturday evening and Wednesday, Sen. Kit Bond had pushed through both houses his bill to name the new Cape Girardeau bridge after the late congressman. As this was one of the final fruits of Emerson's untiring work, one for which he had been fighting for years, the honor is fitting and highly proper.

Emerson's real legacy, though, isn't anything so tangible as a bridge. Rather, it is a legacy of decency and honesty, forthrightness and integrity. For nearly 16 years he represented the people of Missouri with the very straight-shooting nature he promised when first introducing himself back in 1980. It is said that Americans are cynical about politics, turned off by officeholders who say one thing and do another. Future aspirants and current officeholders alike can look to the Emerson example for a way out of this morass, this slough of despond.

On Thursday afternoon, as chief of staff Lloyd Smith eloquently phrased it, Bill Emerson's life journey "ended where it began," with burial in the Hillsboro of his beloved Jefferson County, next to the county commissioner grandfather who helped stir his earliest political awakenings. That grandfather admonished him, "Billy, listen to the people." There's one lesson, obviously, that took. His successor, no matter the party or other orientation, has a lot to live up to.