Speaking for the Speaker

THOMAS P. "TIP" O'Neill Jr. often recounts how, as a boy, he cut the grass in Harvard Yard. Since those years, O'Neill has done at least as much for his community and nation as the greatest whom Harvard has favored with degrees.

The naming of honorary degree recipients, like so many other decisions made in the name of the University community, is the affair of a few Corporation members and University overseers. Consequently all we know about this year's 10 honorands is that Richard von Weizsacker, the West German president who will give the commencement address, will certainly be among them. If O'Neill does not join the West German statesman on June 11, Harvard will have failed to recognize a hometown boy who has earned national distinction serving the Cambridge community the University shares.

O'Neill retired from his congressional seat in 1986 after representing the Eighth Congressional District for 30 years. As speaker during the last decade of his tenure in the House, O'Neill raised his forceful voice against those who would forget our society's disadvantaged. He led the opposition to Reagan Administration plans that threatened Social Security and aid for education. When Reagan's popularity was at its height, O'Neill's opposition was politically costly, and the speaker was mercilessly lampooned in cartoons. Yet O'Neill's determination to maintain government as the champion of the disadvantaged never waivered. The nation is greater for O'Neill's efforts.

O'Neill, despite his national prominence, always lived by his adage, "all politics is local." He still has his hair cut at the same barbershop he patronized as a boy. Honoring O'Neill is the least Harvard could do to recognize its intimate relationship with the community and to display esteem for a Cambridge boy who has distinguished himself beyond need for additional honor.