Honor and good faith and justice are equally due from this country toward the weak as toward the strong.
Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.
Henry Clay (1777-1852) was an American lawyer and statesman. He served in both houses of the American Congress. He spent his adult life in the state of Kentucky.
Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.
Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breath.
Langston Hughes (1901-1967) was an American writer and social activist. He was an influential leader of the Harlem Renaissance.
A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of the heart.
Candor is a compliment; it implies equality. It’s how true friends talk.
Peggy Noonan (born 1950) is an American writer who contributes regularly to various news outlets. Her past experiences also include serving as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan in the mid-1980s.
Growing up near Missoula, Montana, Jeannette Rankin was destined for a life of service to her country as well as other causes dear to her heart.
Born in 1880, Rankin lived on her family’s ranch in western Montana. The Treasure State was still recognized as an American territory, and Statehood would not be attained until 1889. In 1902, she graduated with a degree in Biology from Montana State University (now called University of Montana).
As a progressive member of the Republican Party, Rankin became the first American woman elected to a federal office. In 1916, she was victorious in her bid to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She would later be elected to a second term in 1940.
Rankin supported social welfare causes for improving working conditions and health care for women. She also worked tirelessly to help women earn the right to vote in the states of Washington and Montana. Both states granted this right in 1910 and 1914, respectively. Her efforts joined with other women in gaining universal suffrage for all in 1919 with passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
While Rankin has remained the only Montana woman ever elected to serve in Congress, she has been most remembered for her unwavering stance on war and peace.
During her first term in Congress, President Woodrow Wilson sent a declaration of war request to both houses of Congress. Joined by 49 other votes against America’s entry into World War I, Rankin cast her vote against the resolution.
Sometimes history will find a way of repeating itself, and this was the case with Rankin in 1941. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt sent a declaration of war request to Congress. With unbendable political courage, she cast the lone vote against America’s entry into World War II.
A lifelong pacifist, Rankin’s two votes against war demonstrated her resolute belief in preventing it. She became the only member of Congress to vote against America’s entry into both World Wars. Her own words say it best, “As a woman I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.”
Rankin’s votes against entry into war terminated her future in politics. She unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1918, and she did not run for re-election to the U.S. House in 1942.
Prior to her death in 1973, Rankin served as a passionate voice for including equality and women’s rights in Montana’s new constitution, which replaced the original one approved in 1889.
We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
To live anywhere in the world today, and be against equality because of race of color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.
Big Sky Buckeye 