The Missoulian from Missoula, Montana • 118

M8 Missoulian, Sunday, October 24, 1999 MONTANANS JUU Jeannette Rankin Committed to equality and nonviolence, she cast votes against both world wars By PAT WILLIAMS for the Missoulian She must have been persistent, patient, stubborn and dogged, with a streak of irrepressibleness that made her unforgettable. It should have been no surprise when, in 1968, with many hundreds of women marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., there at the head of the protest was Jeannette Rankin. At 88 years old, she had voted against World War I 51 years earlier, later against World War II, and now she was marching against the Vietnam War. This daughter of Montana, the first tl'' Bte'itg'W i vvv A 'Look at Jeannette Rankin. Probably a hundred men in Congress would have liked to do what she did.

Not one of them had the courage to do it' woman ever elected to Congress, protesting again, resolutely standing up just as she had in 1917 and again in 1941, that time alone, marching against war once more. Vietnam continued and the back of her horse, and cared for the children of Butte's widows. In far away New Zealand, she had watched women vote and because of what she saw, neither Montana nor America would ever be the same. She had been preparing herself and she came to realize the power and influence of an individual determined to carry out her conscience. "The American woman must be bound to American obligation, not through her husband's citizenship, but through her own," she said with a determination the voters of Montana found irresistible.

In 1916, Ms. Rankin was elected to the U.S. House before women in America could vote. Her first vote on her first day in office was against World War I. Two years later, she left Congress voluntarily.

Almost 24 years later, she was again elected from Montana to Congress and again, in 1941, she was called upon to vote on war. Again she voted no this time she was alone. In response to that vote, the renowned editor William Allen White wrote an editorial in the Emporia Gazette: "Rudyard Kipling coined the phrase: 'The female of the species is more deadly that the Well look at Jeannette Rankin. Probably a hundred men in Congress would have liked to do what she did. Not one of them had the courage to do it.

The Gazette entirely disagrees with the wisdom of her position. But, Lord, it was a brave thing! And its bravery some way discounted its folly. "When, a hundred years from now, courage, sheer courage based upon moral indignation, is celebrated in this country, the name of Jeannette Rankin, who stood firm in folly for her faith, will be written in monumental bronze not for what she did but for the way she did it." Jeannette Rankin died in May of 1973, one month before her 93rd birthday. A bronze likeness of her stands in the United States Capitol "providing a permanent reminder of a courageous woman who devoted her life to turning a vision into reality. "As leader of the suffrage campaign that enfranchised Montana women in 1914, she introduced legislation which led to the enfranchisement in 1919 of all women citizens of the United States.

"Her leadership and dedication to the improvement and well-being of women and children through legislation and her lifelong dedication to peace earned her a special place of honor in the hearts of women everywhere." Pat Williams was Montana 's Western District congressman for 18 years and is now a senior fellow at the University of Montana 's Center for the Rocky Mountain West. I 4 ft I 7 A 1 f' and so did the Rankin protests. She led a second "Rankin Brigade" to Washington, D.C., in June of 1970, this time leading 5,000 women. While she was making her rounds in Washington, then-majority leader Mike Mansfield realized that June 1 1 was Ms. Rankin's 90th birthday.

lie brought a few dozen people, mostly Montanans, together on the evening of the 1 Ith for a birthday dinnufajjfty honoring Ms. Rankin. Montana's Sen. Lee Metcalf spoke during the brief birthday program and poignantly referred to Ms. Rankin, saying, "She made it easier to represent Montana independently." Metcalf, recalling that the Rankin career had extended 60 years, said, "She spoke for child welfare, of industrial and labor problems, of economic maladjustment, the need for raw materials, the interdependence of all nations in distribution of the world's goods, the pressure of growing populations, social injustice, racial prejudice." Ms.

Rankin's passionate proposals taken together with her legislative accomplishments make it hard to imagine that her entire elected career lasted only four years two terms. At the dinner, Ms. Rankin's remarks were brief and, characteristically, direct to the point. A few words about the futility and brutality of war, a mention about the dangers of inequality, a joke about "my wig 1 hope it isn't crooked," and she sat down. Following the dinner, the author of this piece had the opportunity to talk with her.

"Ms. Rankin, of what are you most proud?" She answered without hesitation, "I would liked to have been remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give all women the right to vote." She also went on to tell me that if she had to vote again, she would again -i i hi Montana Hlatortcal Soclaly A peace advocate her entire life, Jeannette Rankin voted against both world wars as a congresswoman and marched against the Vietnam War as a private citizen. school teacher mother and an entrepreneurial father, both of whom settled at 134 Madison St. in Missoula. Jeannette, the oldest daughter of seven children, spent her early days on the place north of Missoula.

Later she taught in Whitehall and at 24 years of age she went east, returning later to Montana with memories of rotting urban neighborhoods, the poor and disposed. Soon she was immersed in social reforms in San Francisco and then onto Seattle and the audacity of political change women's suffrage. Back in Montana and almost 30 years old, she had walked the slums in New York City, talked with Boston's poor, lectured from the hood of her Model vote no on war. "You sec," she said, her voice rising with determination, "I wasn't the only member of Congress to despise war, but I was the only one, because I am a woman, who was not allowed to join. My brothers would go, but I could not inequality." For Ms.

Rankin, however, her opposition to war was built on more than her personal finding of "inequality." In 1919, she had written, "There can be no compromise with, war; it cannot be reformed or controlled; cannot be disciplined into decency or codified into common sense, for war is the slaughter of human beings, temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale as possible." This daughter of Montana had a.