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At the 2000 annual Maine Town Meeting, Dr. Nancy Cott, from the Center for Advanced Studies at Yale University, addressed the issue of "Women of Conscience in Public Life," and spoke about the women who have provided a moral consciousness in American politics. Cott spoke about Eleanor Roosevelt, Jeannette Rankin, Dorothy Thompson, and Margaret Chase Smith, all women who "felt they had enough to say." "Women could and did impact a needed morality," said Cott. "Women became the 'municipal housekeepers.'" Margaret Chase Smith was born a little too late to be a suffragist. She "dipped" into leadership in her contacts with women-only, civic organizations. The Business and Professional Women's Club was crucial to her career. Both Jeannette Rankin and Smith shared the pattern of bonding and indebtedness with women's organizations. Smith did not neglect women's issues and thought of herself as doing a great deal for women by setting an example. Since Smith was "hawkish" on the military, her early days on the Naval Affairs Committee prompted her action in helping to secure permanent status for women in the military. "Since wars are man-made, perhaps peace should be woman-made," said Smith. Eleanor Roosevelt was known for her moral idealism. She was the conscience of the New Deal, having learned the ways of politics by serving as her husband's right-hand man. Said Eleanor, "women must learn to play the game as men do." Certainly Smith learned to play the game -- serving more than thirty-two years in both chambers of Congress.
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Copyright ©1999 Margaret Chase Smith Library. |