“Gallant Warrior for Peace”
by Dr. Joan Hoff, Research Professor of History, Montana State University

(Remarks by Dr. Hoff at the dedication of Jeannette Rankin’s statue in the United States Capitol, May 1, 1985.)

DR. HOFF: It is fitting that we honor Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) today because she remains one of the most controversial and unique women in Montana and American political history. As the first woman ever elected to a legislative body in a western democracy; namely, the House of Representatives, and the only member of Congress to oppose U.S. entrance into both World Wars, Jeannette Rankin’s commitment to the cause of peace and equality grew steadily throughout her long life. From a young participant in the Progressive, Peace, and Suffrage Movements of the early 20th Century, for over the next 50 years she served her country as a “gallant warrior for peace and justice.”

The publicity surrounding her two votes against the First and Second World Wars caused great furor in Montana and the Nation in 1917 and, especially in 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The media again focused on her antiwar activities in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In fact, her public career surged and waned in 25 year cycles because of the three major wars the United States has fought in this century: World I, World War II, and Vietnam. Whether in or out of the limelight, however, Jeannette Rankin never ceased her fight for peace. Moreover, the media attention she received during these war periods should not blind us to the other historically unique and controversial aspects of her career.

For example, Jeannette Rankin stood out among most of the female pacifists before World War I because she did not have an eastern, Quaker background. Instead, she came from that rough and tough Western State of Montana, known primarily in the first quarter of this century for its cowboy and mining traditions. At no time did she attribute any of her reform beliefs or her pacifism to religion. In contrast to most suffrage and peace advocates of her time, Rankin credited her home State for most her beliefs.

In a 1916 article entitled, “Why the West Leads the East in the Recognition of Women,” she stated unequivocally that Montana in particular, and the West in general, created a unique physical environment-one we now associate with frontier or pioneer life- that had a profound impact on both women and men as they struggled to settle the land. Because they shared frontier burdens equally, Rankin thought that western men were likely to accept the idea of sexual equality and equal rights for women to a greater degree than their eastern counterparts.

Since the five other statues of women in the National Statuary Hall are all from Midwestern or Western States, there is perhaps some truth to her conviction that the West appreciated its women more than the East. Historians, however, no longer categorically endorse the Turner thesis about the equalitarian impact the West had on it’s inhabitants. However, Rankin did, and we must honor that conviction by not imposing our own views on what she thought accounted for her strong predisposition for social justice and peace. “Men in the West,“ she said in 1972 when she was 92 years old, “had experienced pioneer ways and pioneer conditions and so they gave women the vote and then women decided to use the ballot to improve things, don’t you know.”

Unlike other peace-oriented suffrage leaders before the First World War, Jeannette Rankin was not content with simply helping to win the vote for Montana women in 1914. Instead, this petite, yet strong-willed Montanan decided in 1916 to become the first woman in the country to run for the House of Representatives. Alone among women suffragists of her generation she was later able to say: “…the first time I voted…in 1916…I voted for myself.” Montana’s early enfranchisement of women made her candidacy for national office prior to the passage of the 19th amendment possible.

Aside from her willingness to assume public office after obtaining the right to vote, another unique and controversial feature of Jeannette Rankin’s views made her the first proponent of what today is called the gender gap. Following World War I she remained absolutely convinced until her death that women would play a crucial role in preserving peace.

Long before public opinion polls told us that women in the United States tend to favor peaceful solutions to world problems more than men, Rankin had come to a singular and powerful conclusion-women and peace were inseparable. Speaking in the early 1920’s in favor of disarmament she was really describing what we refer to as the gender gap when she said:

“The peace problem is a woman’s problem. Disarmament will not be won without their aid. So long as they shirk…something will be radically wanting in the peace activities of the public and the state…I am aware that men are disposed to look down on the temperamental pacifism of women (which in spite of all the exceptions is a psychological fact) as something that the manly man would scorn to imitate. However, there is no other way that I can see in which peace can be realized except through forbearance from fighting on the part of men as well as women…Therefore peace is a woman’s job.”

 

Timeline

1880
Born on June 11, in Missoula Montana, the eldest of seven children.

1902
Graduates from the University of Montana with a degree in Biology.

1904
Father John Rankin dies of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

1908
Leaves Montana to study at the New York School of Philanthropy

1909-1914
Works for the Suffrage Cause in Washington, California, Ohio and Montana.

1914
Montana women win the right to vote.

1916
Jeannette Rankin runs successfully for a seat in the U.S. Congress and becomes the first woman ever to be elected.

1917
Congresswoman Rankin is one of 56 members who votes against declaring war on Germany (WWI)

1918
Congresswoman Rankin runs unsuccessfully for a second term.

1919-1939
Rankin moves to Georgia and works as a lobbyist for Peace. Founded Georgia Peace Society.

1940
Returns to Montana to run successfully for Congress on a anti-war platform.

1941
Congresswoman Rankin is the only member of Congress to vote against declaration of war against Japan. This ends her political career but not her activism.

1946
Drawn to the work of Mohatma Gandhi, she travels to India.

1948-1971
Gandhi is assassinated. Rankin travels the world and to India six more times.

1968
Jeannette Rankin marches with 5,000 women in Washington D.C. to protest the Vietnam War under the banner “The Jeannette Rankin Peace Parade.” She was 88 years old.

1970
Honored on her 90th birthday in Washington D.C. and given a standing ovation.

1973
Dies on May 18, in Carmel, California.

1985
A bronze statue of Rankin is placed in the U.S. Capitol.

© 2005, Allyson Adams • info@peaceisawomansjob.com • (406) 843-5258