Speech by
REPRESENTATIVE PATSY T. MINK
At the
OREGON DEMOCRATIC WOMEN’S CAUCUS
Pacific Suite
Sheraton Hotel, Portland, Oregon, 7:30 P.M.
November 20, 1971
Senator Neuberger, I am honored by your gracious introduction. All of you have been most generous to me and my husband, and we thank you for your many kindnesses. I am especially grateful to Carolyn Wilkins for inviting me to this dinner and for offering me this opportunity to address this most distinguished group.
Mrs. Neuberger’s presence reminds me that women in politics is not a rarity in Oregon. Along with Congresswoman Green, with whom I have the honor of serving in the House of Representatives, Mrs. Neuberger has shown the voters of Oregon what a woman can accomplish in national office. It is a tribute to the voters of Oregon that our Congress has received their most impressive contributions.
What is a fact in Oregon is only now slowly spreading across the
nation. Where once women were shunted aside into auxiliaries and
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ladies’ sewing circles, now they are banding together into more aggressive
groups and insisting on a meaningful say in the political process. This
caucus is just one further example of the numerous units across the
country meeting this very day to seek ways of becoming more effective as
a group. This emerging role of women in politics has caused a fair
degree of consternation among male contenders who fully realize that if
the potential power of womanhood is ever felt in this country, things are
going to be vastly different.
I do not disparage the male members of the audience in saying this
for I am sure they are fully aware of the need for change. The movement
for equal rights for women welcomes the participation of men who realize
that we are seeking only equality of opportunity, not superiority.
During most of our nation’s history, no woman would have dared to
declare herself a candidate for the Presidency. Indeed, it was felt
quite an accomplishment — and a fairly recent one at that — that we
were even allowed to vote! The extension of the franchise was the
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first stage of women’s introduction to politics, but the time has come
to enter Phase 2.
I can recall when I first began in politics, women were certainly
welcomed — as long as we limited our services to helping a man get
elected! We were expected to stuff the envelopes, make the phone calls,
get the coffee, and bask in the reflected glory of our accomplishments
when the man won the election. But somewhere along the way, women began·
wondering why it was always they who were in the supporting cast, and
why they never were called upon to make a contribution towards policy
decisions. I do not see one single woman policy maker for any of the
current male contenders for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Despite the lack of any affirmative encouragement, women have
nevertheless gradually infiltrated the ranks of the elected. Many women
are serving on school boards, although I see no reason why this should
be; husbands should have an equal interest and role in obtaining the
best education for their children. At any rate, the election of women
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has spread significantly to city councils and other legislative offices.
We have always stopped short of raising our aspirations to the
ultimate level — that of President of the United States. Because of
the awe most Americans hold for that office, indeed, the question in
most minds is whether any person is really worthy of that high honor.
I submit that there is no reason why a woman cannot fill that
office. History does not demonstrate the maxim of exclusive male wisdom.
On the past record alone, it would be difficult to imagine how any
woman could have done any worse.
When I testified on behalf of women’s rights at a National Democratic
meeting two years ago, one of the panelists asked how I had the
temerity to class this issue with such national priorities as the Vietnam
war and the state of the economy. He then stated his belief that
women were not physiologically qualified for high positions, such as the
Presidency. He contended that a woman could not have handled such an
emergency as the Cuban bay of pigs. I have to agree, because, it
would not have been permitted to occur!
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Claiming such a fiasco as justification for excluding women from
our nation’s highest elective office points out the hypocrisy of our
political system. I have always been a Kennedy supporter, but even I,
would not cite that disaster as any achievement at all!
To categorize the Vietnam war as a further case for male Presidents
is even more ridiculous. Most Americans now realize it was a tragic
blunder to become involved in the first place. Such being the case,
it seems obvious that we should have gotten out as quickly as possible.
But we seem to still have to prove something to somebody, and the war
drags on and on without end. How many realize that 19,000 of our sons
have died since President Nixon took office on a promise of Peace.
I certainly do not contend that male mistakes justify a woman
President. If a woman is elected to that office, I would acknowledge
that she could err as well. The point is that neither sex is infallible
and certainly neither can claim total superiority over the other.
If this is accepted, then one must ask: why not a woman President?
Obviously, tradition and custom are a major reason. It would be a major
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departure from all that has happened before
to suddenly proclaim such a belief in women’s leadership. But this is
the reason for my campaign here in Oregon.
Further, with blatant discrimination against women permeating all
our established institutions including politics, it is time for the
concept of absolute equality to become a national issue. Without a
woman contending for the Presidency, this will continue to be placed on
the backburner as warmed-over lip service.
I concede it would be a radical reversal of tradition to elect a
woman as President, and indeed if such a miracle happened this nation
might be catapulted into a fantastically different orbit.
We are at the brink of financial and moral bankruptcy. The big
business community must realize that things have deteriorated! Even
with policies designed to benefit the giant corporations, business still
cannot turn a decent profit. And the gross national product has
dropped. The plunging stock market shows business’ lack of confidence
in the prospect for economic growth.
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The President has decreed a New Economic Policy under which he hopes
to achieve by next year a reduction in inflation to a rate of two to
three percent a year, and reduce the unemployment rate to something like
four percent.
I would remind you that even if the President somehow manages to
achieve these goals, he still will have done nothing more than return
to the levels that existed on the day he took office in January, 1969.
Inflation then was at 3-3 percent, and unemployment at 4.2 percent.
Certainly it does not speak well for the Administration if the best
it hopes to do is to return us full circle to where we were when they
first started. Thirty-four months of economic downturn has caused
suffering among millions of families, not to mention immense business
losses and other economic reversals.
On April 28, 1970, Mr. Nixon told investment leaders: “Frankly,
if I had any money I’d be buying stocks right now.” The market fell in
May. American investors have lost more than $260 billion since Mr. Nixon
took office. I am certain few investors will now want to buy his “used
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stock.”
Obviously, our most important mission is to defeat Mr. Nixon in
This nation can hardly stand four more years of his bumbling
and erratic “leadership”. We are beginning to see through his technique
of televised stageshows as a substitute for substance. The staged tactic
of foreign policy spectaculars to hide the lack of progress in other
areas is like a television commercial in the middle of a horror movie.
I insist we need a total departure from the closed-off, corporation-centered
government which has marked the floundering course of the Nixon
Administration. Instead of military hardware and bonuses for bankers,
we need people programs that will emphasize the human needs in our society.
President Nixon has ignored our children, he has ignored the
poor, the sick, and the hungry. He has shunned the blacks, the elderly,
the working man, and the family. He has laid down a “work ethic” for
the average man and a “profit ethic” for the giant corporation, holding
that the “ethical man” should work so that big business can make a
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profit. Accordingly, some of the benefits will “trickle down” to th e
workers. The problem is that the trickle is imperceptible. My administration
would change this by giving increased benefits directly to
the workers and the average middle class families.
We need greatly increased efforts to help all the downtrodden
groups in our society. Instead of cutting down on Medicare, we should
institute completely free hospitalization for all persons. Instead of
reversing civil rights progress, we should expand positive programs
for equal opportunities for all racial minorities, broadening the
enforcement powers of the government. Instead of building up the war
machine, we should reduce the size of our military forces to pre-world
War II and use these funds instead for massive housing programs and for
curbing urban blight. Instead of polluting our air and our waters, we
should begin a mighty clean-up drive bringing increased employment
opportunities as well as preserving the environment for future generations.
Instead of vetoing education bills, we should be embarking on
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a dynamic expansion of educational opportunities for all, from preschool
to graduate school, and on to adult education. Instead of
detonating Cannikin in Alaska, we should be insisting on international
bans on all nuclear weapons testing.
Our country is sorely in need of change. Our children sense our
inability to turn ourselves around. They are leaving us. They are
refusing to perpetuate more of the same. I have agreed to offer
myself on the Presidential ballot in Oregon because to have refused
would have constituted a breach of faith with them!
Even liberal activist Democrats like myself have become discouraged
and disillusioned. I could simply crawl into some hole and
hibernate by contemplating my grief and refuse to engage in the
rather pathetic rhetoric which has captured hardly any except the
“regulars” who search desperately for a winner because another Nixon
term is untenable.
But I believe that in actuality only a small flame is needed to
ignite the smoldering masses of people who despair as we do but who
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want to believe again. People need to believe in before they will work
for any cause. Our task is to convince them that our politics will not
be the same.
I would not be here today with my own State constituency to worry
about, except for the fact that our nation is in desperate straits. I
cannot shirk my responsibility to help develop a policy for change.
Oregon voters willing, I shall add my voice to the demands for a
humanist approach to government.
Short of achieving the Presidency, I shall seek the national
podium of political confrontation with those who will, and voice the
demands that people, young and old, are the principle purpose for the
existence of any government.
We have condemned the War in Vietnam. We have called it a tragic
mistake. Our children listened and believed and thousands have forsaken
their birthright to fulfill their human commitment to life. I shall
demand Executive clemency so that all who want to return may do so without
penalty. It is time we have the courage to acknowledge their
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commitment and realize that it is ourselves who should be condemned
for our failure to ameliorate this heartrending choice which we required
our children to make because we could not see the purity of their
beliefs nor understand why they believed they had to so choose!
We should also insist that all servicemen who satisfactorily
completed a tour in Vietnam and who subsequently upon their return
ran into difficulties and were given a less than honorable discharge
be granted executive clemency. Many have been affected by drug addiction,
others by adjustment problems, and still others by bitterness
because of their experiences in Vietnam. Having fought for their
country and risked their lives, thousands of black servicemen particularly
return only to find that the country for whom they fought is
still intolerant and bigoted. Their protests on base have been met
with discharges under less than honorable conditions. In my view,.
this is a miserable way to reward them for their sacrifices. We must
not hazard their future nor deprive them of job opportunities by
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branding them with this needless dishonor.
We should turn the eyes of our country on the thousands who have
been permanently disabled from injuries sustained in the war, many of
whom still occupy the forgotten wards of our hospitals. However we
feel about the war, we must meet our obligation to these men who will
forever bear the scars and wounds of this ill-begotten episode.
We must restore in our youth their confidence in government.
The new generation of youth is different. They are imbued with a
sense of human values unparalleled in our history. They are concerned
about the legacy they shall inherit. They do not want a life of
meaningless labor. They seek the pure and simple treasures of our
land. We must find ways to harvest this marvelous spirit and to
mobilize their talents and energies in the pursuit of a better life.
I know that if they believe we truly seek their goals and aspirations,
that they will commit their energies in a joint resolve. Their current
disinterest and apathy in politics is a major indictment of our
system , which must be corrected.
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I am an optimist by nature. I believe there is hope in the
future. 1 believe that we can turn this nation around and generate a
prosperity which enriches our soul. Full employment to do the things
which benefit the quality of life. More schools, more teachers for
our children. More food for our hungry. More technology for a
cleaner and purer environment. More mass transportation facilities
which do not pollute the air we breathe. More open spaces, parks and
recreational facilities for our enjoyment. More housing to free the
poor from inadequate, unhealthy conditions in the ghettos. A new
health care program which guarantees every human being free hospitalization
as a matter of right. A new child care program which guarantees
adequate comprehensive care for children of all ages.
There are so many pressing social needs that must be dramatized
in the Presidential campaign and the failure of the Nixon Administration
to meet those needs. Rather than broaden and expand our
nation, we have turned inward, and in so doing have failed in our
obligation to aid humanity. The Administration must bear full responsibility
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for this fact. and be called to account for it. The Administration
must be replaced by a new one with a positive, forward-looking,
and above all humanitarian outlook.
We are told that the reason we cannot have these desperately
needed programs is our military commitments, primarily in Vietnam
where we still do not have a timetable for withdrawal. We do not even
know the size of the residual force that will be left there to help
the South Vietnamese government continue to rain destruction on the
villages and countryside. And so we continue to spend billions of
dollars on massive bombing raids and mercenary forces in Vietnam, Laos,
and Cambodia. And even after the passage of the Mansfield Amendment,
the President proclaims he will ignore the pleas of the Congress and
the people that the destruction be halted.
What will rise from the ashes of Vietnam? Will there be a
country left that is worth “saving”?. What will we have preserved for
“democracy” — if a one-candidate election can be called democracy.
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Vietnam Will be the principal issue of my campaign — not only
to end it, although that is a vitally important immediate goal
but to understand what it represents. Unless our people can be made
to understand the magnitude of the error in Vietnam, and why it
happened, the malignancy in our national mentality will continue and
there will be other disasters in the future.
Beyond my position on the social issues, I sense the need for a
candidate who will dispel the myopic view of the world that has
afflicted America. We must remember that we are a new country which
in 1976 will be observing only the 200th anniversary of its founding.
Among the nations of the world, we are a newcomer, and I am afraid
that like the “new rich” we have need to flaunt our wealth and our
power. We have tried to prove that we could be a superstar among
nations, the one that led and dominated all the rest, but this surly
attitude has only led us to disastrous foreign entanglements in
areas where we should never have entered. We do not need to impose
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our institutions, or our beliefs, on other peoples.
Our nation is only now awakening to the fact that there 1s a
civilization and a culture in Asia. If nothing else, the Vietnam
debacle should cause us to take a new look at that part of the world,
in our own self-interest. After all, we have expended 60,000 American
lives and well over $100 billion in vitally needed resources on a
futile quest that is still not understood by most of our people.
The extent of our ignorance is shown by our refusal to recognize the
existence of the 700 million people of China for two decades until
forced to do so by the power of world opinion at the United Nations.
Throughout our brief history, we have pretended that the
civilization of western Europe was the sole guiding force of human
destiny, and that the United States was its ultimate manifestation.
Who among our candidates has a full appreciation of the need
for a better understanding of all the emerging areas such as Asia,
Africa, and Latin America?
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I favor a dramatic change in our whole educational system, to
permit our next generation of youth to learn of the long history and
contributions of those parts of the world other than western Europe.
We need to know that there has been culture in Asia, and science and
art going back for thousands of years. The white caucasian race
alone cannot lay claim to all the triumphs of human ingenuity. When
we recognize this ,.,e will begin to have a better appreciation that
oriental life is no less valuable than European life, and that it is
just as immoral to intervene with a virtual genocide in Vietnam as it
was for the Aryan °pure” race in Germany to slaughter six million
Jews. As a person of Asian descent, these are among the things I
would hope to convey to this country.
And so while we must end the Vietnam war, and do it now, it
is even more important that we look beyond this dark era in our
history to examine our own nature and the racism that lies underneath.
This can only be surmounted by education and understanding, two
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goals that are diametrically opposed to the policies of the current
Administration and not sufficiently emphasized by my own party. I
propose new public school curriculums, and vast programs of travel
exchanges by our young people with the other nations of the world, so
that we will come to know the Asians, and the Africans, and all the
others in the world as people, instead of in terms of ideologies or
racial groupings.
For too long we have been dazzled by the sight of our own wealth,
and led by the work-ethic to achieve as much a part of it for ourselves
as possible without regard to the end-result. I do not object to
materialistic concerns, but we must not be misled by these baubles to
renounce the human values that give life meaning. Perhaps our children
realize better than we do the utter futility of such an existence.
Having been exposed to the horrors of a war base-a on the view of some
humans as less than human, they seek a new commitment and a new
reason for living. It is up to our leaders to provide this new idea,
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and further to give it meaning through our existing political process
— or else we are living a lie that cannot continue to mask the powerful
truth of reality.
It is fine for all citizens to pursue the good life and worldly
goods on which our society places such emphasis, but there is increasing
recognition that all will be ashes in our mouths unless our place as
individuals is preserved. This is what the young are seeking — and
I am among those who would rejoice in their goals.
This is no time for the old answers and pat solutions. There
must be a real and tangible alternative offered that is based — if
any one word can be singled out — on humanism. We must have a government
that will welcome the input and participation of all our people
by recognizing that every individual has an importance all his own.
We must expand this belief in humanity to all the people of the
world, not just those who fit our concepts of “accepted” ideology or
customs. That is the way of war and more Vietnams.
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The other course is the one that I pursue, and it is toward a
World United in a belief in humanism. It is a goal that I believe
our young people will share i n, and will lend the 1 r ener gy and
idealism to achieve. With them, we can have a great future, but
without them we are lost.
Let us not turn again into the dark alley of racism, but pursue
the brighter hope of human goodness. It is there for us to cherish,
if we will but grasp the meaning of equality that gives it life.
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