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Profiles of Historic Conscientious Objectors
Jeannette Rankin"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." As a pacifist the violence and death of war indicated tragedy to her, not triumph.
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." At first glance Jeannette Rankin's quote seems absurd. Every war has a winner after all. However Jeannette believed in a different definition of victory. As a pacifist the violence and death of war indicated tragedy to her, not triumph. She lived an amazing life, always holding strongly to these beliefs even in the face enormous pressure to change. In 1917 Jeannette Rankin, from Montana, became the first woman to be elected to the United States Congress, four years before women were allowed to vote! Four days after she entered the House of Representatives her pacifist beliefs were tested when Congress voted to declare war on Germany. Rankin bravely joined 55 congressman in voting "no" to U.S. entry into the war. She said "I knew that we were asked to vote for a commercial war...none of the idealistic hopes would be carried out...and I was aware of the falseness of much of the propaganda." Finally she declared in front of the Congress, "I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no." This vote brought criticism and essentially caused her to lose in the next election. She then moved to Georgia and actively lectured and worked for groups such as the Women's Peace Union and the National Council for the Prevention of War. After 22 years of peace work, she ran for election to Congress again in 1940. Proving the proverb "History repeats itself" to be true, the strength of her beliefs was tested once more after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Rankin had appealed to President Roosevelt many times in the year before to "maintain diplomatic relations with Japan." She couldn't persuade him to try to prevent the war that was to follow. Despite incredible pressure to abandon her ideals, Rankin became the single Congress person who voted against entry into World War II. "As a woman, I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else." This decision once again caused her to lose her seat in the next election. She returned to Georgia, formed a women's cooperative, traveled to India to study Mohandas Gandhi, and finally (at the age of 88) organized a women's demonstration in Washington to protest the Vietnam War. Over 5,000 women followed her in the "Jeannette Rankin Brigade." She died five years later in 1973. |
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