. . . This is a most significant meeting in the history of the Democratic Party of Massachusetts - and I feel privileged to take a part in it. For this meeting is providing us, in my opinion, with a glimpse into the future - into what I hope is the important role women will play in the future affairs of the Democratic Party in this state and all of the nation - and into the kind of organization and campaign and spirit and leadership which we in the Democratic Party are going to require in the years to come. This organization recognizes that politics and political campaigns are changing. The campaign plane has replaced the whistle-stop tour. The television spot has replaced the street corner rally. The voters are better informed on the issues, less patient with long-winded political speeches, and less likely to follow blindly party labels.
The need for, and the opportunity for, the participation of women such as yourselves in the political arena has never been greater. We still need typists, stamp-lickers, envelope-stuffers, receptionists, drivers, baby sitters, and poll watchers. We always shall - and many of you will always prefer that kind of task. But we need more than that in the modern campaign. We need women who can explain the issues, who can detail the records of the candidates, organize groups or meetings in their neighborhood or community, and, strange as it may sound, give teas for candidates.
It is difficult, I know, to arouse the interest in politics of many potential women workers. Some think it is all a dirty business; others are convinced that their own participation would be too limited to make any difference. And yet let us remember that down through history the results which could be achieved by one woman have been phenomenal - - whether that be Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Anne Hutchinson, Dorothea Dix, Susan B. Anthony, Jane Adams, or, not to forget the obvious example, Eve herself.
But fame is not what counts. In an election, it's votes that count. If in each precinct of Massachusetts in 1952, 10 women were too busy with their housework to go to the polls to support my candidacy, 10 others felt their votes for me were not important enough, and 10 others who were for me forgot to register - then, because of those 30 women in each precinct, I would not have been elected to the Senate and perhaps would not be here before you today.
Today, one woman, engaged in politics not for pay, not for a position, not for a price of any kind, but a woman interested in politics because she is interested in the kind of country and world her children will grow up in - and that one woman can accomplish more this day and age than ten professional politicians looking out primarily for themselves.
And that is why I am, so delighted to be with you today. For you who are gathered at this meeting, like many others whom I have met throughout this state and in the past year throughout the country, represent the new breed of leadership and active membership which the Democratic Party desperately needs. Your vision, your determination, you bring fresh vigor to our Party councils - you present a new face to our Party's friends - and you have demonstrated here today a fresh spirit of enthusiasm to spread the Democratic gospel in every corner of Massachusetts.
I am not opposed to those so-called professional politicians who are in reality men serving the machinery of their party because they believe in the ideals of their party. Such a man is Pat Lynch, our able State Democratic Chairman; and such are the men and women who serve with him as Vice-Chairman and members of the State Democratic Committee. Pat Lynch, I know, would to the first to agree that even the best professional politician or the most carefully oiled party machinery cannot do the job alone. The kind of program of continuing political education of which this organization is capable, and of which you contemplate, can make the difference between victory and defeat for the Democratic Party in the years to come.
I do not mean to say that I am pessimistic. I have every reason to believe that the Democrats will carry every state office in the 1958 election. I have every reason to believe that the Democratic majority in the House and Senate of the United States will be considerably increased by that election. And I have every reason to believe that come 1960, with new faces, new issues, new ideas and a new approach, we will have victories from courthouse to White House.
But such victories are not to be taken for granted. I am confident only because I see signs that the work which will be necessary will be forthcoming. And this meeting today is one of the most hopeful signs yet. For in those 1958 and 1960 elections, women will once again hold the balance of power - and may well cast a majority of the votes in the nation as a whole. And I am convinced that there are in Massachusetts, just as there are in every state of the Union, thousands upon thousands of potential women voters whom you should reach - women who ere fearful of their sons when the nation continually teeters on the brink of war - women who are angry at the continued rise in the cost of living, in their bills for feeding a family and heating a house. The Republicans may continually say that they are the party of peace and prosperity. But American women today know that they need a safer, more sound, more secure peace than that which is based upon Republican dissension and vacillation at the highest level. And they want a prosperity which brings wages to their husbands as well as profits to our largest corporations, which brings increased work to our surplus labor areas and new opportunities for our small businessmen. Women are not impressed with a prosperity that sends their children to overcrowded schools, that sends their aged parents to overcrowded hospitals, and that forced millions of women to work in retail stores and on other jobs not even guaranteed the national minimum wage of $1.00 an hour.
I would not want you to believe that active participation in politics is going to be something of a lark - that you will be acclaimed on every street corner and meet success in every election, or that your days will be filled with friendly sympathetic listeners and delightful teas and receptions. On the contrary, if you are to make any real contribution at all, you will find yourself involved in hard, frequently unpleasant, perhaps even distasteful work. You will meet rebuffs and resentment, cold shoulders and slammed doors. Your candidates and causes may lose many times before they triumph.
But I would remind you of the courageous, determined spirit of the first crusading "clubwoman" Massachusetts ever know. Today we honor her statue before the State House - but three centuries ago we cast her out into exile and death. Today we pay tribute to her unflinching stand for religious liberty and toleration - but in 1638 she was excommunicated from the Church, tried by the General Court and banished from her home. The fact that she was a woman, leading and teaching other women, galled the elders of the Colony perhaps more than anything else. Their opinion of women who meddled in such affairs was best revealed by Governor Winthrop's recording in his diary of what happened to another woman, the wife of the Governor of Hartford, who lost her mind according to Winthrop because "of giving herself wholly to reading and writing. For if she had attended to her household affairs and such things as belong to women, and not gone out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger, she would have kept her wits."
You who are here today, you who would "meddle in such things as are proper for men", are the heirs of Anne Hutchinson - and it is her inspiration that can carry you forward. For you are engaged in noble work for a noble cause - our party is in need of your highest talents and greatest efforts - and I am confident that with the spirit you have displayed today success shall be ours in the years ahead.
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