Quote of the Week: Eleanor Roosevelt
“America is all about speed. Hot, nasty badass speed.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
(Actually, this is fake and from the movie Talladega Nights – The Legend of Ricky Bobby)
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Here’s a column from Eleanor Roosevelt that I’ve long appreciated. This was a response to an incident in Athens, Tennessee in 1946. References follow. A corrupt local government was opposed by returning WW-2 veterans with a “thrown the bums out” platform. The corrupt local government tried to steal the election, in this case literally, sneaking the ballot boxes off to a secret location to be counted by the corrupt officials themselves and no oversight. The veterans armed themselves and forced an open count. Bums were thrown out.
Not to be taken lightly, there’s many ways that could have ended very badly. Nevertheless, the Second Amendment exists for a reason, and it ain’t deer hunting.
https://www.americanheritage.com/battle-athens#1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)
https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1946&_f=md000410
NEW YORK, Monday—After any war, the use of force throughout the world is almost taken for granted. Men involved in the war have been trained to use force, and they have discovered that, when you want something, you can take it. The return to peacetime methods governed by law and persuasion is usually difficult.
We in the U.S.A., who have long boasted that, in our political life, freedom in the use of the secret ballot made it possible for us to register the will of the people without the use of force, have had a rude awakening as we read of conditions in McMinn Country, Tennessee, which brought about the use of force in the recent primary. If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions.
In this particular case, a group of young veterans organized to oust the local machine and elect their own slate in the primary. We may deplore the use of force but we must also recognize the lesson which this incident points for us all. When the majority of the people know what they want, they will obtain it.
Any local, state or national government, or any political machine, in order to live, must give the people assurance that they can express their will freely and that their votes will be counted. The most powerful machine cannot exist without the support of the people. Political bosses and political machinery can be good, but the minute they cease to express the will of the people, their days are numbered.
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This is a lesson which wise political leaders learn young, and you may be pretty sure that, when a boss stays in power, he gives the majority of the people what they think they want. If he is bad and indulges in practices which are dishonest, or if he acts for his own interests alone, the people are unwilling to condone these practices.
When the people decide that conditions in their town, county, state or country must change, they will change them. If the leadership has been wise, they will be able to do it peacefully through a secret ballot which is honestly counted, but if the leader has become inflated and too sure of his own importance, he may bring about the kind of action which was taken in Tennessee.
If we want to continue to be a mature people who, at home and abroad, settle our difficulties peacefully and not through the use of force, then we will take to heart this lesson and we will jealously guard our rights. What goes on before an election, the threats or persuasion by political leaders, may be bad but it cannot prevent the people from really registering their will if they wish to.
The decisive action which has just occurred in our midst is a warning, and one which we cannot afford to overlook.