Speech #960270324

Helen Gahagan Douglas was a brilliant human being who stood up bravely all her life for what she knew to be right and decent. After seeing at first hand the terrible human cost to the Great Depression. she began her lifelong commitment to building a fairer and juster society in America. In the late 1930s. after witnessing at first hand the vicious Nazi regime in Germany. she canceled her contract to sing in that country and devoted herself to organizing aid for the growing flood of Jewish and other antiNazi refugees who were desperately fleeing from the malignancy called "National Socialism." In the 1940s. she served three distinguished terms in the House of Representatives. only to lose a Senate bid in 1950 after a campaign that is still notorious for the tactics of smear and innuendo employed by her opponent. Those tactics. which included casting doubt upon her loyalty to the country and that of her husbandhimself a volunteer in both world warsbrought prematurely to an end. her career in public office. But let us remember now that her career was marked by the kind of compassion. by the sense of decency and by a large and generous vision of America that to me constitutes patriotism in its highest form.