How August 26 became “Women’s Equality Day”

Each year since 1973, August 26th has been officially recognized as “Women’s Equality Day.”

It’s a commemoration of the final approval of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

That amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote in all local, state and national elections, says:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

In the 1800s, some progressive states had granted local voting rights to women. By the middle of that century, women’s groups began pushing for federal legislation giving all women nationwide the right to vote in all local, state and national elections.

The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, confirmed that black men and men of all other races had full voting rights. However, that amendment did not include women.

Women’s suffrage groups had to push for a similar amendment covering women for many more decades.

A proposal that would eventually become the 19th Amendment was introduced in the U.S. Congress in 1878. It was rejected. But women’s groups persisted.

The National American Woman Suffrage Association and National Woman's Party organized countless marches and demonstrations aimed at getting Congress to do the right thing.

Finally, in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson, who had previously opposed voting rights for women, announced that he’d changed his mind and supported the women’s suffrage amendment.

He said his new position was partly based on the fact that women were playing an increasingly significant role in supporting America’s involvement in World War I.

In October 1918, Wilson stated in an address to the Senate: “I regard the extension of suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged.”

The president’s support, growing public awareness and acceptance of the evolving roles of women, and continued public pressure from suffragette groups eventually broke the logjam.

In May 1919, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the amendment. The Senate followed suit in June.

As required by the U.S. Constitution, the amendment then required ratification by three-fourths of all state governments. That meant 36 states at the time. (Now it’s 38.)

By March of 1920, the legislatures of 35 states had ratified the amendment. Most southern states remained opposed.

Then, on August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature approved the amendment by one vote and the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.

So, if the amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, why was August 26 picked as Women’s Equality Day?

Because there was one final step in the process.

After a constitutional amendment has been ratified by the required number of states, it’s not official until it has been certified by the U.S. Secretary of State. At the time, that was Bainbridge Colby.

On August 26, 1920, Colby signed the proclamation that officially added the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

However, that date was not named “Women’s Equality Day” until five decades later.

In 1970, Bella Abzug, a prominent New York lawyer, feminist leader and Democratic activist, won the Congressional election for New York’s 19th District. In 1971, after taking her seat, Abzug submitted a House Resolution to designate August 26th as “Women’s Equality Day.”

The resolution didn’t pass that year. But in 1972, President Richard M. Nixon (who was more socially liberal than some of today’s Republican leaders), issued a Presidential Proclamation naming August 26, 1972 as “Women’s Rights Day.”

In 1973, Congress passed another version of Abzug’s resolution officially designating August 26th as “Women’s Equality Day.” 

Women’s Equality Day has been commemorated annually on that date ever since.

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“I am not a crook!”

In retrospect, it’s ironic that one of the slogans used by Richard M. Nixon during his first presidential campaign in 1968 was: “The ‘I’ in Nixon stands for integrity.”

Today, the more remembered “slogan” is the one used against Nixon during the 1972 presidential election, a quip attributed to comedian Mort Sahl: “Would you buy a used car from this man?”

Of course, Nixon managed to beat Democrat George McGovern in the November 1972 election by a landslide.

But the pesky scandal that came to be called “Watergate,” which started with the bungled break-in at the Democratic National headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. on June 17, 1972, got steadily worse after Nixon was reelected.

By the summer of ‘73, a Congressional Committee and Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox were conducting official investigations to find out if Nixon was involved and determine whether he had tried to cover up his involvement.

Naturally, Nixon denied it for as long as he could.

On November 17, 1973, during a televised press conference, Nixon tried to make it seem like he welcomed the Watergate investigations and uttered one of his most famous quotes: “I am not a crook.” (Sometimes given as “I’m not a crook.)

“I made my mistakes,” Nixon said, “but in all my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service. I’ve earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President’s a crook. Well, I am not a crook.”

Most observers found the welcoming part especially hard to believe. Just a few weeks earlier, Nixon had fired Archibald Cox and abolished the Office of the Special Prosecutor, in the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre.”

But the Congressional Watergate investigation continued and the dominoes kept falling for Nixon. It became clear that covert operatives working for him had conducted the Watergate break-in and that he and his administration had tried to cover it up. Eventually, to avoid impeachment, Nixon become the first U.S. president to resign, on August 9, 1974.

Shortly after Nixon announced his resignation, his Vice President, Gerald Ford, was sworn in as president. Ford’s brief acceptance speech that day included another famous political quotation: “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

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The origins of the Cold War term “hot line” and the mythical “red phones”…

Many books and websites note that the famed “hot line” communication link between the Pentagon and the Kremlin was established on August 30, 1963.

Press reports about this new tool, intended to provide a possible way to avoid a nuclear war between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), soon cemented the term hot line into our language.

It also added a new plot device and the image of the red phones into movies and TV shows.

Two of my favorite examples were in movies released not long after the new link was established: Fail-Safe (1964) and Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

The term hot line (sometimes given as the single word hotline) had actually been used previously in other contexts, but not in the sense of the international hot line established in 1963.

That use is generally credited to Jess Gorkin (1936-1985).

Gorkin was the respected and influential editor of Parade Magazine, the widely-circulated Sunday newspaper insert. 

In the March 20, 1960 issue of Parade, Gorkin published an open letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Soviet Union’s Premier Nikita Khrushchev, titled “RE: ACCIDENTAL WAR.”

In it, he urged them to consider: “the establishment of a direct telephone line between you...to prevent the possibility of an accidental war.”

He ended his letter with the rhetorical question: “Must a world be lost for want of a telephone call?”

Gorkin didn’t use the term hot line in that open letter, but he did use it in a subsequent series editorials in Parade in 1960, promoting the idea to presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

According to language maven William Safire’s great Political Dictionary, Gorkin’s editorial in the October 30, 1960 issue of Parade mentioned an internal “hot line” that the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) maintained for emergency communications.

Gorkin suggested that SAC’s “red telephone” system was a model for the communication link he believed the US and USSR should establish.

After Kennedy was elected President, Gorkin ran more editorials pushing the hot line idea.

And, after the US and USSR came to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy and Khrushchev decided it was indeed a pretty good idea.

On April 23, 1963, Kennedy sent a personal letter of thanks to Gorkin for promoting the concept, calling it “an excellent example of the most constructive aspects of our free press.” 

Gorkin proudly published the letter in Parade.

On June 20, 1963, in Geneva, President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev signed an agreement to create the crisis communication system Gorkin had suggested. The Washington-Kremlin hot line officially went live on August 30, 1963.

However, despite what we’ve seen in movies and TV shows, there never were red phones in the offices of the President of the United States and the Premier of Russia.

The hot line was actually a secure teletype connection between the offices of the Pentagon and the Kremlin. No phones, red or otherwise, were involved.

Sorry, movie fans.

As I was researching this post, I noticed there’s a fairly recent book titled Hotline that gives the term a whole new meaning. It’s a racy novel described with this memorable blurb: “A sex worker and a trust fund brat…It’s like Romeo and Juliet, but with less stabbing and slightly fewer dick jokes.” I haven’t read it, but if you do, let me know how it is.

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Related reading and viewing…

Spiro Agnew vs. the “effete intellectuals” and “nattering nabobs”…

Nowadays, Conservative provocateurs like Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter get lots of media attention for coming up with snarky, quotable insults aimed at Liberals.

But the way was paved for them decades ago by Republican politician Spiro Agnew (1918-1996), the former Governor of Maryland who became Vice President of the United States under President Richard M. Nixon in 1969.

Agnew unleashed one of his most famous zingers on October 19, 1969.

He was speaking that day at a Republican fund-raising dinner in New Orleans.

Four days earlier, opponents of the Vietnam War had organized a major anti-war demonstration, the October 15th Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam.

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in moratorium events in the United States and Europe.

Agnew was a staunch defender of the Vietnam War, so naturally he had to take a swipe at the protesters.

He characterized them as people who “overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants.”

He went on (and on and on) to say:

“Education is being redefined at the demand of the uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes to college to proclaim rather than to learn. The lessons of the past are ignored and obliterated in a contemporary antagonism known as ‘The Generation Gap.’ A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.” 

Other Conservatives and the press especially loved that last sentence. And, soon, the pithy core of it was compressed into the phrases still used today: “effete intellectual snobs” and the shorter version “effete intellectuals.”

Spiro uttered a number of other catchy, insulting names for Liberals during his four years as Vice President.

Two others that are still cited are “the nattering nabobs of negativism” and “the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.” 

Most of Agnew’s catchy phrases as Vice President were written for him by Nixon’s speechwriter William Safire, who went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Times. (I was a big fan of Safire’s “On Language” column in the NYT and highly recommend his many excellent books about the origins of famous quotations and phrases.)

Agnew’s verbal attacks on Liberals made him a darling of Republicans until 1973, when his past caught with him.

That year, he was charged with taking bribes and evading taxes during his tenure as Governor of Maryland.

He resigned as Vice President on October 10, 1973, as part of a plea deal to avoid jail time.

It was quite a scandal at the time. But, hey – at least Spiro Agnew wasn’t taking any of them there psycho-delic drugs or acting like a damn effete intellectual.

However, I do think he may have qualified as a nattering nabob.

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“Our long national nightmare is over.”

In August of 1974, faced with Congressional hearings, a mountain of bad press and the looming threat of impeachment over the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign.

His official letter of resignation was delivered at 11:35 a.m. Eastern Time on August 9, 1974.

A half-hour later, Nixon’s Vice President Gerald Ford took the Presidential Oath and was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States.

After the swearing-in ceremony, Ford gave a brief acceptance speech that was broadcast live on radio and television.

He acknowledged that he was taking office “under extraordinary circumstances” and urged Americans to “go forward now together.”

He then made a remark that became — and remains — a famous political quotation:       

      “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

Following that, Ford alluded to another famous political quote.

“Our Constitution works.” he said. “Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.”

The phrase “a government of laws, and not of men” reflects a political idea that dates back as far as the ancient Greeks.

But it was enshrined in quotation history by John Adams in one of his Novanglus letters, published in the Boston Gazette in 1774.

Written anonymously under the pen name “Novanglus,” these letters argued that Great Britain’s treatment of American colonists violated their rights under British law.

In the seventh Novanglus letter, Adams wrote that “the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire...a government of laws, and not of men.”

By the 20th Century, British monarchs had virtually no real power.

In contrast, American presidents have many significant powers under the law.

One of them is the power to pardon criminals, both after or even — as Ford showed — before they are convicted.

On September 8, 1974, President Ford announced that he had granted Richard Nixon a “full, free, and absolute” pardon for any crimes he “has committed or may have committed” while president.

Since shortly after Donald Trump became president there has been speculation about whether he had committed crimes that could land him in jail after he leaves office or is forced out by impeachment.

Some political pundits have suggested that Vice President Mike Pence would pardon him if that happens or that Trump might even give himself a pardon.

Either way, whenever Trump does leaves office, those Americans who hate him — and those who are simply tired of the constant heated news coverage and arguments he generates — are likely to feel like another national nightmare is finally over.

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Related reading and viewing…

The infamous quote that revealed Earl was a bigoted Butz-hole…

Lest we forget, some politically incorrect remarks got a lot of press attention long before Donald Trump started using Twitter.

In 1975, John Dean, former White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon, served a short prison sentence for his role in the Watergate cover-up scandal.

After his release, Dean started a new career as a writer.

In 1976, Rolling Stone magazine hired him to attend and cover the Republican National Convention, which was held in Kansas City, Missouri from August 16 to August 19, 1976.

Dean’s subsequent article about the event, illustrated by artist Ralph Steadman, was titled “Rituals of the Herd.”

It was published in the issue of Rolling Stone dated October 7. But that issue actually hit newsstands on October 1, 1976.

When it did, a racially-insensitive quotation recorded in the article generated an immediate media firestorm.

It was a remark made to Dean and singer Pat Boone by Earl Butz, a conservative Republican politician who had been appointed as Secretary of Agriculture by Nixon and was still serving in that role under Nixon’s successor President Gerald Ford.

By the night of October 1st, news of Butz’s quip had spread nationwide. Here’s how it was reported in an initial United Press International story:

“Butz had used vulgar words in saying that many blacks don’t vote Republican because they only want good sex, ‘loose shoes’ and ‘a warm place’ when they use the toilet.”

That was the sanitized version of what Butz said.

*** LANGUAGE ALERT ***

Don’t read any further if you’re easily offended by (or are too young to be reading) X-rated language — because now I’m going to tell you what Butz really said, as reported by John Dean in his Rolling Stone article.

Dean wrote:

Pat [Boone] posed a question: “John and I were just discussing the appeal of the Republican party. It seems to me that the party of Abraham Lincoln could and should attract more black people. Why can’t that be done?” This was a fair question for the secretary, who is also a very capable politician.

“I’ll tell you why you can’t attract coloreds,” the secretary proclaimed as his mischievous smile returned. “Because colored only wants three things. You know what they want?” he asked Pat.

Pat shook his head no; so did I.

“I’ll tell you what coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit. That's all!”

Pat gulped twice.

On the morning of October 4, a few days after Dean’s Rolling Stone piece generated a huge hubbub, a UPI article reported that Butz was under pressure to resign but “has no plans to do so ‘at this time.’”

Later that day, faced with scorn and criticism from the White House, Republican Party leaders and just about everyone else (except for the kind of people who would laugh at a joke about “what coloreds want”), Butz resigned.

He told the press: “This was completely my decision” and “at no time was pressure put on me from the White House.”

Which reminds me of the old joke that asks “How do you know when a politician is lying?'”

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Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading…

“Our long national nightmare is over.”

In August of 1974, faced with Congressional hearings, a mountain of bad press and the looming threat of impeachment over the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign.

His official letter of resignation was delivered at 11:35 a.m. Eastern Time on August 9, 1974.

A half-hour later, Nixon’s Vice President Gerald Ford took the Presidential Oath and was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States.

After the swearing-in ceremony, Ford gave a brief acceptance speech that was broadcast live on radio and television.

He acknowledged that he was taking office “under extraordinary circumstances” and urged Americans to “go forward now together.”

He then made a remark that became — and remains — a famous political quotation:       

       “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

Following that, Ford alluded to another famous political quote.

“Our Constitution works.” he said. “Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule.”

The phrase “a government of laws, and not of men” reflects a political idea that dates back as far as the ancient Greeks.

But it was enshrined in quotation history by John Adams in one of his Novanglus letters, published in the Boston Gazette in 1774.

Written anonymously under the pen name “Novanglus,” these letters argued that Great Britain’s treatment of American colonists violated their rights under British law.

In the seventh Novanglus letter, Adams wrote that “the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire...a government of laws, and not of men.”

By the 20th Century, British monarchs had virtually no real power.

In contrast, American presidents have many significant powers under the law. One of them is the power to pardon criminals, both after and apparently before they are convicted.

On September 8, 1974, President Ford announced that he had granted Richard Nixon a “full, free, and absolute” pardon for any crimes he “has committed or may have committed” while president.

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Comments? Corrections? Post them on on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading…

Is Nixon’s November 7, 1962 rant a “teachable moment”?

Long before dogged news coverage of the Watergate scandal helped force Richard M. Nixon to resign as President in 1974, he disliked the press.

In fact, throughout his long political career, Nixon felt the media generally had a liberal bias and an unfairly negative attitude toward him.

He disliked the way the press failed to fully embrace his anti-communist fervor in the late 1940s, when he was a Congressman and member of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

He was annoyed by some of the coverage he got as Vice President under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.

He thought the press was unfair to him in his unsuccessful campaign for President against John F. Kennedy in 1960.

And, in 1962, after Nixon lost the race for Governor of California to Democrat Pat Brown, he was convinced that slanted press coverage was a factor in his loss.

On November 7, 1962, the morning after that election, Nixon held a press conference in which his ire at the press infamously overflowed.

Most people know this frequently quoted part of what he said that day:

“You won't have Nixon to kick around any more because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

But that quote is just the short sound bite from what Nixon said that day – a famous quotation with no context.

If you’re interested in politics and the media, you should read the entire transcript of what Nixon said, especially since it has some ironic relevance to recent political events. (The transcript is posted on the venerable Language Log. There’s also a video excerpt on YouTube.)

I particularly suggest the transcript of Nixon’s November 7, 1962 rant as recommended reading for President Obama and his team, because their recent attacks on Fox News seem eerily Nixonian to me.

I don’t say that because I believe Obama will be creating an “enemies list” or tapping reporters’ phones or doing other evil Nixonian things like that.

I say it because, to me, the attacks on Fox News seem as petty and counterproductive as Nixon’s “last press conference.”

Here are some of the other famous quotes and phrases linked to November 7:

• “She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.”  - American politician Adlai Stevenson’s famous comment to the press when he learned about the death of Eleanor Roosevelt on November 7, 1962. He was adapting an old Chinese proverb that was also used as the motto of the Catholic humanitarian group, the Christopher Society, in the form: “It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.”

• “It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” - The title of the classic movie comedy that spawned the linguistic formula of four repeating adjectives: “It's a —, —, —, — , [something].” The film, with it’s all star cast of great comedians, had its world premiere at the Hollywood Cinerama on November 7, 1963.

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