Equal Rights Amendment Quotes
This relatively radical viewpoint regarding equal rights for women was expressed by Roosevelt as his Senior thesis at Harvard in 1880. In those days, the kind of scrutiny of everything a candidate ever wrote or said that is characteristic of modern politics, did not exist. It is very doubtful that if the Republican Party officials had ever known that he had espoused these views—even as a young student, that he ever would have risen so high in the party, much less get nominated at the Vice Presidential candidate which was his entree to the Presidency. When in office however, there is no record of him reviving his youthful proposal that women who marry retain their maiden names.
Many women’s rights enthusiasts were at first skeptical of an Equal Rights Amendment. See Thomas J. Walsh {40823}.
She advocated the women creating their own U. S. Constitution and living by it. If enough women did, she argued, the men would have to accommodate and accept many of the clauses. She was not only advocating an equal rights amendment, but a more substantial change to outlaw private discrimination against women which would not have been covered by an equal rights amendment, since at the time private discrimination of all kinds was legal and practiced widely.
Wadsworth had opposed all earlier legislation assisting women, but devised this strategy which split the pro-woman’s equality movement by urging a policy of partial equal rights.
This intransigent position was used against Cellar in the next primary election and he was unseated from Congress and his political career ended by a young woman who "dared" to disregard the gender differences. She made his block her main campaign issue.
She was prescient. The amendment was never ratified by enough states.
