Legal Equality Quotes
At the time many of the powerful and influential upper class felt that some of the laws did not necessarily apply to them or their corporations. They bribed legislators to change laws when they were inconvenient to ignore. Roosevelt was the first President to take them on.
See also James Mathew for the analogy of British justice and the Ritz Hotel.
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.
This is a remarkably modern statement for the time.
The statement was made just before Kenyan Independence was official. His statement was surprising to many people who perceived him as a racist and anti-white. There was a fear that whites would no longer be welcome in Kenya after independence, but Kenyatta’s leadership maintained a pluralistic society.
She was overly optimistic. She would be dead for 30 years before women got the vote and some would argue that full equality has not been reached yet.
