Her Own Bodyguard - Gun-packing First Lady

http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel012402.shtml

Her Own Bodyguard

Gun-packing First Lady.

By Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne Eisen, Independence Institute

January 24, 2002

She was the most famous spokesperson for civil rights, at a time when the

idea of equal rights for people of color was very politically incorrect. "We

can't afford to have two kinds of citizens," she insisted. "We must have

equal citizenship for anybody in our country."

And though she was a well-known talker, she also walked the walk. In 1958,

at age 74, she made plans to go down to Tennessee to speak at a civil-rights

workshop at the Highlander Folk School.

The Ku Klux Klan learned about her plans. The day before her trip, the

elderly, gray-haired woman was contacted by the FBI. "We can't guarantee

your safety," they told her. "The Klan's put a bounty on your head, a

$25,000 bounty on your head. We can't protect you. You can't go." But the

little old lady answered, "I didn't ask for your protection... I have a

commitment. I'm going."

And she did. She flew down to the Nashville airport, where she was joined by

a friend, an elderly white woman aged 71. The pair got into the car, lay a

loaded pistol on the front seat between them, and drove into the night. No

Secret Service or police escort. Just the two little old ladies with a gun

to keep them safe. They set out for their destination, a " tiny labor

school[,] to conduct a workshop on how to break the law, how to conduct

non-violent civil disobedience." They drove through the heart of Klan

territory to teach people how to fight for freedom.

If she were alive, and if Rosie O'Donnell's dreams were to come true, that

gray-haired grandmother today would be thrown in jail. "I don't care if you

think it's your right... You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own

a gun I think you should go to prison," O'Donnell has proclaimed. Hillary

Clinton would lecture the old woman about how people shouldn't own guns for

protection. But the old lady probably wouldn't listen to Hillary or Rosie,

any more than she listened to all the other people who told her what she

wasn't supposed to do.

That determined grandmother, of course, was Eleanor Roosevelt. And it was

Eleanor's handgun, not some hired bodyguard, that helped her stay alive in

the face of real danger.

What a perfect example of how the Second Amendment is really the cornerstone

of our Bill of Rights, the guarantor of all others. It was the exercise of

her Second Amendment rights that empowered Eleanor Roosevelt to use her

First Amendment rights to crusade for the Fourteenth Amendment rights of

blacks.

Many of the people she empowered also used Second Amendment rights to secure

their freedoms. Professor John Salter, who later became director of the

Indian Studies program at the University of North Dakota, recounts his

earlier experiences: "I worked for years in the Deep South as a full-time

civil rights organizer... I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too,

traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40

Winchester carbine. The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing

to use them kept enemies at bay. Years later... this was confirmed by a

former prominent leader of the White Knights of the KKK..."

Mrs. Roosevelt broke many traditions. She was the first First Lady to give a

press conference, the first to testify before Congress, the first to write a

newspaper column, the first to become a political figure in her own right.

But where it came to firearms, Eleanor Roosevelt was following a family

tradition.

In The Roosevelts of Hyde Park: An Untold Story, Eleanor and Franklin's son

Elliott describes the early days of his parents' marriage: "The young

bridegroom [FDR]... retained a boyish delight, consistently encouraged by

Granny, in collecting stamps, ship prints and wild bird specimens. The birds

were shot in the woods and fields around Hyde Park with the gun [of] his

father, James Roosevelt..."

In Before the Trumpet, Geoffrey Ward details how the young Franklin's

interest in natural science turned him into a hunter: "Soon eggs and nests

no longer satisfied; he wanted to collect the birds themselves, and at ten

he began asking for a shotgun" - a shotgun which was presented on his

eleventh birthday. "With it came a set of rules: There was to be no shooting

during the mating season; nesting birds were off-limits; only one member of

each species was to be collected." By the age of 14, Franklin Roosevelt had

shot and identified more than 300 species of birds native to Dutchess

County, New York.

Eleanor's father, Elliott Roosevelt, also liked to shoot. Her autobiography

explains: "As a boy of about fifteen he left St. Paul's School after one

year, because of illness, and went out to Texas. He made friends with the

officers at Fort McKavit, a frontier fort, and stayed with them, hunting

game and scouting in search of hostile Indians. He loved the life and was a

natural sportsman, a good shot and a good rider."

Eleanor's uncle Theodore, who walked her down the aisle at her wedding, was

perhaps the best-known gun enthusiast in American history. An avid hunter

(and, therefore, a strong conservationist), Theodore Roosevelt owned and

used a dizzying array of firearms, eventually coming to like semi-automatic

rifles best. While living in the Badlands of North Dakota, Roosevelt and his

companions used their rifles for a daring capture of some men who had stolen

a boat; the event was immortalized in a Frederic Remington painting. When

President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist in 1901, Theodore

Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency. The new president was justifiably

concerned about his personal security, so he began carrying a concealed

handgun.

When Theodore Roosevelt visited Harvard University, then-president Charles

W. Eliot was chagrined to discover Roosevelt strapping on a holster in his

room, ignoring the Massachusetts law restricting concealed handguns.

President Roosevelt concluded his Sixth Annual Message to Congress, on Dec.

6, 1906, with a call for the government to help citizens develop firearms

proficiency:

We should establish shooting galleries in all the large public and military

schools, should maintain national target ranges in different parts of the

country, and should in every way encourage the formation of rifle clubs

throughout all parts of the land. The little Republic of Switzerland offers

us an excellent example in all matters connected with building up an

efficient citizen soldiery.

Roosevelt would repeat this call with greater urgency in his Seventh Annual

Message, on Dec. 3, 1907, demanding that the government do its utmost to

encourage children to use guns:

While teams representing the United States won the rifle and revolver

championships of the world against all comers in England this year, it is

unfortunately true that the great body of our citizens shoot less and less

as time goes on. To meet this we should encourage rifle practice among

schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military

services, by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be

able to assist in preserving the peace of the world. Fit to hold our own

against the strong nations of the earth, our voice for peace will carry to

the ends of the earth. Unprepared, and therefore unfit, we must sit dumb and

helpless to defend ourselves, protect others, or preserve peace. The first

step - in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be

fit for war if it should come - is to teach our men to shoot.

Thus, it should hardly be surprising that TR's niece - the woman who later

would accurately be described as the personification of 20th-century

liberalism - wasn't afraid to use a gun, or to teach disobedience of unjust

and potentially lethal laws.

That 1958 trip to Tennessee was hardly the first occasion when a revolver

was Eleanor Roosevelt's chosen companion. For some 25 years, packing heat

had been habitual. As she recalled in her autobiography, she first carried a

handgun shortly after she moved into the White House, in 1933:

Driving my own car was one of the issues the Secret Service people and I had

a battle about at the very start. The Secret Service prefers to have an

agent go with the President's wife, but I did not want either a chauffeur or

a Secret Service agent always with me; I never did consent to having a

Secret Service agent. After the head of the Secret Service found I was not

going to allow an agent to accompany me everywhere, he went one day to Louis

Howe [FDR's secretary], plunked a revolver down on the table and said 'Well,

all right, if Mrs. Roosevelt is going to drive around the country alone, at

least ask her to carry this in the car.' I carried it religiously and during

the summer I asked a friend, a man who had been one of Franklin's bodyguards

in New York State, to give me some practice in target shooting so that if

the need arose I would know how to use the gun.

After leaving the White House upon the death of her husband, Mrs. Roosevelt

moved to New York City, where she obtained a permit to carry a handgun. She

was the subject of a constant stream of death threats from nuts who were

offended by her newspaper column and her humanitarian political activities.

From nearly the first day that Eleanor Roosevelt became First Lady, she

refused to be a victim, and she exercised her choice to carry a handgun for

protection. She could have shut up and avoided controversy - or she could

have spoken out while hiding herself, in the White House or in her family's

estates in rural New York. But she refused to let hatemongers and criminals

dictate how she would live.

In her 1960 book, You Learn by Living, Mrs. Roosevelt urged her readers not

to cower before the world's dangers, but to stare them down: "You gain

strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really

stop to look fear in the face... You must do the thing which you think you

cannot do." (Emphasis in original.)

That was the spirit of the young girl who took responsibility for her little

brother Hall, after the divorce and death of their parents. That was the

spirit of the young wife who stood up to her domineering mother-in-law, Sara

Delano Roosevelt, and refused to let Sara push Franklin into seclusion after

he was stricken with polio in 1921. Eleanor then had to overcome her terror

of public speaking, and to begin giving political speeches on behalf of her

crippled husband. When Louis Howe would listen to a speech and tell her what

she had done wrong, Eleanor Roosevelt didn't quit; she resolved to do better

the next time. She could have enjoyed a comfortable retirement in New York,

but instead looked fear in the face - and drove straight into the dark heart

of Klan country, ready to chase away the nightriders with her handgun.

Although some of Eleanor Roosevelt's views - such as her hopes for the

United Nations - were mistaken, her courage and perseverance deserve the

respect of people of all political backgrounds. May she continue to inspire

people of all ages for many generations to come.

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:05:28 -0500, in alt.politics, in thread Her Own

Bodyguard - Gun-packing First Lady, "Patriot Games"

<Patriot@America.com>, wrote

>Although some of Eleanor Roosevelt's views - such as her hopes for the

>United Nations - were mistaken, her courage and perseverance deserve the

>respect of people of all political backgrounds. May she continue to inspire

>people of all ages for many generations to come.

I think that the UN was a great idea -- originally -- that went bad in

about 15 years...........which is about when (the 1960s) the "Get the US

out of the UN" bumper stickers became common.

FACE

"FACE" <AFaceInTheCrowd@today.net> wrote in message

news:ctrnm3l22639ahmqdm1fv3p5ba68sd85dp@4ax.com...

> On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:05:28 -0500, in alt.politics, in thread Her Own

> Bodyguard - Gun-packing First Lady, "Patriot Games"

> <Patriot@America.com>, wrote

>>Although some of Eleanor Roosevelt's views - such as her hopes for the

>>United Nations - were mistaken, her courage and perseverance deserve the

>>respect of people of all political backgrounds. May she continue to

>>inspire

>>people of all ages for many generations to come.

> I think that the UN was a great idea -- originally -- that went bad in

> about 15 years...........which is about when (the 1960s) the "Get the US

> out of the UN" bumper stickers became common.

The UN was an excellent idea! Get all the world's nations together for big

America Trade Show! It was a marketing convention.

And you're right, its been a shithole since about the 60s.

We need to bail out, kick them out of NYC, work with those who want to work

with us, cease almost all foreign aid, and tell everybody else to go fuck

themselves.