people-from-maine

"The power of the state to impose restraints and burdens upon persons and property in conservation and promotion of the public health, good order, and prosperity is a power originally and always belonging to the states, not surrendered to them by the general government, nor directly restrained by the constitution of the United States, and essentially exclusive."

"The framers of the Constitution employed words in their natural sense; and, where they are plain and clear, resort to collateral aids to interpretation is unnecessary, and cannot be indulged in to narrow or enlarge the text; but where there is ambiguity or doubt, or where two views may well be entertained, contemporaneous and subsequent practical construction is entitled to the greatest weight."

"The Emancipation Proclamation is predicated upon the idea that the President may so annul the constitutions and laws of sovereign states, overthrow their domestic relations, deprive loyal men of their property, and disloyal as well, without trial or condemnation."

"Nothing can be clearer than that what the Constitution intended to guard against was the exercise by the general government of the power of directly taxing persons and property within any State through a majority made up from the other States."

"Capt. Millett, Company E, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action. While personally leading his company in an attack against a strongly held position, he noted that the 1st Platoon was pinned down by small-arms, automatic, and antitank fire. Capt. Millett ordered the 3d Platoon forward, placed himself at the head of the two platoons, and, with fixed bayonet, led the assault up the fire-swept hill. In the fierce charge Capt. Millett bayoneted two enemy soldiers and boldly continued on, throwing grenades, clubbing and bayoneting the enemy, while urging his men forward by shouting encouragement. Despite vicious opposing fire, the whirlwind hand-to-hand assault carried to the crest of the hill. His dauntless leadership and personal courage so inspired his men that they stormed into the hostile position and used their bayonets with such lethal effect that the enemy fled in wild disorder. During this fierce onslaught Capt. Millett was wounded by grenade fragments but refused evacuation until the objective was taken and firmly secured. The superb leadership, conspicuous courage, and consummate devotion to duty demonstrated by Capt. Millett were directly responsible for the successful accomplishment of a hazardous mission and reflect the highest credit on himself and the heroic traditions of the military service."

"[Regarding other Medal of Honor recipients] I've never worked at a job to make money. I think most of them try to live up to the Medal and protect and not disgrace it. I have not met any that I would say did not deserve it. And they're a hell of a gang of people. You got every conceivable race, religion. What they have in common is courage, or the absence of fear in a critical situation. It's having courage when it counts."

"I believe in freedom, deeply believe in it. I believed as a free man it was my duty- and I'm not Jewish- tbut I think it was my duty to help the Jews be freed of a son of a bitch like Hitler. That's why I deserted and went to Canada: to fight against Hitler. I've fought in three wars, and volunteered for all of them because I believed as a free man it was my duty to help others under the attack of tyranny. Just as simple as that. Now, I'm so damn old I can't do it. But that's my belief: if free men don't help others to retain or regain our freedom, then we'll lose in the final analysis."

"I'd forgotten all about it. But I was the only Army colonel ever convicted of desertion and subsequently pardoned by a President- thirty years later. And got away with it. It was like when they court-martialed me. They did it just to clear the record. I was only making a statement against draft dodgers. It's illegal, you know. An officer can't just go and do things like that, in a uniform."

"Interviewer: How did your becoming involved impact your family life? You mentioned that you’d already had two children. Georgette Berube: Yes, my son was four at the time, he was younger than my daughter. It didn’t impact because I was home every night. Now it would be a little more difficult because I serve for example on two committees and that takes me, I stay there a little longer during the day, but I only had one committee assignment the first time I was there. And you really get very busy only toward the end of the session, like April and May, in the first year of the two-year term. And there was always someone here when the children came home from school. I had a housekeeper then who came in every morning. She’d leave when I got home or my husband got home."

"Interviewer: In a newspaper article that I glanced at, you mention that a woman’s voice was needed in the government, and I wanted to know what you meant by woman’s voice. What could a woman bring? Georgette Berube: I think a woman can bring a little more sensitivity to particularly issues like childcare, education. Not that men are insensitive, but they don’t view it the same way as a woman might. And I think that women proved that they could also handle budget issues. In fact a very dear friend of mine who was a colleague who chaired, was the house chairman of appropriations back in ’78, I guess, or ‘80, ‘76, ‘78, which was unheard of, a woman did not chair the appropriations committee. So you break the barrier, but you have to do it carefully, you have to put your best foot forward and do it with dignity. And if you go up there and slam things around, that doesn’t go with the general public."

"How beautiful the water is! To me 'tis wondrous fair— No spot can ever lonely be If water sparkle there— It hath a thousand tongues of mirth, Of grandeur, or delight; And every heart is gladder made When water greets the sight."

"My friends, do we realize for what purpose we are convened? Do we fully understand that we aim at nothing less than an entire subversion of the present order of society, a dissolution of the whole existing compact? Do we see that it is not an error of today, nor of yesterday against which we are lifting up the voice of dissent but that it is against the ... error of all times — error borne onward from the footprints of the first pair ejected from Paradise, down to our own time? ... Bitterness is the child of wrong; if any of our number has become embittered ... it is because social wrong has so penetrated to the inner life that we are crucified today."

"The tender violet bent in smiles To elves that sported nigh, Tossing the drops of fragrant dew To scent the evening sky."

"'Tis the summer prime, when the noiseless air In perfumed chalice lies, And the bee goes by with a lazy hum Beneath the sleeping skies."

"White-winged angels meet the child On the vestibule of life, And they offer to his lips All that cup of mingled strife."

"The measure of capacity is the measure of sphere for either man or woman."

"Faith is the subtle chain, Which binds us to the Infinite: the voice Of a deep life within, that will remain Until we crowd it thence."

"How few women have any history after the age of thirty!"

"'Tis rushing now adown the spout And gushing out below, Half frantic in its joyousness, And wild in eager flow. The earth is dried and parch’d with heat, And it hath longed to be Released from out the selfish cloud, To cool the thirsty tree."

"Yes, this is Life; and everywhere we meet, Not victor crowns, but wailings of defeat."

"The Lord is the center of our prayer, the rest of us, we are there to adore Him."

"Bunker said between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century, "Almost every county from here to Georgia had its own special apples that were unique to that area. And certainly every town had its own unique mix of apples people would grow. I think more and more Americans are seeing that the one-size-fits-all approach is a worn-out model.""

"I like to think apples in Maine should be like cheeses in France, where you go 10 miles and you get a whole new cheese. In Maine there should be a different cider and apple in every town or county"

"Looking for rare apples is really not about finding a particular apple: it’s about looking for an apple...And in some respects it is not even about looking for an apple at all, but instead it is about looking at the apple that is in your yard or down the road and looking at it in a new way. It is about that decision to become more engaged with your environment."

"I got to come to Earth and have this amazing experience of all these trees that were grown and bearing, and all these old-timers who would take me out into their fields and show me things and take me on trips down these old roads. And I would knock on somebody’s door, and the next thing you know I’m eating with them. It was like gift after gift after gift. And I started thinking, do I have any responsibilities with this? Or do I just soak it up and let it go?"

"I felt like these trees I was finding in my town, and then eventually all over Maine and other places, were a gift to me by someone whom I had never met, who had no idea who I was, who had no idea that I was ever going to be."

"Where we are is our heritage."

"One thing I’ve noticed is that whether its an old farm or a building in town or an apple variety, if someone like you or me doesn’t take an active interest in protecting and preserving things of value as they age, no one will... These old [apple] varieties are going to fade away and be lost and forgotten if we don’t do something about it."

"I don’t consider myself to be better than anybody else for doing it. It’s just that it’s something I CAN do to be of value while I’m here."

"The clarion note of “Kentucky, old Kentucky” ! rings through the land. She claims eminence in the political station amidst her Star-crowned Sisters ; she exults in the far told history of her military renown: but there is a moral eminence far transcending political distinctions ; and a more glorious renown than is sounded from the trumpet of victorious battles:— bid her to a place in the firmament of heaven ; there enthroned by her holy deeds of charity and love, inscribe her name on that scroll of history borne by angels — and sealed by arch-angels for the archives of eternity!"

"Are there not many who will read this page, who, like myself, can recall the lone husband and father wearing out a woful life in the dreary block house, almost within the shadow of his own roof; « without clothes, for if he was furnished, he would rend them in pieces ; without bed, for if that was supplied, it would be destroyed; without bathing or shaving, till he resembles the beasts of the forest; without fire, for with it he would burn the building; in a cheerless block-house, for if a less solid structure, he would break through it! Are there none who remember the dull victim of melancholy delusions, harrassed by unreflecting neighbors, hurrying away to find refuge from their thoughtless persecutions, beneath the waters of the nigh flowing river? Are there none who recollection the son and brother, swinging his clanking chain within a slight and comfortless cabin, clamoring and hooting at the passersby, vociferous, dangerous, and destitute of all appropriate care ; dangerous when at large, and wretched under the weary bondage of his chains? Will none have heard of the delirious epileptic girl, whose troublesome habits and mischievous propensities bring upon her the cutting lash, and who, driven by this merciless discipline, to wilder freaks, and more frequent paroxysms, is an object of deepest pity. These scenes, these hapless conditions of the insane are terrible, but these, and others not dissimilar, are not unusually the result, so much of barbarious dispositions on the part of kindred, (the last case excepted,) as the consequence of ignorance upon the right treatment demanded for the insane, and a failure to realize the great sufferings which ill-directed management create and aggravate. Let all, and each, through out our country, learn the benefits of hospital treatment, and unite to secure these benefits to all the insane, of whatever rank or condition."

"The dread of severe measures, in the treatment of the insane in hospitals is passing away from the minds of all who seek information concerning them. In these the rule of right, and the law of kindness are known to prevail. Severity and harsh measures of coersion are long since abandoned. Gentleness and persuasion unite with a mild decision, to control the way ward and the perverse, and to quiet the raving maniac."

"Is Dorothea Dix throwing off her womanly nature and appearance in the course she is pursuing? In finding duties abroad, has any "refined man felt that something of beauty has gone forth from her"? To use the contemptuous word applied in the lecture alluded to, is she becoming "mannish"? Is she compromising her womanly dignity in going forth to seek to better the condition of the insane and afflicted? Is not a beautiful mind and a retiring modesty still conspicuous in her?"

"In Kentucky alone, of all the States I have traversed, it has not been my painful experience to find the insane poor, filling the cells of poor- houses, or the dungeons of the jails."

"I approach you with confidence as the advocate of those who, alas, cannot plead their own cause — of those in whom the light of the understanding is darkened, and who are crushed under the weight of an overwhelming malady"

"Did Elizabeth Fry, of England, neglect her family? No! After rearing her eight or ten children, she went forth and did the things that Howard did, and greater. See Dorothea Dix, and what a ministering angel she has been! Look at the licentiousness of our own city of Penn, and see how Myra Townsend went forth and established a reformatory house for her sisters; see how she gathered them there and improved their situations, and awakened in them a desire for a better life."

"Of all the calamities to which ‘humanity is subject, none is so dreadful as insanity. Pinching want, hideous deformity, acute disease, mutilation, deafness, blindness; all these are distressing in their effects alike upon the sufferer and those with whom he is connected"

"Prisons are not constructed in view of being converted into county hospitals, and almshouses are not founded as receptacles for the insane. And yet, in the face of justice and common sense, wardens are by law compelled to receive, and the masters of almshouses not to refuse, insane and idiotic subjects in all stages of mental disease and privation."

"All experience shows that insanity seasonably treated is as certainly curable as a cold or a fever. Recovery is the rule; permanent disease the exception."

"I found, near Boston, in the jails and asylums for the poor, a numerous class brought into unsuitable connection with criminals and the general mass of paupers. I refer to idiots and insane persons, dwelling in circumstances not only adverse to their own physical and moral improvement, but productive of extreme disadvantages to all other persons brought into association with them. I applied myself diligently to trace the causes of these evils, and sought to supply remedies. As one obstacle was surmounted, fresh difficulties appeared. Every new investigation has given depth to the conviction that it is only by decided, prompt, and vigorous legislation the evils to which I refer, and which I shall proceed more fully to illustrate, can be remedied. I shall be obliged to speak with great plainness, and to reveal many things revolting to the taste, and from which my woman’s nature shrinks with peculiar sensitiveness. But truth is the highest consideration. I tell what I have seen — painful and shocking as the details often are — that from them you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages upon humanity. If I inflict pain upon you, and move you to horror, it is to acquaint you with sufferings which you have the power to alleviate, and make you hasten to the relief of the victims of legalized barbarity."

"The condition of human beings, reduced to the extremest states of degradation and misery, cannot be exhibited in softened language, or adorn a polished page."

"I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience."

"Familiarity with suffering, it is said, blunts the sensibilities, and where neglect once finds a footing other injuries are multiplied."

"I think "laconic" is a good word for John Ford and for his technique of direction. No big deal about communication with John. Terse, pithy, to the point. Very Irish, a dark personality, a sensitivity which he did everything to conceal, but once he said to me while I was doing a scene with Ray Massey, "Make it scan, Mary." And I said to myself, "Aha! I know you now!"."

"You won't like what I am going to say, because the people who I admire are the least-valued by cinema intellectuals; it seems like a tragic misunderstanding to me. My favorite filmmaker is De Sica: I know I'm upsetting you. And John Ford. But the Ford of twenty years ago, the De Sica of twelve years ago."

"I've only been influenced by somebody once: prior to making Citizen Kane, I saw Stagecoach forty times. I didn't need to learn from somebody who had something to say, but from somebody who would show me how to say what I had in mind; and John Ford is perfect for that."

"The only director who does not move either his camera or his actors very much, and in whom I believe, is John Ford. He succeeds in making me believe in his films even though there is little movement in them. But with the others I have the impression that they are desperately trying to make Art."

"Maureen O'Hara is one of the actresses I most dislike. Everybody thought I was her lover. Actually, I hated her and she hated me, but she was right for the parts."

"Stanley Kubrick and are the only ones that appeal to me—except for the old masters. By which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford.[...] With Ford at his best, you feel that the movie has lived and breathed in a real world."

"As for the director, John Ford, from my first meeting with him to the day the picture was completed I knew I was in the hands of the consummate professional. I felt safe and secure with him. If I argued a line of dialogue with him or objected to a bit of business, I can now assure you it was more to assert my ego than it was to attack him. Almost entirely throughout the film, when we clashed, it turned out he was right and I was wrong. The main point to be made is that he would sit me down and show me where I was wrong. He is a totally remarkable director and one of the few deserving a place in the Pantheon. I'm told he's aging now, and cranky; well, I'm aging now, and cranky, but I bet if the right script came along (and were still around to write it), John Ford and I could knock the shit out of it."