Sarah Vowell Quote

Married to a naval commander who happened to be Benjamin Franklin’s great-great-grandson, Wainwright prayed to the graven image of Lafayette, since neither the president nor Congress seemed to be listening. We, the women of the United States, she told the bronze Lafayette, denied the liberty which you helped to gain, and for which we have asked in vain for sixty years, turn to you to plead for us. Speak, Lafayette, dead these hundred years but still living in the hearts of the American people. She beseeched the inanimate Frenchman, Let that outstretched hand of yours pointing to the White House recall to him—President Wilson—his words and promises, his trumpet call for all of us, to see that the world is made safe for democracy. As our army now in France spoke to you there, saying here we are to help your country fight for liberty, will you not speak here and now for us, a little band with no army, no power but justice and right, no strength but in our Constitution and in the Declaration of Independence; and win a great victory again in this country by giving us the opportunity we ask—to be heard through the Susan B. Anthony amendment. She then echoed the words uttered by the American officer in Paris on July 4, 1917. Lafayette, she said, we are here!