On this day in 1916 Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the United States Congress. She was from Montana. She is still the only woman to ever go to Congress from Montana. She was a pacifist who voted against the United States entering World War I. 50 voted against that. She would be elected again to Congress in 1940 and was the only member of Congress to vote against the United States entering World War II after Pearl Harbor. Hard to understand that vote. She didn’t bother running for re-election in 1943 knowing she would be beaten like a drum. She lived until 1973, dying at the age of 92.
slicethelife 
Apparently Rankin’s logic in not voting for war was that as a woman she, back then, couldn’t go to war, so therefore, she wasn’t going to make anyone else go. While I disagree with her decision, I respect her logic.
It’s hard to say anything conclusively about her solitary vote. The desire for U.S. entry in that war was not unanimous among the citizens, either. If she was indeed a pacifist, she was following her conscience.
She was on the same wavelength as Mahatma Gandhi. Marching to the sound of a different drummer…that sort of thing.