judicial office as a trust and not an estate. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. >> next, a group of capitol pages talk about their time in washington. they reflect on the duties they carried out and discuss the benefits of the congressional page experience. the u.s. capitol historical society hosted this one-hour event. >> good afternoon, everyone. my name is jerry papazian. i was a house page in 1971-'72.

and i am currently the president of the u.s. capitol page alumni association. the alumni association was formed in 2009 as a nonprofit organizations of former members -- former pages of the u.s. house, u.s. senate and u.s. supreme court. this afternoon is a kickoff of the first-ever all-class homecoming reunion all classes of former pages. we have pages represented here today and through the weekend that served from 1940s to the present. now, we're here today cosponsoring this event with the u.s. capitol historical society. we have two parts. we have a panel of firsts who you'll hear from very soon.

our second group panel is the panel of the house and senate historians who are going to give a visual presentation of the history of the page program. now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce don kennen, the vice president of the u.s. capitol historical society for scholarship and education. don is sa30-year veteran. and we appreciate working with the society and putting on the events this weekend. don? >> well, thank you very much, jerry. and thanks to you and to chris cobey and to everyone with the capitol page alumni association who has put this event together. as jerry mentioned, i've been doing this kind of thing for almost 30 years. i know how difficult this can be. actually, i'm only 33 years old. you wouldn't know it to look at me. i know how these things can age you. thank you, jerry, so much.

i'm going to put on briefly this ball cap of the u.s. capitol page alumni association that jerry was kind enough to give me because i feel a little bit like carol hardy now because you're probably expecting to see cokie roberts up here to moderate the panel discussion. unfortunately, a family illness has made it impossible for her to be here. earlier, jerry had asked me if i would be willing to pinch-hit for her. feeling that that would never occur, i said sure. so i feel like carol hardy. now, some of you may recognize that name. if you're a boston red sox fan, you should recognize that name. carol hardy was the only baseball player who ever pinch-hit for the great ted williams. on september 3rd, 1960, williams was at bat and fouled the ball off his foot. badly injured. he couldn't continue.

the manager called on carol hardy to go up at bat. he hit a double play. hopefully, i won't have the same results. i'll try to do better. but we'll carry on and fortunately, like the boston red sox in the 1960s, they finished 32 games behind the new york yankees. i don't have to worry about winning because i have a better team here to carry on. it's my pleasure to represent the u.s. capitol historical society at this event, which we are proud to cosponsor during our 50th anniversary year. our anniversary theme is your capitol, our mission. 50 years promoting informed citizenship. so it is very appropriate that we take a look in this program at some of the historic firsts and the history of democracy's messengers, the capitol pages who have served congress.

i had a fantastic introduction planned for cokie roberts. onef of the greatest introductions you would have ever heard. i just want to share a little bit of it. cokie is a member of the board of trustees of the u.s. capitol historical societies. and i know if she could have at all made it possible to be here, she would have been. but i was looking forward to introducing her so i could embarrass her. you know, over the years, i've introduced hundreds of people. historians, scholars, authors, current and former members of congress, some of whom probably thought in their own eyes that they were legends. but cokie roberts is an authentic, official living legend. in 2008, the library of congress gave her that designation and award as a living legend.

i would have loved -- i have never, ever had the honor of introducing a real living legend. the embarrassing thing i would have said is that among the list of living legends so designated by the library of congress is big bird of sesame street. but, anyway, on with the show. a brief word of how we're going to handle the panel discussion. i'm going to make a brief introduction of the four panelists and then we will throw it open to them to make brief opening statements. and i'm sure that will lead to an exciting and informative discussion of their careers as capitol pages. following that, as time permits,

we welcome your input. there are three microphones here. and as we come to that point of time, just come and line up and make your observations, we'd appreciate that. let me introduce our panelists in alphabetical order. first, ellen mcconnell blakeman. ellen, would you raise your hand so everyone can recognize you? ellen grew up in dundee, illinois and was the first female page nominee. she earned her bachelor of science degree in communications from the university of illinois. she worked for a relations agency in chicago. she had a couple of boys, quit her job, and decided if the phone didn't ring for free lanls work, she didn't care. she just went out to run or play golf. her boys both play golf.

one professionally and one for the university of dayton. daryl j. gonzalez, daryl. daryl gonzalez, ph.d., is the author of the definitive history of the page program entitled the children who ran for congress. a history of congressional pages. published in 2010. a former teacher of the house page school, dr. gonzalez has worked in education for more than 20 years. he earned his ph.d. from the university of maryland and has masters degrees from alfred jufrt and frostburg state university. he lives in maryland with his wife and four children. felder looper was appointed as the first female page to the u.s. house of representatives in 1973 by the honorable carl albert, speaker of the house. she graduated with his degree from the university on oklahoma in 1973 and obtained a masters

degrees from the george washington university. after living for 2 1/2 years in paris france, probably very unpleasant, she made her home here in washington, d.c. where she still resides. felda has had a multifaceted career and presently is a business management process improvement and quality assurance consultant and perhaps she'll explain to us what that actually means. felda has a daughter, chelsea, in the d.c. area and immediate family in the tulsa area. she is working on a book about her page experience, life as it changes, feminism as the importance of embracing and planning for change. frank mitchell was raised in springfield, illinois, and was selected to become the first african-american page to serve in the u.s. house of representatives in the 20th century. with the consent of then minority leader gerald ford of michigan, congressman paul

finley of illinois chose mitchell for this historic assignment in 1965. as a page in the republican cloak room, he witnessed many historic mome ancient of the civil rights movement, including the floor debates for the voting rights act of 1965. mitchell went on to a career as a reporter, ultimately as a broadcaster and weekend anchor in minneapolis. mitchell was later employed as a writer and editor for northwestern bell and is deputy director of communications for the illinois attorney general's office. mitchell also started his own public relations firm and served as the executive director for illinois fatherhood initiative, a nonprofit organization. so now, let me turn the program over to the panelists and we'll proceed. and since we're here in the

capitol by seniority. therefore, frank, we'll let you begin by making a statement. anything you'd like to share with us? >> nothing like seniority to make you feel young. my experience in becoming the first african-american page was totally unexpected. as you may or may not realize, i was just tubing along as an average 15-year-old playing basketball, seeing my girlfriend when i could, you know. and my mother got this call that they wanted to consider making me a page. in washington, d.c. i was kind of a geeky guy who i read the newspapers and watched the news and things like that. i wrote my congressman when i was 10 years old. because they were talking about pay television.

if they only knew about cable bills today. and he wrote back. but anyway, they brought myself and four other boys down to mr. finley's office, paul finley, in springfield, illinois, and interviewed us. later that evening, they called me and said that i had been selected and that on wednesday i would be flying to washington, d.c. so that meant i had about, i don't know, 54 hours to get ready, to pack, to buy a suit or to say good-bye to my girlfriend and my buddies. and jay david jones escorted me to washington. we had lunch and then we went to meet mr. finley, gerald ford and les aarons.

who was the -- gerald ford was the house minority whip at the time. and les -- i'm sorry, les aarons was the house minority whip and gerald ford the house minority leader. and then, after a few minutes discussing some things with them, we went into an antiroom and cameras still, video were there, probably, i don't know, eight or ten of them and other reporters asking questions. it was quite the whirlwind experience. i want to emphasize this was 1965. frank mitchell became the first negro ever appointed to serve as a page in the u.s. house of representatives. it was a clipping from my hometown newspaper. an it was replayed from tulsa to tampa to spokane.

and it was in the middle of the civil rights movement. it was three weeks after martin luther king had been turned back on the march to selma. it was two months after malcolm x has been assassinated. my mother let me go. she let me come to washington, d.c. i'm still amazed. we didn't know where i was going to stay. most of the kids -- i was 15 and most of the other pages, the boy, the caucasian boy pages, most of them were 16, 17 and 18. and a lot of them were from the district area from maryland and virginia. so on the weekends, they could go home, they could take their laundry, that kind of thing. they had to find me a place to stay. which, fortunately, i had a cousin, about an eighth cousin, but he agreed that i could stay with him.

and i did with -- he had a 2-year-old, fairly newly married and another son on the way. it was tight in the two-bedroom apartment. believe me, the second baby came about a month after i arrived. and the older baby thought i was the new baby that mom and dad had been talking about. i'm sure we'll get into it, but there were lots of interesting experiences i had. but i want to be clear i never felt unwelcome, which is probably a testament to gerald ford, paul finley and les aarons for setting the stage. i don't know who is -- >> yeah, i'm the next oldest. i was nominated in january '71 by senator percy about a month

after paulette was nominated by jacob jav asolof new york, and my story is about the period of time between january and may when paula and i were actually sworn in. i would characterize it with a true life experience with the adage that you have all heard. two things to never watch being made. laws and sausages. unlike paulette, who lived with her family in alexandria, i packed my bags and moved to washington. i moved into a women's dorm on capitol hill across from the parking lot from the new senate office building. it was like a college dorm. i had a room, bathroom down the hall, cafeteria. most of the other residents were fbi secretaries. at the time under the wise leadership of j. edgar hoover, fbi secretaries had to live in apl approved housing and this was one of them.

imagine that today. my family and i spent a couple days meeting with percy's staff, tried to do some sight seeing. and on the appointed day, my parents and i were marched down to sergeant dunphy's office along with the paperwork from mark tryce that certified i was qualified to be sworn in as a page. we were accompanied by percy's top aide and said here we are. donefy shook my hand which was like shaking hands with a bluegill, and he said in a very soft voice that he could not, would not swear me in. and it was kind of like a relationship that breaks up before it even starts. it felt like, ellen, we can't date. but don't worry about it. it's not you, it's me. the percy's aide seemed genuinely surprised. my parents and i were dumbstruck to the point where we didn't even think to ask, was this a

political miscalculation? some time later, maybe weeks, percy told a reporter that the strategy was confrontation. and the thinking was, since there was no explicit rule expressly prohibiting girl pages, that they opted to force his hand. we went back to the office. the staff to a member felt that this was, at worst, a temporary setback, something that would be resolved in days. so the decision was made that i would stay in washington. i was already unpacked, moved into the dorm. they put me on the payroll and i would work in his office until this got resolved. well, days turned into weeks. but i don't regret this time because i now know that few senate pages ever get the opportunity to work in their sponsor's office. here i was shoulder to shoulder with the press secretary, the foreign relations guy, the domestic relations guy, the guy who opened the mail, the

caseworkers who helped constituents deal with problems with social security, veterans benefits, etcetera. even then, the lady who was in charge of the softball team. the percy-cution, just so you know. mr. dunphy, just so you know, even though as a minor certified senate employee, i was entitled to go to page school. mr. dunphy managed to see to it that i was never permitted to enroll. while this was all happening, the legislative issue is lurching along. it was turfed off to the rules committee which as an historic note, 7 of the 9 senatorers supported the e.r.a., which makes you scratch your head and wonder why this is an issue. the rules committee created an ad hoc subcommittee to investigate girl pages. now, the nicest thing i think i can say about this group of gentlemen, three in number, is that they worshipped at the

church of the status quo. given an opportunity to move society forward or the senate forward, their first instinct was to ignore it. and their second instinct, in case the first one didn't work out, was to delay it as long as possible. now, this was disheartening. but, like frank, i have to say that at the grassroots level, the support of the boy pages was incredible. there's a -- in the first a.p. story announcing paulette's nomination by senator javis, there's a quote from a page named greg king who said, don't worry, paulette, it's not that hard. there was another page who scoured the senate rule to discover rule 282, which should have entitled me to attend page school. senator percy showed our pictures to all of the boy pages and that fast had more than a dozen volunteers to escort us

anywhere we wanted to go on capitol hill. from the dorm to school to work, back to the dorm, to the movies, for ice cream. all of this time, i expected to any day to start school so i was trying to keep up with the classes. and another boy page would meet me in the hall way, kind of like deep throat, and give me the spanish homework. in early march, the subcommittee held hearings. paulette and i were both there. we were very excited but nervous because the committee chairman announced the scope of the committee's work. and it was his intent to evaluate the entire page program. i thought the more you broaden this, the more complicated it gets and the more you could derail girl pages. well, senators javetz and percy testified, took qs and as.

the subcommittee members had many questions. pay, accommodations, what the girls would wear, supervision, safety. they spent a long time talking about whether they should just kick the can down the road and not do anything until the dorm was built, which we all know is time measured in decades, not days. they wondered if the job was too physically strenuous. paulette had a nice comeback to this issue. she was asked by a reporter, can you run as fast as the boys? she said no. but i'm a very fast walker. the senators wondered if the gender barriers all over the hill should break down. elevator operators, capitol police, post office workers, janitors, plumbers. it was unbelievable. and at some point, the rules

that percy had developed for me were read into the record. curfew, don't walk around alone at night, make sure someone knows where you are. mr. dunphy testified and his opening remarks were, i feel like the villain in this piece, which resonated with me. here's a report from the hearing. a transcript of everything that was said. and someone, i don't know who it is, helpfully decided to append a map of capitol hill. and here it is. and it notes the locations of all of the page residences and also the locations where crimes were committed. so i guess that was a nice touch. now, you might think once a hearing was held and a report was issued, something would happen. you would be wrong.

on april 27th, which by my reckoning is about six weeks after the hearing with no activity in sight, our senators, along with others, introduced legislation on behalf of girl pages. it was reported out of the rules committee on may 7th. there was a voice vote on the senate floor. and paulette and i were sworn in on may 14th. julie, shortly thereafter. and so that's the story about making laws. let's move onto sausages. [ laughter ] >> well, i guess it's my turn now. i had a little bit different experience with getting to the start of being page. i came to washington with my parents in the summer of 1970. we drove in a 1968 lincoln continental. and it seemed like a long way. anyway, we finally got here and we did the whole tour thing.

dad dragged us through every, you know, possible thing that you're supposed to see as a child when you come here. and one day, the four of us came up to the capitol building and mr. albert, we went into his office up here in the capitol building. and we happened to run into him and he invited us to lunch. when we were at lunch, he was asking my sister and i what we thought about what we'd seen. i don't remember what my sister said. she probably said something very sweet and nice. and i said, well, why aren't there any girl pages? and he looks at me and says well, felda, i guess it's just an unspoken rule. we just don't have girl pages. i defiantly said that's not fair and i would like to be a page. he goes, well, we'll look into it and see what we can do. so i went back home and started writing letters, 1970, 1971, 1972, you know, writing letters.

and the first letter i got back was so exciting. all of this beautiful franking and it looks so important. and it was one of those lovely letters, thank you, but no thank you. we'll keep trying. don't call us, we'll call you kind of stuff. but i did keep writing. and kept writing. and as the time neared for me to go to the university of oklahoma, my belief in it started to wane. i didn't begin to think it was really going to happen. and then i got a call from charlie ward in early mid may in '73 asking me if i wanted to be the first woman page. i said, well, you have to ask my parents. he said, it's all right. we've already spoken to your parents. it's going to be okay. it wasn't about being the first girl page. it was never about that. it was being able to come here and do what the boys were able to do. it wasn't my desire to be the first, it just happened that way. and i was dogged about my determination to do this. and it was a little bit easier in some ways for you and the way it happened to you, but not any

easier in the way that you had to make it happen. the fact that the rules were the way they were, it was so unfair. and that's what mr. albert said to me, well, this is just an unspoken rule. and then there were the whole problems of where are you going to stay and who's going to watch over you. heaven knows you're a girl and you can't possibly do that for yourself. now, i'm about to go off to college at university in the months down the road. so i already better be able to do that. my father was a little bit offended when they asked him to sign a release saying i was on my own recognizance, nobody was responsible for me, and they didn't ask the boy pages for any of that, either. so he was very upset with that. but i was already 18. so he was okay with that. we can go ahead with this. it was so great to get here. it was the summer of 1973. we had the watergate hearings.

we were still dealing with vietnam, we were dealing with abortions and all that kind of stuff. and i came here from such a tiny little town in rural oklahoma, and here are these kids vying for newspapers in the cloak room. and i just -- my whole eyes were open to what an incredible new experience this was in this beautiful new city that was glittering and full of energy and people, important people, and lots of people, and people from everywhere, different colors and religions and everything i hadn't seen before. and the whole experience changed my life. it was a really incredible, fun thing. and when you're asking can you run faster than boys, the question should have been can you run faster than congressmen. anyway, it was -- it was quite the experience. as i said earlier, i am working on a book. some of these things i won't discuss here. but are some fun stories about that whole experience. just the experience of being in the whole capitol building

without anybody else there but the pages and walking around in the building and being able to be a part of history is just an amazing thing. and i think it's such a sad, sad thing that pelosi and some of the others have decided that this program isn't worthwhile. and i think that i will do what i can do to reverse that, if we can. i know that congressman boren is also from oklahoma and he's also signed papers to try to get this thing to move along. but it does change our lives. even if you weren't the first. i recently had the opportunity to speak to the pages, not this last spring but a year ago, and talked with them. at the end of that, i had the opportunity to ask them some questions. and so i picked a girl and i said, tell me, how did you get to be a page? she said, oh, my congresswoman called me up and said, do you want to be one? and i'm going, yeah, finally. finally. and so, anyway, good things have happened. and that's kind of how i got to be here.