house. and it's me, the two women on the end, and all of these male senators. and here's what happened. jacqueline kennedy had edited a book called "remember the ladies" from abigail adams plea to her husband when he was writing the constitution. obviously, he didn't do it. and it was about all the things that we didn't know about herstory, all the women in our background that had just been left out of history. i mean, they take history too seriously. and figured there was no reason to put hers in it. so she wanted this as part of the official part of the bicentennial. it made sense to me. i thought it was about time women learned of history. i had passed it out. someone said to me, they were, like, no way. so i'm sitting here at this dinner, and i'm thinking, these are probably the two most

powerful women i can think of in washington. and these guys are saying no. and they're saying things like, our vision, for what women -- probably plant bulbs and read. they wouldn't have anything to do with it. so, you know, at that point, i kind of drove home thinking, what am i doing here? their big compromise was, they would allow the book to go to europe and asia and the u.s. information libraries, but that would be it. it would not be an official part of the bicentennial and the united states. i guess they were so afraid that we would get too radical. i don't know. so that happened. oh, the wonderful story about my coming into armed services with my wonderful africanrican lleag

there were obviously no africaericanomen in armed services. and the chairman went ballistic anonlyav chair to share. because he said we were each worth only half of his regular coming on the committee, and he wanted absolutely no part of it. well, thank you very much and welcome to washington. so that was an interesting thing. maybe many of you know barney frank who's a good friend of mine in congress. and he always says that was the only half-assed thing i did when i was there, but i'm not sure that's true. i figured he just didn't know enough about the other things i was doing. well, then i had been very interested in women in the military because there were young women who wanted to participate. so at the air force in particular was letting more women in and stuff. and i'm home one weekend.

and these wonderful young women, air force officers, come to see me and said, oh, it's just terrible at lowry. and i said, what? well, we're supposed to go to the officers club because we're officers and it's -- but they have these topless go-go dancers in there. i said, what? so i go back to washington. and i call antonio shays, the first woman undersecretary of the air force. she said, that can't happen. i said, trust me, it's happening. she says, never worry. i'm putting out an order right away to stop all of that. so she said she did. i'm back a couple weeks later. and the women said, can't you do anything about it? i said, what do you mean? i go back and call tony shays and say, i thought you put out an order. she said, "i did." so she called in the people. oh, we didn't send it out. we thought you were kidding.

so we had a lot of ways where we really found that women were not making -- they weren't exactly excited about having us there. i also remember, too, when i first got to congress, we were supposed to have a separate credit card, you know, for our bills. i couldn't use my husband's credit card because you're turning them in to be reimbursed. so i applied to american express to get a separate card. and they tell me you can't because you're of child-bearing age. and actually, i had exactly the same problem, i had gone back to close the house. we were going to live in. because joe was busy, and it was a crazy time. and i got back and they said you can't. you're of child-bearing age. so equal credit had not quite come at that time. so i got some people together. we got the equal credit bill

through. and then i kept hearing from women that this was still going on. so i said, what's happening? so we called over arthur burns who was then chairman of the federal reserve. maybe some of you remember. and we said, we passed this bill. and women all over are telling us they're not getting -- oh, he said, we thought you just meant it for shopping. so, i mean, i could tell these stories all night. they're just absolutely amazing. but i think one of the things, too, we find everywhere is that women don't celebrate women enough. you know, one of the things we passed was to celebrate august the 26th, which is the day the 19th amendment passed. you would think that would be a big day. over half the population gets to vote. but we're all too busy. and then we have wonderful helen reddy coming out here one time. she sang "i am woman," this

whole bit. and we decided, i couldn't get back because we had a vote. so jim was looking for someplace to take her where there was some monument to women. and we found monuments to buffaloes, monuments to everything. but the only one we could find for a woman was this thing in city park that's just kind of, you know, liberty or justice or something. they're always -- no real women. so that was also interesting. and then i see marvelous sally brown back here. they decided there should be some kind of memorial in downtown denver where those wonderful suffragettes met with the wonderful supporting males. and it was a half and half in this church where they got this thing through in 1893 for women to vote. that's very historic. fantastic. we discovered that that church had been where the first national bank was down on 17th street. so going in and explaining to

them the wonderful historic place where they were and how we'dke to have something. you may as well have told them that there was going to be a nuclear attack at 3:00. i think we finally got to put a little tiny pque down on the floor. i don't think anybody's ever seen it. and now they've moved it soer, so i have no idea where it is now. maybe it's been removed to the circular file. but i do think those things are and it's wonderful to know we had forefathers foremothers that were really out there caring, especially in 1893. it's amazing that passed because the silver panic was on. this place was in like a depression. and yet, men came out and said no women should be able to vote. you know, i'm still lobbying for something down there. i don't know, maybe we should just all march down there this afternoon and put up a monument. i don't know. but colorado tends to go one way

and then another. because while we were doing all of this in the '70s, the other side said oh, my goodness. we were asleep at the switch. all these hopeaholics moved in here. you know, these dreamers. we've got to get back to reality. and things like the mountain states legal foundation was established with people like james watt. i had never met mr. watt. i will never fort, he called had he from the '70s from the mountain states legal foundation. he said, i'm james 'm a constituent, and i would like for you to get me someeminists who are against the equal rights amendment. now, i said, okay, which one of my crazy friends is trying to crank me up? and, of course, he didn't think that was funny at all because it

really was james watt and not a friend. so nevertheless, we were never too close. but you know what happened. he got promoted to the department of interior. he did wonderful things like turn the buffalo around on the seal so it was facing to the right and not the left. very important things. he refused to take private land that was donated for conservation purposes. and the great thing, he didn't allow the beach boys to appear on the mall in 188 -- or 1983. instead we had wayne newton. which evengravated me. she liked the beach boys. well, he didn't last long, and he went on. but i understand not long ago he gave a speech -- gss it was in the '90s -- gve a speech up in wyoming. he hasn't lost his touch.

he was saying, if we can't change all of this horrible federal intervention from outside through the jury box -- or through the ballot box, we're going to have to do it through the cartridge box. okay, well, all right. there you go. and we had ann boreseth move into the e.p.a. and try to undo a lot of clean air and cut the nding. and her husband, bob buford, moved boo the blm. you know, they were the private sector's friends. they could do whatever they wanted with public lands. many of us saw colorado as the place -- the lungs of the nation where people kind of came to breathe. and we wanted to preserve this. and wanted ave this put away for future generations. and they didn't see it that way. so there was some real hoopty do, as you know. we went back and forth. there was the era of the colorado crazies, and there were all of these things. but it still continues to go. now, you know, some of it -- i

realize i'm running out of time, and i could talk all night on this stuff, as you can tell, being a recovering politician in the 12-step process is tough. you turn on the lights. jim claims i open the refrigerator door and i talk for five minutes and realize i'm talking to celery. i've tried to give a lot of thought to what was different in the '70s. what was different? why were we so willing to go out and risk and take on all of these institutions that had been here? you know, most of us were newbys that had come in. and what a lot of chutzpah to come in here and challenge joe coors and all the powers that be that had been here and felt that it was really their feathdom.

what was it that made us do that? you know, we were disappointed with government. we didn't like the war. we didn't like what happened in watergate. we were willing to do impeachment. we were willing to let women have an equal chance and african-americans and hispanics. we really felt needed to be treated differently. why? we hadn't given up on trust, i think. we kind of saw those things and rolled up our shirt sleeves and said, we think we can get in there and do a better job. so we're going to do it. i must say when i was teaching at princeton how frustrated i got because so many of the kids would say, i'm not going to do that. i'm not going to do those job because that's terrible. politics has just gotten awful. rather than saying, i'm going to go in and change it. i'm trying to think of what made that dien.

then once i was in aeg here in denver. and i began to think maybe some us are to be held accountable for their attitudes. at this wedding, what would happen is when anybody my age would hear anybody the bride and groom's age say that they were thinking about going into geology, teaching, the law, doctoring, whatever it was, whoever my age was one of those would move in on that kid and say, you don't really want to be a teacher. oh. you wouldn't believe what's happened. you don't want to go into the law. or you don't want to be -- and i began to think, what do we want them to be? baseball players? i me what have we got grea we would say ohat you know, the and bringing along and makingm really feel it may not be perfec b if you get in, maybe you can help change it.

that maybe we have been too negative in that. and somehow we have gotten to a point where it's like no one trusts anything anymore. they don't trust any institutions. think of an institution. the church. the government. banks. oh, yeah. investment bankers. yeah. they're all wonderful. people just don't trust them. and we really -- it bothers me that i'm not seeing that passion we had in the '70s resurge and come back because heaven only knows we need a cleansing. the supreme court's decision that corporations are people makes me crazy. the of money that u're going to see spent in the state is going to break your heart because it's going to be just fire hosed in here in this campgnand you can think of all things you could rather spend

that money on. and that would not be what you want to spend it on. it's going to be negative. i mean, it's going to be like who can slime who the biggest. so how do we get this turned around again? i'm not really sure i know. when i was teaching at princen, i was teaching people in getting theimaster's in the school of public service, the woodrow wilson school. so you think, okay, now these are kids getting their master's in public service. and when you say, who's going to run for office and no run raises their hand, i thought i was in the wrong class. so i'd say, then, okay. so what is it you want to be? and they'd say, maybe george stephanopoulos. or someone like that. you know? and if we're not attracting these bright, young, wonderful people, if we're not reinstilli tm with the faith that they can get i the and

truly make a difference, we're in trouble. now, to go back again to show how that changed a bit, you know the story about my shearing the chair. e wonderful tng that happened was in 1974, we had the watergates come. and we had so many people come into congress that it was kind of like all the people moving into colorado after the war. you couldn't encircle them all and shape them all up fast enough because there were too many of them. and they got through some huge reforms. like you didn't get to be chairman for life. you had to be elected by the caucus. right. i got rid of my chairman that way. it was wonderful. but, you know, those kind of reforms came that were really needed. so we really need a whole new influx of young people coming in

with new ideas to take over such as we tried to do in the '70s. and i think we really led the nation. i think we led the nation in all sorts of things that were just amazing. people blame it had on the altitude. people blame it had on all sorts of things. but i really think it was the western tradition, and people really believing you could live somewhere and make a huge difference and make an impact on the future. so i think all of us need to go out and think more about how we challenge this next generation. i see them in the occupy movement. i think that's wonderful. but i don't know where it goes, you know. what is their vision? well, their vision is they don't want to have anything to do with politics because it stinks. really? what are you going to do? dersdond how that works through. and maybe all of us need to

engage more with them and see if we can't do a little steering to see where it does go because i think there's many young people with good hearts. i think many of them really feel that their future has been d. and they're very worried. but they don't know what to do. and we get to stand around and tell them, don't do this and don't do that because this job isn't nearly what it used to be. that doesn't work. so let me just say again, that was kind of a heavy thing to end on, but i think that we do have to look at how we go through these cycles. and i am really ready for another '70s cycle. i am now 71. so come on, everybody, let's have a '70s cycle where we can go back and do some of the wonderful things that i think we did in the '70s and make the tremendous changes that we did. because i see us going backwards very far. i started out as pro bono publico for rocky mountain

planned parenthood. if anybody would have told me that in 2012 it would be under such threat, i would have never believe it had. well, i guess i should have believe it had. and we really need to get many more people involved in politics that have hearts larger than a swollen pea and aren't just -- you know a that aren't in it to be politicians but to make change. see, i think in the '70s, we sent a different group of people who didn't go to become politicians. they went because they were mad and they wanted to chae things. and i want to see that kind of passion again rather than, can i be here for 30 years? if you keep changing things, fine. somehow people sometimes lose that. so thank you very much. and i would love to have some questions from all of you. my goodness, it's been wonderful. you've been very patient.

>> okay, group. we're going to open it up for questions. pat is going to pick you. if a person is going to ask questions, this is being filmed, as you may be aware, by c-span. and we want to get the mike over as close as we can to the person asking the question. so just keep that in mind when the film mike is on. >> can i just ask jim schroeder to stand up and say you can't ask questions. will have been married 50 years this summer. can you believe that? whew! that's one tough male. okay. who's got a question? yes. here we go. and here comes the boom mike. >> why do you think the republicans have been more successful in gett influx of new pele as opposedhe ats? certainly the tea party is in

influx. >> the question is why are the republicans in the tey been better at getting new people excited? well, that's an interesting one. i don't know because i haven't talked to people in the tea party here, but i have in florida where we live now. that's where you move when you're 70. and i would ask them, what is it you're so mad bout? and they would say, don't you know? no, i really don't know. so i still don't know. and you the conversations about no one ever helped me. i was onood stamps and unemployment. you know, i don't want to be sarcastic, but food stamps and unemployment, all of you helped that person.

so there's some tremendous disinformation out there tha being fed. you know, in new york, they had a wonderful thing. maybe we should do it here. they had a ceremony where facts were buried. because they said, in the public debate, i mean, facts just mean nothing anymore. it's who shouts the loudest and who puts the thing out the most, which is why all these commercials are so aggravating. so it is really troubling to me, too, that you heard the people saying keep government out of my medicare. and we could go on and on. and i really tried. i mean, i really tried to find out what was going on and kind of came away thinking, i don't know. i tell you what. i think part of it was a real sense of frustration that america wasn't continuing to go forward the way they wanted it

to. they didn't see the progress they wanted that was applying to them. and the tea party and the republicans were able to capture that and say, it's because, you know, you have a president that was born in kenya or doesn't have a birth certificate or, you know, is a socialist or fill in the blank. or the government is too big or whatever. and so people believe that. and we didn't do a good job on the other si. mean, i'm looking for backbones. i'm looking for backbones. to find people who stood up. but i think we've become too nice. and i don't know what to say. as a woman, i must say, probably sarah palin and michele bachmann are the number one and two speakers in america right now. and where's the new gloria steinem, and where are those voices? it troubles me a lot.

anyone else? we have the front row active. i like that. >> your children were raised in a political atmosphere. and i wondered how that has affected their lives. >> they claim that they were raised by wild wolves. they are both very, very political involved. they have not -- they have not gotten intoo politics, per se. my daughter has been asked to run auple of times in montana. i think she's rightl looked at that and said this whole thing is one delegation? this whole state? are you kidding me? and she has two young kids and she has not done it.

but maybe she will. she stays very actively stedintereas does my son. he used to always be very frustrated because he said so many of hiiends dead the newspaper or didn't watch it. but will they ever be candidated? i don't know. i don't know. i wish. they are -- some of their friends would be. but i think a lot of them think it's too much sacrifice, it really ist. there's always some bad guys, but there's an awful lot of good people. and i always say, where else could you have this amazing experience of representing the greatestocracy in a world? you know? it really is incredible. and why our young people don't want to get chills about at. but, again, i think it's something that haspe to their minds. when i was in law school, you know, the most exciting thing you could do would be to work with the united states justice

department and be on the front line to fighting civil rights and all of those things. now, no, they wanto goo the biggest law firm and make the most money. and money has kind of overtaken some of that passion. there's a friend of mine, and i say it all the time, and i don't mean to offend anyone. they say the trouble is in the 70s, we were very proud of our sports and our parks and our public schools and this was great. and now we live in gated communities where the new thing is get what you can, can what you get and sit on the can behind gates and that we have gated our hearts and our wallets and we're not interested in public schools because we have a private one and we're not interested in parks because we have a private one and why would we want to pay for that stuff? that's concerning to me because

that's tearing at the fabric of society. kids talk about that, but they have lots of friends who are living very happily gated. >> i'm upset about what just happened in our legislature and i'd like an explanation of how one man can derail representative democracy when he didn't allow the civil unions bill to be voted on because he knew the votes were there. >> she's asking an excellent question about what's happened to democracy when one man can derail bills as happened yesterday. he -- and unfortunately, it's not just here. look at the united states senat any, any nomination. there are two nominations to the federal reserve bank and heaven onlyws we needpeople there. can't get them through.

we've got ambassadors, all sorts of people that can't get through. they'll aus terrible. and, yet, it's going on. it's really time we clear that out. common cause today. to do away with the filibuster. once again, you can't bring a bill up unless you have over 60 votes. that's crazy. sohat's the same problem here. and it's time to go back to the sunshine stuff, cng the rules so the speaker doesn't have that kind of power. you can be the speaker, but that's supposed to be more like the referee, not like the guy who gets his way and no one else does. yeah, no, those type of things are really ready for a revolt. it's time to have the revolt. let's go get these young people channeled in that way and tell them that they still have the power to do it before we all lose it.

>> what went into your decision to leave congress when you did? because i'm very disappointed when i see good people leaving like olympia snow is now. >> what went into my mind when i left was newt gingrich. to be very honest. i had been in the congress for 22 years and been able to do all sorts of things, pass bills and so forth. and then newt became speaker and the women's caucus, we had the largest bipartisan group on the floor. if we had the floor, newt would send guys over to tell us to get in with our own kind and blah, blah, blah, he basically gutted the women's caucus and all sorts of things like that. and it was clear we weren't going to getth