Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I could not help but rise, having attended ``Midwife's Tale'' with Martha Ballard, and it was done in Maine, and it was done through a grant through the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was a story about a midwife working in rural Maine in the early 1800's. It was a story of women working and women's roles in a part of Maine and a part of this country that had never been told before, and without that grant and without that research would never have been known. I attended that film to a packed hall, and it was in northern Maine. My district is the most rural district east of the Mississippi. There are 32 rural health clinics in my district. My district borders Canada, New Hampshire, and the rock-bound coast, and without the support from the National Endowment for the Humanities we would not have been able to see performances like this. We would not be able to get the arts and humanities involved and we would not have been able to have that involvement. One of the greatest studies that has been accomplished has shown us that students involved in arts and humanities programs, and this is through testing, have been able to improve their SAT scores by 50 and 60 points. Arts and humanities is not an appetizer, it is part of the main course.”