Political Quotes

“next Thursday is Thanksgiving, and we are here today because, even during a tough year like this one, we have so many things to be thankful for. In that spirit, I would like to tell a short story about a Nebraskan whose contribution to the history of our country is pretty extraordinary. In 1886, Andrew Jackson Higgins was born in the small town of Columbus, NE. He spent most of his childhood in Omaha, and he served in the Nebraska Army National Guard after the turn of the 20th century before moving to Alabama at the age of 20 to work in the lumber industry. He worked a wide variety of jobs, hoping to learn enough to eventually start his own business. He succeeded in his dream in 1922 when he founded Higgins Lumber and Export Company, which quickly grew to become one of the largest lumber companies in North America. Four years later, his company designed the Eureka boat, a 36-foot- long boat that was able to sail in just a few feet of water. At the time, lumber could only be loaded onto ships at port, but a craft that could operate in such shallow water could run on and off of riverbanks, enabling Higgins Lumber and Export Company to load and unload its lumber just about anywhere. In short, Andrew Higgins built the Eureka boat simply to make his employees' lives easier, and that was an honorable goal. But throughout the next decade, as it became clear that Hitler decided to plunge the world back into war, the U.S.…”