1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms Quotes

Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. was an American politician and a leader in the conservative movement. He served from 1973 until 2003, and was elected five times as a Republican to the United States Senate from North Carolina. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001 he had a major voice in foreign policy. Helms helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, focusing on Ronald Reagan's quest for the White House as well as helping many local and regional candidates.

Helms was the longest-serving popularly elected Senator in North Carolina's history. He was widely credited with shifting the one-party state into a competitive two-party state. He advocated the movement of conservatives from the Democratic Party – which they deemed too liberal – to the Republican Party. The Helms-controlled National Congressional Club's state-of-the-art direct mail operation raised millions of dollars for Helms and other conservative candidates, allowing Helms to outspend his opponents in most of his campaigns. Helms was the most stridently conservative politician of the post-1960s era, especially in opposition to federal intervention into what he considered state affairs .

As long-time chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he demanded a staunchly anti-communist foreign policy that would reward America's friends abroad, and punish its enemies. His relations with the State Department were often acrimonious, and he blocked numerous presidential appointees. However, he worked smoothly with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.In domestic affairs, Helms promoted industrial development in the South, seeking low taxes and few labor unions so as to attract northern and international corporations to relocate to North Carolina. On social issues, Helms was conservative. He was a master obstructionist who relished his nickname, "Senator No". He combined cultural, social and economic conservatism, which often helped his legislation win wide public support. He fought what he considered to be liberalism whenever it was on the agenda, opposing civil rights, disability rights, feminism, gay rights, affirmative action, access to abortions, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act , and the National Endowment for the Arts. Helms brought an "aggressiveness" to his conservatism, as in his rhetoric against homosexuality. The Almanac of American Politics once wrote that "no American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others, than Jesse Helms". Wikipedia  

✵ 18. October 1921 – 4. July 2008
Jesse Helms photo
Jesse Helms: 11 quotes0 likes

Famous Jesse Helms Quotes

“White women in Washington who have been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight have experienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civil rights. The hundreds of others who had their purses snatched last year by Negro hoodlums may understandably insist that their right to walk the street unmolested was violated.”

Jesse Helms

(1963), as quoted in Whitewash: In his new autobiography, Jesse Helms sees himself as a humanitarian not a racist supporter of brutal right-wing regimes who turned obstructionism into a foreign policy by Barry Yeoman http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/whitewash/Content?oid=1195584 <br class="br">1960s

“Look carefully into the faces of the people participating. What you will see, for the most part, are dirty, unshaven, often crude young men and stringy-haired awkward young women who cannot attract attention any other way.”

Jesse Helms

(1968) The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/us/politics/00helms.html (2008) in reference to Viet Nam war protestors. <br class="br">1960s

“I didn't come to Washington to be a 'yes man' for any president, Democrat or Republican. I didn't come to Washington to get along and win any popularity contests.”

Jesse Helms

In 1989, as quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/us/politics/00helms.html (2008) <br class="br">1980s

“To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing.”

Jesse Helms

1956) on criticism that a fictional character in his newspaper column was offensive cited The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/weekinreview/ideas-trends-the-quotations-of-chairman-helms-race-god-aids-and-more.html (2001 <br class="br">1950s

“Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are facts of life which must be faced.”

Jesse Helms

New York Times interview (1981)
1980s

“I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries.” [in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate]”

Jesse Helms

Chicago Sun-Times (1993)
1990s

Jesse Helms Quotes

“I reject that criticism because this is indeed another kind of holocaust, by another name. At last count, more than 40 million unborn children have been deliberately, intentionally destroyed. What word adequately defines the scope of such slaughter? [After 9/11] the American people responded with shock, sadness and a deep and righteous anger — and rightly so. Yet let us not forget that every passing day in our country, more than three thousand innocent Americans are killed [through abortion].”

Jesse Helms

As quoted in Here's Where I Stand (2005)
2000s

“Compromise, hell! That's what happened to us all down the line -- and that's the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”

Jesse Helms

(1959), as quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/weekinreview/ideas-trends-the-quotations-of-chairman-helms-race-god-aids-and-more.html. <br class="br">1950s

“The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights.”

Jesse Helms

WRAL-TV commentary, 1963 cited in Media Downplay Bigotry of Jesse Helms http://fair.org/press-release/media-downplay-bigotry-of-jesse-helms/ <br class="br">1960s

“It is interesting to note that the Nobel Peace Prize won't be awarded this year. When one recalls that Martin Luther King got the prize last year, it may be just as well that the committee decided not to award one this year. Perhaps it was too difficult to choose between Stokely Carmichael and Ho Chi Minh.”

Jesse Helms

Television commentary (1966) quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/27/weekinreview/word-for-word-jesse-helms-north-carolinian-has-enemies-but-no-one-calls-him.html (1994) <br class="br">1960s

“[Voters] "sent me to Washington to vote no against excessive Federal spending, against forced busing of little schoolchildren, and to vote no against the forces who have driven God out of the classroom.”

Jesse Helms

News &amp; Observer, June 26, 1983 quoted in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/27/weekinreview/word-for-word-jesse-helms-north-carolinian-has-enemies-but-no-one-calls-him.html (1994) <br class="br">1980s

Similar authors

Les Brown photo
Les Brown24
American politician None
Pietro Mennea photo
Pietro Mennea1
Italian sprinter and politician None
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger52
actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heri… None
Bertil Ohlin photo
Bertil Ohlin11
Swedish economist and politician None
Salvador Allende photo
Salvador Allende16
Chilean physician and politician None
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva photo
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva10
Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil None
Mario Vargas Llosa photo
Mario Vargas Llosa30
Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist None
H.L. Mencken photo
H.L. Mencken281
American journalist and writer None
Margaret Thatcher photo
Margaret Thatcher348
British stateswoman and politician None
Antonio Gramsci photo
Antonio Gramsci22
Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and lingu… None