March 11, 2010

Granny D passes, a life well lived

The New Hampshire woman known as Granny D walked across the country at age 89 to publicize the need for campaign finance reform. She passed away at home on March 9, age 100.

Photo and text from Americans Who Tell the Truth

Doris Haddock (“Granny D”) Biography
Activist 1910-2010

“Just as an unbalanced mind can accumulate stresses that can grow and take on a life of their own, so little decisions of our modern life can accumulate to the point where our society finds itself bombing other people for their oil, or supporting dictators who torture whole populations—all so that our unbalanced interests might be served.”

Born Doris Rollins in Laconia, New Hampshire, “Granny D” is best known today for her walk across America in support of campaign finance reform (1999-2000). Her trip, begun shortly before her 89th birthday, lasted 14 months and covered 3,200 miles. Doris Haddock’s journey was no mere publicity stunt. She had studied the issue so that she could communicate her views to the groups assembled to meet her along the way, including the more than 2,000 who greeted her arrival in Washington, D.C. She also spent a year training for the physical challenges she would encounter on a trip that wore out four pairs of shoes and necessitated a hundred-mile trek on cross-country skis."... more

From: "Mourn Granny D.; Then Organize for Clean Politics", John Nichols, The Nation, 3 March 2010, 

(excerpt)... "Here is her response to the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down limits on corporate abuses of the electoral process:

Doris "Granny D" Haddock was honored at a birthday party in the New Hampshire Governor's office this afternoon. An amazing turnout. Here is what Doris had to say:

Thank you. That you would take time from your busy life to be here is a great gift to me, and I thank you for it.

People have been asking me how I feel about the recent decision by the Supreme Court to strike down some of the campaign finance reforms that I walked for and have been working on for a dozen or so years.

When I was a young woman, my husband and I were having dinner at the Dundee home of a friend, Max Foster, when a young couple rushed through the door breathless to say that they had accidentally burned down Max's guest cabin, down by the river.

Max stood up from his meal. He set his napkin down. He smiled at the young couple and he said,

"Thank goodness. You have done me a great favor, and you don't even know it. We have been wanting to completely redo that old place, and now it will be a clean start. It will be better than ever the next time you come to stay."

Well, I guess the Supreme Court has burned down our little house, but, truth be told, it was pretty drafty anyway. We had not really solved the problem of too much money in politics. Not hardly. And now we have an opportunity to start clean and build a system of reforms that really will do the trick.

I think one of the wings of our new house will be the public financing of election campaigns. I think another wing will be a dramatic expansion of our conflict of interest and bribery laws. I think all of us, left, right and middle, will enjoy living there without the special interests stealing us blind any more. I intend to be around long enough to see this new place built.

As it happens, there is still some rebuilding to do."...

Obituaries: LA Times, Huffington Post

Report with archival interview at Democracy Now

Granny D in archival WLOE e.V. coverage:
Granny D is on the road again, October 2003 e-news