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While the buzz over Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz being selected as the vice-presidential
running mate for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris swirled around the world, I was on a
lecture tour in Sri Lanka — the country of my birth.
An “adopted Minnesotan,” having Perham as my “birthplace” in America, I was widely asked about Walz and his credentials. I was delightfully affirmative: he is a life-long geography teacher, a high school football coach, and a great public servant.
At this trying time of our republic, Walz is a leader that this nation desperately needs to carry on the legacy of other great figures from the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Two vice presidents: Humphrey and Mondale
Leaders like Abraham Lincoln — who was Minnesota’s first U.S. president — have always
emerged unexpectedly to keep the country united and restore peace.
At the crossroads of the American Experiment, Hubert Humphrey became the vice president under President Lynden B. Johnson when the nation was at war abroad in Vietnam and facing significant unrest at home amidst the Civil Rights Movement. Working alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the vice president spearheaded the Civil Rights Act, proposed the idea of a Peace Corps, and introduced the PL 480 Food for Peace legislation. With these enduring programs, Humphrey was an apostle of American altruism to the world.
Following Humphrey’s progressive leadership, Walter Mondale transformed the office of vice presidency under President Jimmy Carter. He also conducted several landmark international negotiations behind the scenes during the tumultuous years of nuclear threats, oil embargo, and high inflation.
Born in Ceylon, Minnesota, Mondale was highly influenced by his Methodist father’s religious beliefs, including the charity for all of humanity as well as the support for civil rights and gender equality.
Democratic presidential nominee Mondale selected Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate against the Reagan-Bush ticket of the Republican Party. Under the leadership of Tom Nides as the Midwest field director, I served as a volunteer in the 1984 Mondale-Ferraro presidential campaign. Mondale’s choice of the first female vice-presidential contender was momentous in American history — paving the way for other leaders like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar has recently reminded us that Minnesota is the “Land of Vice Presidents.” In addition to that, the heartland of the nation is the home of great public servants in both Democratic and Republican traditions. Along with Mondale while at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, I had a distinct privilege to know and work with several of them.
Cabinet secretaries: Freeman, Stassen, and Kellogg
After graduating from Perham High School as its first American Field Service (AFS) exchange student, I had a month-long bus tour to Washington, D.C., where I had the great fortune to meet with Sen. Rudy Boschwitz and Vice President Mondale before returning to Sri Lanka.
These leaders — along with my AFS family and friends in Perham — encouraged me to return “home” to Minnesota when the civil war broke out in my country of birth. Thanks to Boschwitz, I served on his staff in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time when the Republican and Democrat leaders used to work collegially for the cause of freedom and democracy beyond U.S. borders.
While at the Minnesota House of Representatives and the University of Minnesota, I had the opportunity to work with former Gov. Orville Freeman — President John Kennedy’s secretary of agriculture — while he was at the Humphrey School. I told him that I had been a recipient of Humphrey’s Food for Peace program while growing up in rural Sri Lanka and inspired by the visiting Peace Corps and 4-H volunteers to travel to the United States.
Equally, Gov. Harold Stassen — a signer of the UN Charter and President Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of peace — was a friend of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, the world’s first female prime minister. After I received the Harold Stassen Award for UN Affairs, we often discussed my work as the vice president of the UN Association of Minnesota and the civil war in Sri Lanka.
Patrick Mendis
Less known but influential Secretary of State Frank Kellogg under President Calvin Coolidge was the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and a judge of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague. After World War I, Kellogg was a drafter of the Treaty of Versailles in Paris. His endearing legacy encompasses the multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact — a treaty which renounced war as a national policy — negotiated with his French counterpart, for which Kellogg received the Nobel Peace Prize. Overwhelmingly, the Senate ratified the agreement, and almost all other nations followed the American lead.
The North Star
With the infectious spirits of President Lincoln, the “North Star” for the nation has produced an assortment of legendary public servants. A “happy warrior” like Humphrey and a devoted public servant and ambassador like Mondale, the exuberant Walz has now brought the DNA of the “Minnesota Nice” to the presidential campaign.
Indeed, Vice President Harris chose the football “coach” and the geography “teacher” from rural Minnesota wisely — hoping to bridge the gaps between and among polarized groups and political factions in America.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., recognized that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In this spirit, Humphrey, Mondale, and other public servants from the “Heart of the Nation” built a mountain of everlasting programs, legislations and treaties. These have generated great things for America and the world.
The continuing American Experience now has the chance to be led by yet another Minnesotan.
Dr. Patrick Mendis is a presidential advisor to the National Security Education Board in the U.S. Department of Defense, an appointment by the Biden-Harris White House. He is an alumnus of the Perham High School, Minnesota State Community and Technical College-Fergus Falls, and the University of Minnesota.
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Publish date : 2024-08-30 07:17:00
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