1964
Citation:
Martha Griffiths has made a contribution of the first magnitude to the status of women. She has caused the nation to place a new and high value on excellence and to see in clear perspective the vocation, opportunities, and responsibilities of the woman of integrity in public life.
Her illustrious career of public service includes membership in the State Legislature, as well as holding the office of judge and recorder of the Recorder’s Court in the City of Detroit. She has been in congress for ten years, where she has been Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Fiscal Policy and is the first woman elected to the Ways and Means Committee. A national magazine selected her one of the ten members of congress who did the most for youth.
Consistently, Martha Griffiths has met the challenge to assume courageous, dignified, brave leadership, making the national interest, not personal popularity, her objective.
Her political integrity, untiring devotion to duty, sincerity, and intelligence in performing skillfully and magnanimously her public office has brought added lustre to womanhood as well as to Detroit and Michigan. Her womanly qualities and her astute statesmanship demand admiration as do the wisdom and common sense with which she has conducted the complex affairs and borne the burdens and responsibilities of public life.
To such a dedicated woman as Martha Griffiths our society is indebted. Acknowledging this debt, Mercy College of Detroit proudly bestows this accolade on Martha W. Griffiths, valiant and unflagging defender of the good of all the people.
Awarded by Sister Mary Lucille Middleton, RSM, President, Mercy College of Detroit, in 1964.