I grew up mostly in Colorado and never heard of Governor Ralph Carr, until today on Colorado public radio. Adam Schrager has written a book about him called "The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story."

I was really struck not only with the story, but also the author's motivations for writing it. The interview is well worth listening to HERE from www.kcfr.org. Here's the amazon blurb:

This important biography tells the true story of the only political leader in the country to welcome Japanese-Americans to his state during World War II. Colorado Governor Ralph Carr was an unwilling candidate who catapulted to the top of the national Republican Party and was even pegged as a possible future presidential candidate by the New York papers. But when he took a courageous, yet unpopular, stance on the internment of Japanese-Americans, Carr fell rapidly from favor. He resisted demands from his political opponents to call up the National Guard to keep the Japanese out of the state, declaring, "If you harm them, you must harm me first." Speaking out on the issue, Carr fielded thousands of insults and fought off threats of impeachment. A riveting biography, The Principled Politician is the story of a courageous man sadly forgotten by Colorado and never known by his country.

Seems we could do with some like him, today.