Note: I received this in
email and was moved by it.
We should never forget what these women went through
to give us the right to vote. Won't you Pass it
on?
WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers and
Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920
that women were granted the right to go to the polls and
vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless,
but they were jailed nonetheless
for picketing the White House
and carrying signs asking for the vote.
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's
blessing
went on a rampage against the 33 women, wrongly
convicted of
'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars
above
her head and left her hanging for the night,
bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold.
Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead
and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing,
dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and
kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917,
when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia
ordered his
guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned
there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House
for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open
pail. Their
food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a
hunger strike, they tied her to a chair,
forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her
until she vomited.
She was tortured like this for weeks until word was
smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
(use back arrow to get back here)
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year
because-
-why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to
work?
Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of
HBO's new
movie 'Iron Jawed Angels'. It is a graphic depiction of
the battle
these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at
the polling
booth and have my say.
I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my
passion.
But the actual act of voting had become less personal
for me,
more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than
a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's
history,
saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to
talk
about it, she looked angry. She was,--with herself. 'One
thought
kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she
said.
'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't
use,
my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not
just
younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.'
The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all
over again.'
HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all
history,
social studies and government teachers
would include the movie in their curriculum.
I want it shown on Bunco night too,
and anywhere else women gather.
I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing,
but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be,
and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies
try to persuade a
psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she
could be permanently institutionalized.
And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice
Paul was strong, he said, and brave.
That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is
often mistaken for insanity.'
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the
women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was
fought so
hard for by these very courageous women.
Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent
party - remember to vote!!
History is being made.
Remember To Vote! Click Here
To Pass It On!!!!
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2008