A Story to Always Remember

This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago. 

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. 

(Lucy Burns)

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.  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.'

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 cell mate, 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. 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?  I'm too tired?  Too busy?

  

(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day sentence.)

HBO produced a movie entitled '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.  It's a shame that so many of us need the reminder.

Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York

Never allow the actual act of voting to become less personal and more rote.  Frankly, voting should never feel like an obligation.  It's a privilege.  It should never be "inconvenient".

 

(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

What would these women think of the way we use, or don't use, our right to vote? Perhaps we should show the DVD at one of our meetings.  All history, social studies and government teachers should include the movie in their curriculum.  It should be shown on Bunco/Bingo 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 perhaps a little shock therapy is in order.

 

(Conferring over ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at  National Woman's Party headquarters, Jackson Place , Washington , D.C.Left to right: Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer,  Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel,  Mabel Vernon (standing, right))

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; to use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.

(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn.   Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.') 

One more thing, even today, throughout the world, there are still women who are denied this right.  Vote, not just because it's the right thing to do, and not just as a tribute to the women who fought for our right to do so, but do it also for those who still can't.  Your daughters are watching you.  What kind of example are you setting?  Vote!