BTW "Iron Jawed Angels" is a great film, which I will loan to anyone.
Ruth
The following could apply to any of us, not just young women..
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From: PPTI(a)comcast.net
Subject: Please forward to your young women friends
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:29:24 -0400
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.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless
for picketing the White House, 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 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?
Mrs Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day
sentence.
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.
Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York
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.
(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)
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/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 I think 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 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.
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.'
Cynthia Wilson
Interior Design
617-332-1332
