A Message for all women AND men.
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 grantedthe right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless.They were jailed nonetheless for picketing
the White House and carrying signs
asking for the vote.
By the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubswith their warden's blessing went on a rampage
against the 33 women wrongly convicted of
'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns.They chained her hands to the cell bars above
her head and left her hanging for the nightShe was bleeding and gasping for air.
(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell.
Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was deadand suffered a heart attack.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on
Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the
Occoquan Workhouse in Virginiaordered his guards to teach a lessonbecause they dared to picketto the suffragists imprisoned there
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--
describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching,
twisting and kicking the women.
(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarkedon 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 wordwas smuggled out to the press.http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
So, refresh my memory.
Some women won't vote this year
because--why, exactly?
We have carpool duties?
We have to get to work?
We have to get our nails done?
Our vote doesn't matter?
It's raining?
What would those women think of the way we use,
or don't use,our right to vote?
All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women.It is shocking to know that Woodrow Wilson
and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist
to declare Alice Paul insane so that she
could be permanently institutionalized.
It is inspiring that the doctor refused.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.'
We need to get out and vote and use this right
that was fought so hard for by these
very courageous women.
However you vote -vote.
History is being made. Take part in it.
Be Insane~
Vote in the upcoming election.
Vote and excercise the right that these women won in courage.
