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Something To Remember
By Judy Junod
whitemountainsconservatives@live.com
This is the story of our
Mothers, Grandmothers and
Great-Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.
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Remember,
it was not until 1920 that women
were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
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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.’
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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History
is being made.
Anyone wishing to buy a copy of “Iron
Jawed Angels”
clicking
here will take you to the www.amazom.com
purchasing page for that film. As of this date, Saturday,
October 2, 2010 it is selling for $5.99 + shipping.
And
for anyone who would like to know exactly what the religion of
Islam and it’s requisite “mayhem manual” the Koran has to say about
“the rights of women”, please give the “play” button below a
click.
Beating Etiquette;
Windows Media Video File:
2+ Minutes ~ 6.83 Megabytes
After listening to what these two “rag-headed”
ding-a-lings have to say about
about women and their treatment, I’m afraid it won’t be to long before the
American public (particularly the female half thereof), starts preparing
itself to play a rather lengthy round of “Cowboys and Muslims”! ~ Cary
