Just a reminder, not intended to be political

[SweetWitch]

I don't like political threads. I try not to read, much less join, such threads because I come here to relax and enjoy good company, not watch people tear each other apart. This is not an opinion or a political statement. It's just a reminder of how a few suffered so horribly so that we women can exercise our right to vote.

I received this interesting little tidbit in an email today. I don't know who the author is and I suspect it's made the rounds before, but I thought it worth sharing.

This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago.

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

The women who made it so were innocent and defenseless. 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.'

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. 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. 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?

HBO has released a 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 sometimes need that reminder. 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.

The right to vote has become valuable 'all over again.' HBO released the movie on video and DVD.

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.'

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.

 

[rgraham666]

Christ.

I'd never heard about this before.

Thanks Molly.

 

[Tricialen]

I don't like political threads. I try not to read, much less join, such threads because I come here to relax and enjoy good company, not watch people tear each other apart. This is not an opinion or a political statement. It's just a reminder of how a few suffered so horribly so that we women can exercise our right to vote.

I received this interesting little tidbit in an email today. I don't know who the author is and I suspect it's made the rounds before, but I thought it worth sharing.

OMG! I knew it was really bad but not this. I have always voted...since I turned eighteen, and this time it will be with a humble prayer for those brave ladies.

 

[TE999]

Excellent post Molly.

We who enjoy the blessings of freedom often forget that throughout the world people are routinely treated as these courageous women were for attempting to exercise their right to vote, especially in fledgeling democracies.

 

[rgraham666]

And dying ones.

 

[SweetWitch]

I found this wiki:

In the election of 1916, Paul and the NWP campaigned against the continuing refusal of President Woodrow Wilson and other incumbent Democrats to support the Suffrage Amendment actively. In January 1917, the NWP staged the first political protest to picket the White House. The picketers, known as "Silent Sentinels," held banners demanding the right to vote. This was an example of a non-violent civil disobedience campaign. In July 1917, picketers were arrested on charges of "obstructing traffic." Many, including Paul, were convicted, incarcerated and tortured at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia (later the Lorton Correctional Complex) and the District of Columbia Jail.

In protest of the conditions in Occoquan, Paul commenced a hunger strike. This led to her being moved to the prison’s psychiatric ward and force-fed raw eggs through a plastic tube. Other women joined the strike, which combined with the continuing demonstrations and attendant press coverage, kept the pressure on the Wilson administration. In January, 1918, the president announced that women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure." Wilson strongly urged Congress to pass the legislation. In 1920, after coming down to one vote in the state of Tennessee, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution secured the vote for women.

 

[SweetWitch]

And here's a little more:

Newspapers carried stories about how the protesters were being treated. The stories angered some Americans and subsequently created more support for the suffrage amendment. On November 27 and 28, all the protesters were released, including Alice Paul after spending five weeks in prison. Later, in March 1918, the Washington Court of Appeals declared all suffrage arrests, trials, and punishments illegal.

On January 9, 1918, Wilson announced his support of the women's suffrage amendment. The next day, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the amendment but the Senate refused to even debate it until October. When the Senate voted on the amendment in October, it failed by two votes. And in spite of the ruling by the Washington Court of Appeals, arrests of White House protesters resumed on August 6, 1918.

To keep up the pressure, on December 16, 1918, protesters started burning Wilson's words in watch fires in front of the White House. On February 9, 1919, the protesters burned Wilson's image in effigy at the White House.

On another front, the National Woman's Party, led by Paul, urged citizens to vote against anti-suffrage senators up for election in the fall of 1918. After the 1918 election, most members of Congress were pro-suffrage. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and 2 weeks later on June 4, the Senate finally followed. With their work done in Congress, the protesters turned their attention to getting the states to ratify the amendment.

It was ratified on August 18, 1920, upon its ratification by Tennessee, the thirty-sixth state to do so.

 

[TE999]

<snip> the National Woman's Party, led by Paul, urged citizens to vote against anti-suffrage senators up for election in the fall of 1918. After the 1918 election, most members of Congress were pro-suffrage. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and 2 weeks later on June 4, the Senate finally followed. <snip>

Proving once again the axiom (albeit modified) : Votes talk, bullshit walks.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

There are things about that story that keep raising red flags, such as:

1.The lack of attribution. In other words, says who?

2. The fact that such a heinous act of inhumanity managed to escape the attention of women's studies classes for decades.

3. The bit about women being arrested in Washington D.C. but jailed in a different jurisdiction, Virginia.

4. There is no reference to this event on the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum's History of the National Women's Party page.

And finally

5. The article would seem to imply that these women and this one event were responsible for passage of the 19th Amendment, and that's just not so.

Whether the specific horrors alleged in this article took place or not, there is no question those picketing the White House were arrested and mistreated. Here is a brief excerpt from a history of NWP leader, Alice Paul:

The colorful, spirited suffrage marches, the suffrage songs, the violence the women faced (they were physically attacked and their banners were torn from their hands), the daily pickets and arrests at the White House, the hunger strikes and brutal prison conditions, the national speaking tours and newspaper headlines—all created enormous public support for suffrage.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[SweetWitch]

Hi, Rumply. You may find many snippets from letters and responses to news articles of the day, including letters from Paul, herself, at the following link:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USApaul.htm

This is from a letter written by Alice Paul's good friend and fellow suffragist, Rose Winslow: Yesterday was a bad day for me in feeding. I was vomiting continuously during the process. The tube has developed an irritation somewhere that is painful. Don't let them tell you we take this well. Miss Paul vomits much. I do, too, except when I'm not nervous, as I have been every time against my will. We think of the coming feeding all day. It is horrible.

Also, Alice Paul, letter to Doris Stevens (November, 1917)

At night, in the early morning, all through the day there were cries and shrieks and moans from the patients. It was terrifying. One particularly meloncholy moan used to keep up hour after hour with the regularity of a heart beat. I said to myself, "Now I have to endure this. I have got to live through this somehow. I pretend these moans are the noise of an elevated train, beginning faintly in the distance and getting louder as it comes nearer." Such childish devices were helpful to me.

From the Alice Paul Institute website comes this little excerpt of the days following the protests at the White House:

The arrested suffragists were sent to Occoquan Workhouse, a prison in Virginia. Paul and her compatriots followed the English suffragette model and demanded to be treated as political prisoners and staged hunger strikes. Their demands were met with brutality as suffragists, including frail, older women, were beaten, pushed and thrown into cold, unsanitary, and rat-infested cells. Arrests continued and conditions at the prison deteriorated. For staging hunger strikes, Paul and several other suffragists were forcibly fed in a tortuous method. Prison officials removed Paul to a sanitarium in hopes of getting her declared insane. When news of the prison conditions and hunger strikes became known, the press, some politicians, and the public began demanding the women’s release; sympathy for the prisoners brought many to support the cause of women's suffrage. Upon her release from prison, Paul hoped to ride this surge of goodwill into victory. <Alice Paul biography written and edited by Rebecca Carol (API Intern, 04), Kristina Myers (Program Associate), Dr. Janet Lindman (Chair, API Board).>

It would seem that the persons in charge wanted the women removed from sight, so they moved them to Virginia to a prison "equipped" to handle them.

There are other contributors, many of them found within the links of the wiki I posted earlier, but I feel that anyone interested should do the research to find out more. How else can one be expected to be completely informed?

I cannot fathom why these women's studies of which you speak, or the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum's History of the National Women's Party page do not mention these terrible acts. I first learned about them myself in college. As I recall, I was rather horrified at the time.

There is no one person or group of persons that's ever responsible for making anything noteworthy happpen, but The Silent Sentinals brought a great deal of notice to the situation, and did so at their own peril.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Hi, Rumply. You may find many snippets from letters and responses to news articles of the day, including letters from Paul, herself, at the following link:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USApaul.htm

This is from a letter written by Alice Paul's good friend and fellow suffragist, Rose Winslow: Yesterday was a bad day for me in feeding. I was vomiting continuously during the process. The tube has developed an irritation somewhere that is painful. Don't let them tell you we take this well. Miss Paul vomits much. I do, too, except when I'm not nervous, as I have been every time against my will. We think of the coming feeding all day. It is horrible.

Also, Alice Paul, letter to Doris Stevens (November, 1917)

At night, in the early morning, all through the day there were cries and shrieks and moans from the patients. It was terrifying. One particularly meloncholy moan used to keep up hour after hour with the regularity of a heart beat. I said to myself, "Now I have to endure this. I have got to live through this somehow. I pretend these moans are the noise of an elevated train, beginning faintly in the distance and getting louder as it comes nearer." Such childish devices were helpful to me.

From the Alice Paul Institute website comes this little excerpt of the days following the protests at the White House:

The arrested suffragists were sent to Occoquan Workhouse, a prison in Virginia. Paul and her compatriots followed the English suffragette model and demanded to be treated as political prisoners and staged hunger strikes. Their demands were met with brutality as suffragists, including frail, older women, were beaten, pushed and thrown into cold, unsanitary, and rat-infested cells. Arrests continued and conditions at the prison deteriorated. For staging hunger strikes, Paul and several other suffragists were forcibly fed in a tortuous method. Prison officials removed Paul to a sanitarium in hopes of getting her declared insane. When news of the prison conditions and hunger strikes became known, the press, some politicians, and the public began demanding the women’s release; sympathy for the prisoners brought many to support the cause of women's suffrage. Upon her release from prison, Paul hoped to ride this surge of goodwill into victory. <Alice Paul biography written and edited by Rebecca Carol (API Intern, 04), Kristina Myers (Program Associate), Dr. Janet Lindman (Chair, API Board).>

It would seem that the persons in charge wanted the women removed from sight, so they moved them to Virginia to a prison "equipped" to handle them.

There are other contributors, many of them found within the links of the wiki I posted earlier, but I feel that anyone interested should do the research to find out more. How else can one be expected to be completely informed?

I cannot fathom why these women's studies of which you speak, or the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum's History of the National Women's Party page do not mention these terrible acts. I first learned about them myself in college. As I recall, I was rather horrified at the time.

There is no one person or group of persons that's ever responsible for making anything noteworthy happpen, but The Silent Sentinals brought a great deal of notice to the situation, and did so at their own peril.

There had been in American History classes a tendency to canonize Wilson as a Great President and International Statesman. These stories come much closer to the real character of the man. Frankly, the country was better managed after his stroke when Mrs. Wilson was in charge. And the irony of that is irrisistable.

 

[SweetWitch]

There had been in American History classes a tendency to canonize Wilson as a Great President and International Statesman. These stories come much closer to the real character of the man. Frankly, the country was better managed after his stroke when Mrs. Wilson was in charge. And the irony of that is irrisistable.

Our country has a long list of such twisted ironies.

Get out there and vote, everyone.

 

[DesertPirate]

I would be thrilled to se a 75% turnout in Nov.

 

[Guest]

Our country has a long list of such twisted ironies.

Get out there and vote, everyone.

Damn straight.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SEA WITCH

You guys always wanna piss and bitch about the Old Times, and you never wanna get off your ass to do anything about right now. Sponsor legislation to get reparations for granny cause she couldnt vote before 1920.

 

[oggbashan]

My eldest aunt was a suffragist, NOT a suffragette.

Suffragists believed in using legal means to get women the right to vote such as lobbying Members of Parliament, distributing leaflets during election campaigns and speeches. They opposed violent or non-violent protests thinking that sort of action was actually harming their cause.

In the UK, suffragists outnumbered the radical suffragettes by about ten to one.

Whether suffragists or suffragettes, those women worked hard for the right to vote and deserve to be honoured for their activity.

Og

 

[voluptuary_manque]

My eldest aunt was a suffragist, NOT a suffragette.

Suffragists believed in using legal means to get women the right to vote such as lobbying Members of Parliament, distributing leaflets during election campaigns and speeches. They opposed violent or non-violent protests thinking that sort of action was actually harming their cause.

In the UK, suffragists outnumbered the radical suffragettes by about ten to one.

Whether suffragists or suffragettes, those women worked hard for the right to vote and deserve to be honoured for their activity.

Og

Stella are writing a novel about one their descendents. Naturally, she gets laid in all possible ways by any number of people . . . but in a politically correct manner, of course.

 

[SweetWitch]

Stella are writing a novel about one their descendents. Naturally, she gets laid in all possible ways by any number of people . . . but in a politically correct manner, of course.

You two are just wicked.

 

[DesertPirate]

You two are just wicked.

Sounds normal to me

7 votes in my family
Wife, 3 daughters, 2 son in laws, and me

 

[voluptuary_manque]

You two are just wicked.

Well, we do try, you know.

'Bout eight votes in mine. Probably mostly for Obama but no guarantees.

 

[SweetWitch]

Well, we do try, you know.

'Bout eight votes in mine. Probably mostly for Obama but no guarantees.

On this thread, it doesn't matter who you vote for, just that you vote. It's not about politics. It's about our right, our privilege and our responsibility.

Vote.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Voting is the illusion of choice.

Democrats or Republicans are the same god-damned thing...illusion.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

On this thread, it doesn't matter who you vote for, just that you vote. It's not about politics. It's about our right, our privilege and our responsibility.

Vote.

Ain't missed a national or a state election in forty years. Locals, on the other hand, I'm not too reliable on.