FW: way off topic but wanted to sharet

[Guest guest]

Regards, El

_____

A very important read for all women!!!!

This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers and Great 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 )

They hurled Dora into a dark cell, smashed her

head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu,

thought 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

'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 )

When one of the leaders, Alice , 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. ine in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-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 town , New York )

(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

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.

(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution] at [National Woman's Party] headquarters, Pl [ace] [

Washington , D.C. ]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence , Mrs. Abby Baker, Anita

Pollitzer, Alice , Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))

It is jarring to watch Woodrow and his cronies try to persuade a

psychiatrist to declare Alice insane so that she could be permanently

institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice

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.')

History is being made.

Please remind everyone to VOTE.......

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