Courage & Strength in 1917

HISTORY OF OUR MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS

This was a stirring email I received, and thought I'd post it here with a little alteration.  Apparently there is a docu-drama airing on cable called "Iron-Jawed Angels" that deals with women's suffrage.

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.'
 
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.

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.  It is jarring 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.  Fortunately, her doctor was as strong and brave as Alice was...and refused, stating: "Alice Paul is strong, and brave...courage in women is often mistaken for insanity".

These stories relate graphic depictions 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.  Frankly, voting can often feel like more of an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it can be inconvenient, or a seemingly "useless" affair...after all, look at the choices of people that we have to vote for oftentimes.  But we need to remember the sacrifice and struggle that this right is built upon, ladies.
 
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 -just remember to vote.