> THIS IS MOVING.  HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET.....IF ....WE EVER KNEW......
>
> 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 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 Lewis)
> They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her
> head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate,
> 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.

> (Alice Paul)
> 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.
> 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?
> Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> History is being made.