Lest we forget!

I don't know who wrote this, but it's from an email that has been  circulating and since this blog is about life in the United States after our great-grandparents immigrated from Sweden, and what has transpired since and, how that affects us as well, I'd like to share the following with you! Update: Here's more information on women's struggle for an equal vote, and this time it's a history of the vote for women in Tennessee: http://tn.gov/tsla/exhibits/suffrage/index.htm and goes from through introduction, the beginning, the struggle and the payoff.  And here's more about what the women who came before us did to get the vote! http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-20-2-a-how-women-won-the-right-to-vote ********************************************************************* I cannot think of anything, short of death, that forgives a person for not voting. The election coming up may be one of the most important elections in our lifetimes and we'd better know who and why we're voting for him or her.     A  TRUE STORY EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW!   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.'  (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.    \ Mrs Pauline  Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day  sentence.  Last  week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's 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 Jamestown ,  New  York  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.     (Berthe  Arnold, CSU graduate)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/Bingo 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, Jackson Place ,  Washington , D.C.   Left  to right: Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita  Pollitzer,  Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel,  Mabel  Vernon (standing, right)    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.  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.'    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? I'm so busy...I've got so much on my plate! *****************************************************************************************   These women went through jail time, beatings, and so much more, for US! We can’t let their suffering be for nothing. Let's all make a commitment to vote in November!