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The founder of the League of Women Voters, Carrie Chapman Catt, in
words that resonate today, remarked on Aug. 26, 1920, that,
"The vote is the emblem of your equality, women of America,
the guaranty of your liberty. That vote of yours has cost millions
of dollars and the lives of thousands of women. Money to carry on
this work has been given usually as a sacrifice, and thousands of
women have gone without things they wanted and could have had in
order that they might help get the vote for you. Women have
suffered agony of soul which you never can comprehend, that you
and your daughters might inherit political freedom. That vote has
been costly. Prize it!"
"Iron Jawed Angels," the HBO film
that was first shown in February, recounts part of the story of
the suffragists who fought for the right to vote. If you haven't
seen it, I encourage you to keep an eye out for rebroadcasts. It
is a powerful film that focuses on two young women, Alice Paul and
Lucy Burns, and their fight to build on the previous work of the
National American Women's Suffrage Association.
In 1900, Carrie Catt succeeded Susan B.
Anthony as the president of NAWSA. One of the many women inspired
by Catt's enthusiasm and passion for women's suffrage was Alice
Paul. Alice felt that the fight for women's rights was one that
required passion. And she advocated tactics that were more radical
and attention grabbing. In "Iron Jawed Angels," you see
the passion and the suffering that Alice Paul and other
suffragists endured, their arrest and jailing, their forced
feeding. And you see them as young women activists -- not just in
their later years as we so often see in the history books.
Women won the right to vote when the 19th
amendment was passed in 1919 and ratified by 36 states in 1920.
League member Barbara Stuhler describes it
as follows in the book, "For the Public Record."
"Within the first four months following
congressional approval, 17 states had ratified the 19th Amendment,
but other states -- even suffrage states -- failed to act. Carrie
Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association, led a delegation on a 'Wake Up America' campaign.
Their efforts paid off, and the final battle for suffrage took
place in the border state of Tennessee where, after weeks of
intrigue and intensive lobbying by supporters and opponents, the
19th amendment was finally ratified. Tennessee's certificate of
ratification was duly signed and made official with the signature
of the US Secretary of State on August 16, 1920.
"When Carrie Chapman Catt called to
inquire about the outcome, Secretary Bainbridge Colby invited her
to come to the Department of State to see for herself. Maud Wood
Park, chief congressional lobbyist for the national association
and the recently named president of the newly organized League of
Women Voters , was one of those in the party. Later, she wrote of
that moment: 'We almost had to stick pins in ourselves to realize
that the simple document at which we were looking was, in reality,
the long sought charter of liberty for the women of this country.'
"
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Let me also share with you a few
excerpts from Connie Schultz' Feb. 19 column "And You Think
It's a Pain to Vote" in The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. She
wrote it after seeing "Iron Jawed Angels."
"The women 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 helpless 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.
"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.
"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?
"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?'
"
Our founder proposed the idea for a League
of Women Voters to enable others to "finish the fight"
that was begun with the passage of the 19th Amendment. She
believed that, to become effective voters, women needed to
understand the rudiments of voting: how and where to register, how
to vote, and what to expect at the voting booths. She also knew
that these newly enfranchised women needed to understand the
issues.
Carrie Catt dedicated the League of Women
Voters to those women who were our foremothers and believed that
the league would continue their mission. She hoped to create an
organization that would continue the enfranchisement of women in
our country and in any country where women still struggled. She
hoped for a group that would continue to remove the legal
discriminations against women so that other women wouldn't have to
surmount these roadblocks. She wanted to make this democracy great
and safe for the generations to come.
We in the League of Women Voters today are
the inheritors of that monumental struggle -- that monumental
vision -- of truly extraordinary women.
'IRON JAWED ANGELS' SHOWING
Lowcountry Women Vote, a coalition of
women's organizations; the Women's Studies Program at the College
of Charleston; and Skirt! magazine are co-sponsoring a free public
showing of HBO's "Iron Jawed Angels" at 7 p.m. Thursday
in the Physicians Auditorium at the College of Charleston. For
information, go to www.c4women.org.
Kay J. Maxwell is president of the League of Women Voters of the
United States. |
