| Sometimes, when
we read about the dishonesty and greed of many politicians
or listen to the mud-slinging and false accusations that seem
to be part of every campaign, we become discouraged with our
political system and a few of us may even decide not to bother
voting.
One of my earliest and most vivid memories is of accompanying
my mother when she went to vote. She told me about watching
the women suffragettes in England who were thrown into prison
when they were marching to gain voting privileges.
“If you, as a woman, ever fail to vote, you betray
all those courageous women who worked so hard to obtain
the right,” she said. This past Thursday marked the
90th anniversary of the day the suffrage battle was finally
won here in America. And what a long, hard battle it was:
It took the women’s suffrage movement more than 70
years to get the 19th Amendment added to the Constitution.
In America, it began in 1848 in Seneca Falls, N.Y., when
68 women and 32 men signed a Declaration of Sentiments,
a set of 12 resolutions calling for the equal treatment
of women and men under the law and voting rights for women.
One woman who attended that convention was 19-year-old
Charlotte Woodward. When women finally won the vote, she
was the only participant still alive.
Meanwhile, in 1792 in England, Mary Wollstonecraft had
published “A Vindication of the Rights of Women,”
and in 1903, the Women’s Social and Political Union
formed in England to fight for voting rights, led by Emmeline
Pankhurst.
Many of these demonstrators were jailed and when they staged
a hunger strike, were force fed. In England, the right to
vote was granted to women at age 30 and above in 1918 and
finally lowered to age 21 in 1928.
In America, although the Equal Rights Amendment was drafted
in 1923, it lay dormant for about 50 years. It was opposed
by a well-organized anti-suffrage movement which argued
that most women didn’t want the right to vote and
weren’t qualified to exercise it, anyhow. The women
used humor to fight back and in 1915 Alice Miller wrote:
Why We Don’t Want
Men to Vote
-Because man’s place is in the army
-Because no manly man wants to settle any question otherwise
than by fighting about it.
-Because if men adopt peaceable methods, women won’t
look up to them.
-Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at
baseball games and political conventions shows this.
Suffragists took their fight to the states and by 1916,
women had the right to vote for the president in 11 states.
This same year, Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first
American woman elected to the House of Representatives;
even though her fellow women would not be able to vote nationally
for four more years.
It is interesting to note that although the fight for equal
rights started in the East, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, California,
Kansas and Arizona were the first states to give women the
franchise. And, as far back as 1862, some Swedish women
were able to vote in local elections. Women in New Zealand,
Australia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the U.K., Russia, Belgium
and the Netherlands were all able to vote before women in
America. France, that bastion of liberty, did not grant
women the right until 1944, only three years before the
women of Japan.
During World War I, when women worked in the factories
to help, President Wilson began to support women’s
suffrage. He said, “We have made partners of the women
in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of
suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership
of right?”
In 1919, Congress passed the 19th Amendment and 35 states
quickly approved it, but it needed one more state’s
approval to be ratified. All eyes turned to Tennessee, the
only remaining state where it had a chance.
It is a delicious footnote to history to learn that a young
legislator, 24-year-old Harry Burn, had voted with the anti-suffrage
forces to that time. But a letter from his mother, urging
him to vote for the rights of women, convinced him to change
his mind. And so on Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment became
law.
Voting remains one of the most cherished rights and fundamental
responsibilities of citizenship.
Jean Cherni is founder of Senior
Living Solutions, a retirement advisory service. Contact
her at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 15 The Ponds, Branford
06405.
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