to go to the polls and vote. The women were innocent and defenseless,
but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House.
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.
HBO released the movie on video and DVD titled "Iron Jawed Angels".
It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged
so that we could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have our say.
All history, social studies and government teachers
should include the movie in their curriculum.
It should be shown anywhere women gather together!
We are not voting in the numbers that we should be -
perhaps 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)
Woodrow Wilson and his supporters
tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane
so that she could be permanently institutionalized.
The doctor refused. 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.'
SO GET OUT AND VOTE!!!
And now for something much less serious - - -
Today is Tuesday - which means it's List Tuesday around here and elsewhere. No formal list this week, as you can see, so you're left with my 'To Do' list :/
Most of you know I make my own calendar every year because I'm... special.
I have to have everything in a certain way or the world as we know it will end.
If I can't see the entire week in front of me, I am rendered completely brain dead.
And I'm not far from it when I'm actually functional, so give Megan her calendar.
I like to think of myself as an insane genius for including space for my 'To Do' list.
As you can clearly see, my 'To Do' list is already too full - I bet yours is too.
And it doesn't even include all the endless chores of day to day living!
But I fully admit I'm the hugest sucker ever for the thrill of crossing things off!
I'll never know why drawing a line through a task is such motivation, but it is.
So I'm off to dive in and attempt to cross more things off today -
I'm gonna need some good tunes and diet Coke for sure!
