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I know I am being a bit sexist, and this post applies more to women than men, but I think the sentiment of sacrificing for the right to vote is universal. I want to encourage everyone to vote next week, even if you feel turned off by the current state of politics.
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers who lived only 100 years ago. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. Prior to that, they picketed the White House for the right to vote. The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing.
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.'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.
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.
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.
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.'
Sometimes voting feels more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it is inconvenient. Sometimes, the whole process is dispiriting. But please remember -- hundreds of thousands of men and women have suffered and died over centuries to maintain our privilege to vote. We honor their memory and sacrifices when we take the time to pull whatever lever we choose -- yes, we CHOOSE -- in the ballot box. Please vote on Nov. 6
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Topic: Another Slightly Political Message (Read 1226 times)