Mom never forgot the women who struggled so that she could vote

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.

Contact Jean Cherni, founder of the retirement advisory service, Senior Living Solutions, at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 15 The Ponds at Hotchkiss Grove, Branford 06405.

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