Reflections as a Voter during the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage

American suffragists began their organized fight for women’s equality in 1848 during the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York publicly demanding the vote for the first time. For 72 years, suffragettes marched, demonstrated, and fought for the right to cast a ballot. 
In 1919, the movement gained its first legislative win on the federal level. According to the Commission on the Women’s Vote Centennial, the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote, on May 21. The U.S. Senate passed it shortly thereafter, and the 19th Amendment went to the states, where it had to be ratified by 3/4ths of the 48 states that made up our nation at that time. By a razor-thin vote of 50-47, Tennessee became the last state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby issued a proclamation declaring the 19th Amendment ratified and part of the US Constitution on August 26, 1920, and the American woman’s right to vote was legally protected forever.
The same source reports that 68 million women in this country vote in our elections. It is a hard-won right that most women exercise casually, as they should. But it is one that many women (and men) exercise not at all, which they ought. 
In honor of this Centennial celebration of women getting the vote, which happens to fall in an election year, Howell County News sat down with Jane Bailey, retired educator and community leader, to discuss the suffragettes’ fight and what it means to voters today. 
Mrs. Bailey detailed the aggressive philosophy of one suffragette who lived to see her life’s work come to fruition: Alice Paul.
Paul’s organization, the National Women’s Party, was the more radical wing of the movement, said Bailey. Their tactics were inspired by the success of English suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst, who affected change in the British government by, “...public demonstrations, arson, and sabotage. They destroyed artwork and assaulted Cabinet members.” said Bailey, “[Paul was inspired that women must be the aggressors.”
“No one would ever give them the vote. They must take it. She was ready to wage warfare in order to get the vote. This movement, to me, was violent,” she concluded.
In 1910, not one politician was supporting the suffrage movement in the U.S. In 1913, Paul conducted a massive demonstration the day before Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated. Five thousand demonstrators marched, and they were attacked by men and boys on the street, an event which made headlines nationally. Women picketed the White House, lighting bonfires and hanging signs that appealed to the president directly to take action. 
“For this they were arrested, jailed,” Bailey said.
In custody, suffragettes conducted their infamous hunger strikes and were horribly, violently force-fed by jailers. 
“It was like a war. I don’t know what else to say,” said Bailey, “A story of the power of the human will in conflict with social injustice...It’s good to realize the sacrifice those women made. They were martyrs, or closer to martyrs.”
The population in Howell County is close to 40,000 people. According to election results published by the Howell County Clerk from this month’s primary election, there are 26,807 registered voters here. In that election, only 32.16% of that number (8,620) turned out to vote. On a day to celebrate the suffragette’s triumph borne out of blood, violence, and sheer perseverance, those numbers are disquieting to say the least. 
Like all our other American freedoms, equal access to the ballot is a gift paid for by the hardships of our forebearers. This November, we have a general election. Man or woman, Democrat or Republican, celebrate the Centennial with a visit to the polls. You should because you can.

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