As they picketed, policemen came wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing, to hit the women and forcefully take them to jail. Thirty-three women were almost beaten to death for picketing and bringing to the President’s attention the need for a signed law allowing them to vote. The President never yielded, and stayed behind the sanctity and safety of the White House as these women were beaten to inches of their lives. The First Lady also stayed by the Presidents’ side and never swayed or made comment concerning the beatings.
These thirty-three women were brought to prison and were starved, some were actually beaten to death or left to die without medical aide. They had heart attacks. Left to hang. Lucy Burns was chained to the cell bars above her head for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
Another woman, Dora Lewis, was in a dark cell and had her head smashed against an iron bed and knocked out cold. The guards pinched, twisted and continued beating her.
For weeks these women were continued to be beaten and only fed water from an open pail. The slop that they were fed was colorless and infested with worms.
Alice Paul began a hunger strike and was beaten once again. They force fed a tube down her throat and poured liquid until she vomited. They tied her to a chair and beat her.
All this went on for weeks until the press finally got wind of it. A psychiatrist cronie of Woodrow Wilson’s tried to have Alice Paul committed as insane. Finally a doctor stepped forward and admitted that ‘courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’
President and First Lady Wilson stood by and let this happen. Afterwards, the National Woman’s Party developed. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920. Wilson left office in 1919.
Less than a century later, a woman's freedom to vote is taken for granted: a right in the vein of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rather than a privilege. Though I believe voting should be considered a right, it is good to be reminded that it is also a privilege bought with spilled blood.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder, Barb.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We seriously lose a lot of our history - and this wasn't that long ago! Seems we aren't that far removed from the societies that we now condemn for their treatment of women. (I'm just catching up reading Guppy posts. That's why this comment is so late.)
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