Remember,  it was not until 1920 that women were granted  the
right to go  to the polls and vote.

The women  were innocent and defenseless, but they were  jailed
nonetheless  for picketing the White House, carrying signs  asking
for the  vote.  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.

(Dora  Lewis)
  They  hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed  her
head  against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her  cellmate,
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.  So,  refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year  because-why,  exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to  work?
Our vote  doesn't matter? It's raining?

(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving  a sixty-day sentence.)
  Last  week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's  new
movie 'Iron  Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the  battle
these women  waged so that I could pull the curtain at the  polling
booth and  have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the  reminder.

All these  years later, voter registration is still my passion. But  the
actual act  of voting had become less personal for me, more  rote.
Frankly,  voting often felt more like an obligation than a  privilege.
Sometimes  it was inconvenient.

My friend  Wendy, who is my age and studied women's  history,
saw the HBO  movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to  talk
about it,  she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One  thought
kept coming  back to me as I watched that movie,' she  said.
'What would  those women think of the way I use, or don't  use,
  my  right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not  just
younger  women, but those of us who did seek to learn.'  The
right to  vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over  again.'
  HBO  released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all  history,
social  studies and government teachers would include the movie  in
their  curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and  anywhere
else women  gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of  socializing,
but we are  not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I  think
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 Pl [ace] [ Washington , D.C. ]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence  Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul,  Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing,  right))
It was  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.'
  Please, if you are  so inclined, pass this on to all the women you  know.
  We  need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought  so
hard for by  these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic,  republican or independent party - remember to  vote.

(Helena  Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C.  prison for carrying banner,
'Governments derive  their just powers from the consent of the  governed.')