"Not to know what things in life require remedying is a crime… It leaves you at the mercy of events – it lets life manipulate you – instead of training you to manipulate life." -Inez Milholland
Few people devote their entire lives to one cause as Alice Paul did. She never married, spending her life crusading for women’s rights. When asked why, she replied with a quote of her mother’s, "When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row."
I can imagine her whole life of organizing groups and committees, rallies and demonstrations, dedicating her time, energy, and talent to progressing humanity forward.
As we watch this next clip, think about the decisions Alice had to make, to give up or continue? Have you ever felt like giving up?
To follow along with blog and discussion watch movie from 58:22- 1:09:12.
"We laugh too."
Why We Oppose Votes for Men
Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.
Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums.
Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them peculiarly unfit for the task of government.
Alice Duer Miller’s sarcastic column was published as a poster by the National Women Suffrage Association. 1915.
You are making a difference!
"Heads we milk cows, Tails we go and find Wilson's boots."
Special to the New York Times
Washington, Jan. 9, Women Suffragettes, representing all parts of the country, disappointed over the result of an appeal which they made this afternoon to President Wilson in the East Room of the White House, held an indignation meeting and decided to adopt a new plan of campaign. They intend to post pickets hereafter about the White House grounds. Their purpose is to make it impossible for the President to enter of leave the White House without encountering a picket bearing some device pleading the suffrage cause. The pickets will be known as "silent sentinels."
Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who precided over the indignation meeting, coined the title silent sentinels for the White House pickets. These silent sentinels, all young women, commencing at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning will take up their stations near the entrances to the White House.
Develop stronger and deeper opposition to current conditions and policies.
"Sentinels at every gate, dawn until dust."
Special to the New York Times Continued
Washington, Jan. 9, The President expressed his surprise, reminded the spokesmen of the party that he had not been apprised of their full purpose, and was not prepared to say any more than he had on previous occasions. His speech follows:
"I had not been apprised that you were coming here to make any representations that would issue an appeal to me. I had been told that you were coming to present memorial resolutions with regard to the very remarkable woman whom your cause has lost. I therefore am not prepared to say anything further than I have said on previous occasions of this sort. I do not need to tell you where my own convictions and my own personal purpose lie, and I need not tell you by circumscriptions I am bound as a leader of a party."
Bound by Party Commands.
"As the leader of a party, my commands come from the party and not from private personal convictions. My personal action as a citizen, of course, comes from no source but my own conviction, and therefore my position has been so frequently defined and I hope so candidly defined, and it is so impossible for me, until the orders of my party are changed, to do anything other than I am doing, as a party leader, that I think nothing more is necessary to be said.
I do not want to say this. I do not see how anybody can fail to observe from the utterances of the last campaign that the Democratic Party is more inclined than the opposition party to assist in this great cause, and it has been a matter of surprise to me, and a matter of very great regret, that so many of those who were heart and soul for this cause seemed so greatly to misunderstand and misinterpret the attitude of parties. Because in this country, as in every other self-governing country, it is only throught the instrumentality of parties that things can be accomplished. They are not accomplished by the individual voice, but by concerted action, and that action must come only so fast as you can concert it. I have done my best and shall continue to do my best to concert it in the interest of the cause in which I personally believe."
Another world is possible.
"They'll get tired of the cold. It won't last."
Their vigil started January 10, 1917 and lasted until June 1919 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed both the House of Representatives and Senate. During those two and a half years, more than a thousand different women picketed every day and night except Sunday, and many were arrested during the vigil.
Maintain discipline.
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that's standing by the water
We shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We're fighting for our freedom,
We shall not be moved
"You are a brave girl."
"The best protection any woman can have...is courage." -Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations...can never effect a reform." -Susan B. Anthony
One day longer. One day stronger.
"This continued picketing by the NWP is the single greatest obsticle to the suffrage amendment!"
The following are examples of banners held by the women:
"Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"
"We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments."
"Democracy Should Begin at Home"
"The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice. We have made it." (another quotation from Wilson)
"Kaiser Wilson, have you forgotten your sympathy with the poor Germans because they were not self-governed? 20,000,000 American women are not self-governed. Take the beam out of your own eye." (comparing Wilson to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and to a famous quote of Jesus regarding hypocrisy)
"We do not support it and we have made that clear to the President."
In this tempest-tossed condition of mind I received an invitation to spend the day with Lucretia Mott, at Richard Hunt's, in Waterloo. There I met several members of different families of Friends, earnest, thoughtful women. I poured out the torrent of my long - accumulating discontent with such vehemence and indignation that I stirred myself, as well as the rest of the party, to do and dare anything. My discontent, according to Emerson, must have been healthy, for it moved us all to prompt action, and we decided, then and there, to call a "Woman's Rights Convention." We wrote the call 1 that evening and published it in the Seneca County Courier the next day, the 14th of July, 1848, giving only five days' notice, as the convention was to be held on the 19th and 20th.
The call was inserted without signatures — in fact it was a mere announcement of a meeting — but the movers and managers were Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann M'Clin- tock, Jane Hunt, Martha C. Wright, and myself. The convention, which was held two days in the Methodist church, was in every way a success. The house was crowded at every session, the speaking good, and a religious earnestness dignified all the proceedings. At the first session a Declaration of Sentiments, 1 patterned after the Declaration of Independence, was read.
As we had had but five days from the time of calling the convention until the date set for convening, all preparations had to be made with the greatest despatch. The statement of woman's grievances was drawn up the Sunday before July 19th. There was little time for consultation; each one of the rebellious group had to develop some side of the great drama. Beside the Declaration, eleven resolutions covering our aims and demands were prepared. I was wholly responsible for the IX resolution, which proved to be the con- tentious plank of our platform. My revolutionary sentiment read: "Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise." When I spoke to Lucretia Mott about my intention to present this, she amazed me by objecting, "Why, Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous. " But I persisted, for I saw clearly that the power to make the laws was the right through which all other rights could be secured. In the convention all other resolutions were carried unanimously, but with the help of Frederick Douglass, and after a heated discussion, the IX resolution was finally passed by a small majority, and was embodied in the complete draft signed by one hundred of the persons who were present.
These were the hasty, initiative steps of "the most momentous reform that had yet been launched on the world — the first organized protest against the injustice which had brooded for ages over the character and destiny of one-half of the race."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton writing about the Declaration and Resolutions at Seneca Falls, July 19 and 20, 1848.
Plant seeds and encourage them to grow. Put your hand to the plow and finish the row.
Next up BEYOND WORDS! And the whole world is watching.
RESOURCES:
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newcentury/4982
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0214.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26323/26323-h/26323-h.htm#Page_147
http://www.dfong.com/nonviol/nda.html
http://www.popularresistance.org/major-social-transformation-is-closer-than-you-may-think/
No comments:
Post a Comment