Today in Herstory: Suffragists Protest Wilson on the Boston Tea Party Anniversary

(what a sad commentary on yesterday's democratic party, and today's repukes)


Today in Herstory: Suffragists Protest Wilson on the Boston Tea Party Anniversary


National Woman’s Party protesters gathering at the Lafayette Monument earlier today.



December 16, 1918: A spectacular procession, followed by a stunning protest in favor of woman suffrage, took place this afternoon at the Lafayette Monument in Washington, D.C.
The reason for the demonstration – held on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party – was to call attention to the fact that President Wilson arrived in France today to help promote democracy overseas, while the job of winning it for the women of his own country remains undone.

It’s Wilson’s own Democratic Party that is failing to provide its share of the votes needed in the Senate to pass the Susan B. Anthony (nationwide woman suffrage) Amendment. It passed the House in January by a margin of 274-136, just enough for the required 2/3 majority, with 83.3% of Republicans voting in favor, and just 50.5% of Democrats in support. It now needs only the same 2/3 majority in the Senate to be sent to the States for ratification.

Today’s pageant began when three hundred members of the National Woman’s Party, some carrying purple, white and gold party banners, and other carrying torches, formed up in front of National Woman’s Party headquarters. Led by Anna Kelton Wiley, carrying an American flag, suffragists representing 31 States marched past the White House and on to the Lafayette Monument.


Once there, the ceremonies opened with Vida Milholland singing “The Women’s Marseillaise.” Then, one by one, thirty speakers explained the rally’s purpose to the large crowd that had gathered. With the Great War now over, the spectators were more receptive to protest against the President than before, and a few even cheered. As Elizabeth Selden Rogers, who presided over the event, explained to the spectators and press: We hold this meeting to protest against the denial of liberty to American women. All over the world today we see surging and sweeping irresistibly on, the great tide of democracy, and women should be derelict to their duty if they did not see to it that it brings freedom to the women of this land. England has enfranchised her women, Canada has enfranchised her women. Russia has enfranchised her women, the liberated nations of Central Europe are enfranchising their women. America must live up to her pretensions of democracy!
Our ceremony today is planned to call attention to the fact that President Wilson has gone abroad to establish democracy in foreign lands while he has failed to establish democracy at home. We burn his words on liberty today, not in malice or in anger, but in a spirit of reverence for truth.
This meeting is a message to President Wilson. We expect an answer. If it is more words, we will burn them again. The only answer the National Woman’s Party will accept is the instant passage of the amendment in the Senate.

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http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/12/16/today-in-herstory-suffragists-protest-wilson-on-the-boston-tea-party-anniversary/