The North Coast times-eagle., March 01, 2004, Page 14, Image 14

P A G E 14
MS. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
FROM PAGE 13
(In regard to state suffrage, by 1910 Oregon had failed
to pass five such referendums, but that same year Washington
became the first state since 1896 to grant women the vote,
approving the measure by almost two to one. In 1911 suffragists
mounted an intense campaign in California and by 3,857 votes
the state’s women won the right to cast their own ballots. In 1914
suffrage was on the ballot in seven states: defeated in Missouri,
Nebraska, Ohio, North and South Dakota, it won in Montana and
Nevada Four East Coast states voted down suffrage in 1915:
they were Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsy­
lvania. Two years later New York overturned the earlier vote and
became the first East Coast state to grant women suffrage. Also
that year 1917 women gained the right to vote after legislative
action in six states: Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota,
Ohio and Rhode Island. They also won the right to vote in
primaries in Arkansas. Michigan, Oklahoma and South Dakota
gained full suffrage the following year, and in Texas women were
allowed to vote in primaries through legislative action, though
literacy tests prevented many black and Mexican-American
women from voting.)
The House approved the 19th Amendment in May 1919
(304 to 89) after a lame-duck Senate defeated it in February that
year. The Senate finally reversed its long rejection to women's
suffrage in June with a vote of 66 to 30. Within one week three
states — Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan — ratified the amend­
ment and by the end of the year more than twenty states had
passed the measure By the end of March 1920, thirty-five of the
required thirty-six states had ratified the amendment. A single
vote in the Tennessee House of Representatives in August
(Harry Burn, whose mother was a suffragist and told him to "be
a good boy" and vote for ratification) gave the U S. Constitution
its 19th Amendment, which was declared official on August 26.
Two other states, Vermont and Connecticut, ratified it later.
(Ten states did not ratify the 19th Amendment. They
were Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland,
Mississippi, Virginia, North and South Carolina. The 38 states
that approved the amendment were more than the three-fourths
of states needed to pass it.)
"Throughout the suffrage struggle, America's history, her
principles, her traditions stood forth to indicate the inevitability of
woman suffrage.Yet the years went by, decade followed decade,
and 26 other countries gave the vote to their women while
America delayed," Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers
Shuler wrote in their 1923 book, Woman Suffrage & Politics:
The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement. "Why the delay?
We think we have the answer. It was not an antagonistic public
sentiment, nor yet an uneducated or indifferent public sentiment
— it was the control of public sentiment, the deflecting and the
thwarting of public sentiment, through the trading and the trick­
ery, the buying and the selling of American politics. We think
that we can prove it."
At a National Women's Party convention in 1921, Alice
Paul introduced what she said was the next women's rights issue
— passage of an Equal Rights Amendment. In 1923 the NWP
started a new journal, Equal Rights, edited by Edith Houghton
Hooker, and introduced its Equal Rights Amendment (nicknamed
the ‘Lucretia Mott Amendment') into Congress. This bill stated:
"Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United
States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." Many women's
groups and labor activists opposed the bill because it eliminated
hardwon protective legislation for women workers. (Indeed, the
Supreme Court invalidated a minimum wage law essentially
because it didn't give men and women equal rights.)
Reintroduced into the House by Congresswoman Hattie
Caraway in 1943, the ERA was changed to read:
"Equality o f rights under the law shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of
sex."
Failing to pass, women in several states set up ERA
committees that lobbied state legislatures to pressure Congress.
The Senate voted on the ERA for the first time in more than 20
years in 1947. The count of 38 for and 35 against was far short
of the two/thirds majority needed.
In 1967 the National Organization for Women (NOW)
made as one of eight demands included in its Bill of Rights
"immediate passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.”
Finally, in 1970 the House approved the ERA, 350 to
15 after only an hour debate following Representative Martha
Griffiths successful effort to get it out of the judiciary committee.
But the Senate refused to vote on the ERA until 1972 following
intense lobbying by women's groups, especially NOW. The
measure was approved 84 to 8. By the end of the year 22 states,
led by Hawaii, ratified the amendment. In addition six states
(Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico, Texas and Washing-
PATRICK CHAPPETTE
ton) added equal rights amendments to their state constitutions,
preceded by Pennsylvania the year before. However, by 1978
Congress was urged to extend the ratification deadline beyond
March 1979 because a shortfall of 35 out of a required 38 states
had ratified the ERA. Seven years were requested but Congress
extended the deadline only four years to June 30,1982.
ERA supporters not only fought campaigns to pass ERA
in the states but also ones to rescind it. In 1979 NOW and other
groups managed to head off attempts to revoke ERA ratification
in 13 states but were unable to gain any new states.
The necessary three states never ratified the ERA
although polls showed that 63% of the public supported it, with
only 32% opposed. Fifteen states rejected the ERA, and four
others attempted to rescind their support but the move was
thought to be unconstitutional
Among the main arguments used to defeat the ERA
were the specter of women being drafted and forced to serve in
combat, the potential loss of alimony and child custody prefer­
ence in divorce cases, and the possibility that tax money would
have to be used for abortions. Antifeminists also put forth absurd
but highly symbolic scenarios, such as unisex toilets. Rightwing
women such as Phyllis Schafley and her Eagle Forum (dedicat­
ed to "family values" and "law and order") considerably upset the
ERA campaign.
The present day feminist movement incubated between
the suffrage and ERA movements and emerged in the late 1960s
as vigorously renewed successor to women's rights movements
that had languished in the post-World War 2 years. In November
1968, about 200 women from thirty cities attended the first
national women's liberation conference, which commemorated
the 120th anniversary of the first women's rights meeting at
HAIL TO THE CHIEF
The following poem is written to reflect feelings I have about
current events. Historically, this same type o f thing happens
over and over again, with the same results. Don't get me wrong,
I'm not for or against one political party or another. I don't care
for any politicians, it doesn’t matter what country they are from.
Don’t speak to me of honor
and generosity,
you viper in a 3pc suit,
complete with Ph D.
The attitude you carry
exposes your Life’s Creed
based on the filth of power
weighted well with greed.
You speak of “God’s Great Blessings"
to the middle class.
Then, speak of jobs and health care
to the struggling mass.
You find a stately enemy,
A Focal-Pointed Foe,
to justify your lawless moves
to the Average Joe.
Your rants and raves about this fiend,
stirs fear throughout the land.
Young men line-up and then sign-up,
to help you make your stand.
VAN DUSEN BEVERAGES
ASTORIA, OREGON r
You sanctify this violence
and teach them how to kill.
Their actions once well scolded for,
becomes their Life’s Blood skill.
325-2352
Then...when your term is over
and your office time is up,
your game produced no winners
and no victorious cup.
A V A gallery
You turn these well trained killers
back onto our street.
Crime rates rise, before our eyes.
The cycle’s now complete.
ASTORIA VUSUAL ARTS
1 6 0 10™ ST., ASTORIA
BACK ON THE BLOCK 2 DOORS DOWN
-L IN D A M a c D O N A L D -L E W IS
1
Seneca Falls. Radical women of color were not invited which
created problems later.
"The situation between the sexes now, and throughout
history, is...a relationship of dominance and subordinance," Kate
Millett wrote in her 1970 book, Sexual Politics. "However muted
its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains...as
perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides
its most fundamental concept of power. This is so because our
society...is a patriarchy. The fact is evident at once if one recalls
that the military, industry, technology, universities, science,
political office, and finance — in short, every...avenue of power
is entirely in male hands."
In 1971 Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisolm, Betty Frieden,
Gloria Steinem and others helped found the National Women's
Political Caucus, which was devoted to increase women's
political strength by organizing local caucuses, backing women
candidates, and assuring fair representation of women and their
issues within the leading political parties. Forty percent of the
delegates to the 1972 Democratic National Convention were
women, compared to 13% four years earlier. GOP women
delegates to the Republican Convention in 1972 made up 35%.
Also in 1972 Shirley Chisolm became the first black
woman candidate for the Presidency. "I have met far more
discrimination as a woman than being black in politics," she said.
"But in spite of it all I went to the Democratic convention...and
began to open the way for women to think they can run."
That year the NWPC set up two associations to train
women for political participation and to help finance women
candidates, the National Women's Education Fund and the
Women's Campaign Fund.
In 1974 Ella Tambussi Grasso became the first woman
governor elected entirely on her own without succeeding a
husband. Connecticut elected her by a significant majority. But
only 11 states have ever had women governors and only Texas
has had a second woman governor. The other states that have
elected women governors are Alabama, Connecticut, Kansas,
Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and
Wyoming. (In 1995 the 10 states with the most women in their
legislatures were, in order, Washington, Nevada, Colorado,
Arizona, Utah, New Hampshire, Oregon, Maryland, Idaho and
Kansas. The state with the fewest women legislators was
Alabama.)
"The best way to assure recognition of women's political
concerns is to elect officeholders who not only are pro-women's
issues but are women themselves," Eleanor Smeal wrote in
Women on the Ballot — And in Office in 1984. "Women should
think seriously about running for office and encourage other
women to do so. The quickest way for us to elect more women
to public office is for more women to run as candidates."
The 20th century started with more than five million
women working at outside employment, about one-fifth of all
U S. women. The greatest increase was in clerical work, which
employed primarily white women. Two other areas of dramatic
increase were telephone operators and sales clerks. Nearly 30%
of jobs for women were as domestic workers (a large percentage
black and immigrants). Others worked on farms, as teachers or
in factories (primarily garment or textile).
In 1909 women shirtwaist workers attempted to organize
at two companies in New York City, were fired and immediately
formed a picket line. They persevered despite arrests and beat­
ings by police. Called the "Uprising of the 20,000" it was the
largest strike of women workers to date. They did not win many
of their demands but were supported by the Women's Trade
Union League and proved that women were able to organize.
Two years later, on March 25, 1911, fire broke out at
the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory where the 1909 strike began.
Exits were locked (against the law) and fire ladders were unable
to reach the top floors, so 146 workers, most of them young
immigrant women, jumped into the street or burned to death.
Rose Schneiderman gave an impassioned speech and
thousands of mourners marched down 5th Avenue. "This
is not the first time girls have been burned alive in this city,"
Schneiderman said. "Every week I must learn of the untimely
death of one of my sister workers. Too much blood has been
spilled. I know from my experience it is up to working people
to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves
is by a strong working class movement."
(The shirtwaist factory owners were acquitted following
an investigation that was as corrupt as it was scandalous.)
Massachusetts passed the first minimum wage law for
women in 1912. Other states passed similar laws but the U.S.
Supreme Court disavowed them in 1923. The Justices contend­
ed that with the vote women were essentially equal with men and
no longer needed "special protection." The decision knocked out
all existing state minimum wage laws. But he Court reversed
itself in 1937 and upheld a Washington State minimum wage law
for women. In its decision the Court deplored the "exploitation of
a class of workers who are in an unusual position with respect to
bargaining power" and said "What these workers lose in wages
the taxpayers are called upon to pay. The bare cost of living
must be met."
During World War 1 women took over many men's jobs,
working in blast furnaces, smelting brass and copper, producing
chemicals and manufacturing automobiles and railway parts.
Women operated streetcars and elevators and delivered the
mail. Their wartime work led to formation of the Women in
Industrial Service in the Department of Labor in 1918 (later the
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