February 21, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 35 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  RECOGNIZING THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF 
                   NORTH AND CENTRAL SAN MATEO COUNTY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JACKIE SPEIER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, February 21, 2020

  Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the 100th Anniversary of 
the League of Women Voters, an organization that was founded to prepare 
the implementation of the 19th Amendment of the United States 
Constitution giving women the right to vote. The League of Women Voters 
of North and Central San Mateo County join more than 700 local and 
state chapters to celebrate the historic centennial of the 19th 
Amendment.
  When LWV was born on February 14, 1920, six months before the 19th 
Amendment was ratified, founder Carrie Chapman Catt believed the 
organization could give millions of women voters a crash course in 
civic engagement and the American political system. Formed by the 
suffragists of the National American Women Suffrage Association, the 
league started out as a political experiment designed to help 20 
million women carry out their newly won right to vote.
  The right to vote is at the very core of our Republic. Our Founding 
Fathers wisely enshrined that right of every citizen to make changes in 
our political system in the first three words of our Constitution: ``We 
The People.'' Sadly, our Founding Fathers did not include women, and it 
took another 131 years to get the 19th Amendment ratified.
  It was an ugly battle. After it passed the House and Senate, anti-
suffrage groups mobilized to continue their pressure campaign in the 
states. I have two framed documents in my Washington, D.C., office that 
I like to show visitors to illustrate that tension. One is an original 
copy of the 1871 petition from suffragist Susan B. Anthony and 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton urging Congress to give women the right to vote. 
The other is a 1917 letter from the National Association Opposed to 
Woman Suffrage arguing that the 19th Amendment would be an ``official 
endorsement of nagging as a national policy;'' that it would ``give 
every radical woman the right to believe that she could get any law she 
wanted by `pestering.' ''
  The same year, 1917, the National Women's Party picketed the White 
House to pressure President Woodrow Wilson. No one had ever picketed 
the White House before and the women were met with hostility from angry 
mobs. They were yelled at, spat on, peppered with rotten eggs and even 
beaten and sexually assaulted. On November 14, 1917, after being 
arrested, a group of women were met at the prison by guards with clubs, 
and 33 women were choked, kicked, and one was stabbed between the eyes. 
They were fed rotten food and denied medical treatment. When some women 
went on a hunger strike, they were force fed with tubes through their 
noses. This ``Night of Terror'' has been forgotten by most Americans 
today, but it illustrates the hard-fought battles for women to finally 
gain the right to vote on August 26th, Women's Equality Day.
  To this day the League of Women Voters, of which I am a proud member, 
continues to register, educate, and mobilize voters reaffirming its 
commitment to ``Making Democracy Work.'' While its mission hasn't, 
changed, the league is taking advantage of new tools, such as 
VOTE411.org, a cutting-edge website utilized by millions of voters, to 
make it even more effective.
  Madam Speaker, for a century, the League of Women Voters has 
empowered voters and defended democracy. It has evolved from a 
political experiment designed to help 20 million newly-enfranchised 
women to vote in 1920 to a nonpartisan organization shaping public 
policy, molding political leaders, and promoting citizen engagement. 
May it not take another 100 years until every citizen eligible to vote 
will cast her or his ballot to protect and be part of our democracy.

                          ____________________