The 19th Amendment and Women's Issues
Bainbridge Colby, born in
When not finding happiness with a younger woman
(and who is to say that it wasn’t both true and deserved happiness) Mr. Colby
was Mark Twain’s attorney and a close and trusted associate of Woodrow
Wilson. Under President Wilson, Colby became
our 43rd Secretary of State.
On Aug. 26, 1920, at 8:00 a.m., Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby,
took up a pen and signed the 19th Constitutional Amendment, thereby
giving female citizens the right to vote in all American elections. He did so eight days after Tennessee had become the 36th
state to ratify the amendment, satisfying the requirement of the Constitution
for three-fourths of the states to pass any proposed amendment.
It had taken over 50 years of struggle to get women
the vote. The Women’s Rights movement unofficially
began in 1848 at Seneca Falls ,
New York . Women like Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony had fought through prejudice, stereotypes and,
frequently, the hostility of their fellow women who, for good or ill, had made
a peace and a life in the status quo.
Most of the names associated with the movement would never live to see
the moment when Mr. Bainbridge Colby would make their dream a reality.
What is interesting is the conventional wisdom of
the time, which was that women would rise as a monolithic voting bloc. Bloc!
What bloc? Did we just pass a
bloc? I didn’t see a bloc; did you see a
bloc? Right! The power brokers of the early 20th
century made the same mistake they do today.
They assume that the group they view through biased eyes is going to
behave according to those same biases.
They are fooled by their hubris of complete understanding. Women, like every other community of voters,
have motivations and interests that are as varied as the backgrounds they come
from. While women may be counted on to
go to the polls in good numbers, and can even be counted on to have many of the
same concerns, they will have as many different attitudes about what
constitutes a good and bad solution as the country at large. All women are interested, first and foremost,
in the economy. We are always going to
be concerned about the safety of our children, jobs and homes—probably in that
order. We are disproportionately
affected by poverty and medical issues late in life, so Medicare and retirement
issues concern us. But what we see as
the best line of defense for each of these issues depends on who
we are, not what we are. The
politician who talks for us is the one who sees us as equal partners in the healing, progress and success of this country,
not the one who panders to us as someone needing special protection and the
omniscient judgment of an Imperial Government.
Ladies, let’s all plan on voting this year, and
keep the faith.
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