[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 125 (Monday, July 31, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7994-H7995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         WOMEN'S RIGHT TO VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this time as 
we close out July to talk about what we have to look forward to in 
August, and one of the great things we have to look forward to in 
August is this stamp, this 32-cent stamp will be coming out on August 
26 in celebration of women having and the right to vote for 75 years in 
this country.
  Yes, this is really something to celebrate I think, and the stamp is 
very 

[[Page H 7995]]
beautiful, with the Capitol in the background, suffragettes over here 
who worked so hard to get that right to vote; and it flows into modern-
day women still trying to use that vote to move their fights forward.
  This was an incredible time 75 years ago, when you think that the 
fight for the right to vote started way back when this Republic began, 
with John Adams' wife begging to have women included in the 
Constitution, and of course they did not; and then the first national 
convention in 1848 being held in Seneca Falls where women came together 
and again asked for the right to vote, and it took until 75 years ago 
before that really happened. Almost all the people at the 1848 
convention were dead by the time the reality of the vote had occurred.
  But this was probably one of the most revolutionary things that 
happened in American society without a revolution. I add, without a 
revolution, because there was no war to do this. It was all done within 
the right to petition Government, the right of people who couldn't 
vote, but they still petitioned Government for that right.
  The suffragettes came to Washington. They bought a house; they lived 
there constantly. They picketed by day, and in their lovely white 
dresses, they chained themselves to the White House gate because they 
would not let them in to see the President. They would visit Senators 
and Congressmen who would see them, and if they were not in jail by 
night, they would go back to the house where they had all rented, have 
a piano concerto, tea, dinner, get up and do the same thing the next 
day, over, and over, and over.
  Finally, this Congress and finally all of the States moved to ratify 
that.
  So what happened after that? One of the very first things that 
happened was then the Congress moved to make motherhood safe. At the 
time that women were trying to get the right to vote, more women had 
died in America during childbirth, all throughout World War I, than 
American soldiers had died in Europe in World War I. Childbirth was 
very risky and yet the Congress was spending more money on hog cholera 
than they were spending on maternal child care and infant child care.
  So they immediately got those priorities shifted, and today we see 
childbirth as something that people do not worry about having a huge 
high mortality rate from.
  I think that as we celebrate this stamp, and there will be 
celebrations all throughout America, and heaven help us if we do not 
see more of these stamps purchased than the Marilyn Monroe stamp. I 
don't know what that will say about America, but let us hope that 
people get these and they talk about that long history and they talk 
about what a difference women's vote can make and have made many a 
time.
  And I hope if we keep seeing what this extreme new group, the new 
Republicans, and doing to women as they have taken over the Congress, I 
hope women come out one more time and use that vote to straighten it 
out.
  Women still do not get equal pay in this country. They are now 
getting 72 cents for every dollar a man gets in the same job, and yet 
nobody gives them that kind of discount on their rent or their food or 
their public utility bills or anything else. So they are still not 
getting equal pay, and we are seeing this Congress roll back thing 
after thing after thing that has affected women.
  They have undone Title IX. That is the one that says, in the schools, 
if they get public funding, they must give women the same opportunity 
they give men. That may sound irrelevant to a lot of young women today, 
but when I was growing up, believe me, it was very relevant. We had 
none of the gym privileges. I was one person who wanted to be an 
aerodynamic engineer and, of course, the gates were closed, locked and 
everything else.
  There was no way. It was either, get into liberal arts or get out, 
and there were many other instances of that.
  The Federal Government made a huge difference in that and now we see 
them trying to roll that back. They are trying to roll back student 
loans. They are rolling back the choice issue all across the board.
  Last week in this Congress, we even had a vote saying that women who 
are incarcerated in prison, even if they were cocaine addicts, could 
not have an abortion. That is crazy.
  So as we get ready to celebrate this, I hope women not only celebrate 
the stamp, not only know they have the vote. They now, after 75 years, 
learn how to use the vote and get more respect from this Congress.


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