[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 130 (Saturday, August 5, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1668-E1669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  75TH ANNIVERSARY OF WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

                                 ______


                       HON. GEORGE E. BROWN, JR.

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 4, 1995
  Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Speaker, August 26, 1995 marks the 75th 
anniversary of women's suffrage in the United States, a movement first 
begun in 1647 by Margaret Brent of Maryland, heir of Lord Calvert and 
Lord Baltimore, who demanded a voice in the legislature. Ultimately, of 
course, her request was denied.
  Struggling to maintain their fight, suffragettes were actively 
involved in the abolition movement. Elizabeth Chandler, abolitionist 
writer, argued that women--as well as slaves--were in bondage to white 
males. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison also tied the plight of 
slave women to all women.
  The temperance crusade during the 1840's also drew women into social 
and political movements. The Civil War and anti-slavery activities 
prompted women to organize in their communities and to petition 
Congress. As the abolitionist movement shifted from a moral to a 
political struggle, however, women were often excluded from the 
movement.
  The American Equal Rights Association, founded in 1866, brought 
Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and Henry Blackwell into the political 
process, enraged by the proposed 14th amendment that would grant the 
vote only to male citizens. The Federal women's suffrage amendment was 
first introduced in Congress in 1868, and the National Women's Suffrage 
Association was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton Cady 
the following year to secure passage of a suffrage amendment. The 
amendment was again introduced in 1878, containing the same language 
that ultimately passed in 1919.
  The 41-year struggle to pass the 19th amendment in the House and 
Senate was a history of parades, arrests of suffrage supporters, hunger 
strikes, the founding of a National Women's Party, and picketing and 
bonfires in front of the White House. In 1917, Jeanette Rankin of 
Montana became the first woman elected to Congress. The First World War 
raged throughout Europe, and it was only at the war's end that 
President Wilson argued for women's suffrage. In 1920 in Tennessee, the 
last State to ratify the amendment, passage was by a single vote. A 70-
year struggle finally culminated in the signing of the 19th amendment 
into law on August 26, 1920.
  I hope to celebrate this great historical event in my district on 
August 26, during Rialto Days. But I think it is also fitting that we 
mark this anniversary in Congress in the days before our recess. The 
past few days have seen an incredible attack on the rights of women to 
decide their own reproductive fates. This House has launched an assault 
on the dignity 

[[Page E1669]]

of women to pander to the Christian coalition voters back home. This, 
to me, does not seem a fitting commemoration of a milestone in American 
woman's political involvement.
  But American women knew in 1920 that their political struggle had not 
ended. They recognized that the granting of suffrage did not release 
them from the bondage of decisions made by males. It will come as no 
surprise to women today that they will need to re-engage their leaders 
in Congress in a battle to retain their freedoms. The significant 
achievement of the 19th amendment is that women can exercise their vote 
in judging our actions here. I can only hope that they celebrate that 
vote in 1995, and exercise it in 1996.


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