Volume 16 , Issue 18

NW Okie's Journey

We are reaching the last week of May 2014 and will be entering June 2014. This last Saturday we find that Silverton, Colorado got 3 to 4 inches of snow, which shortened the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic from Durango to Silverton. This year they only went to Purgatory ski resort and back. While the higher elevations were getting snow, we were experience chilly, cloudy and rainy weather.

This week we have been doing some research on the history of Memorial Day and it's beginnings. It started out as "Decoration Day" a few years after the ending of the Civil War in 1865. At some time later it was turned into a National Holiday and changed to "Memorial Day."

We also have been doing some research on Suffragists. Did you know that in 1866, a group of women organized a petition that demanded that women should have the same political rights as men?

These women took their petition to Henry Fawcett and John Stuart Mill, two MPs who supported universal suffrage. Mill added an amendment to the Reform Act that would give women the same political rights as men. The amendment was defeated by 196 votes to 73.

In the wake of this defeat the London Society for Women's Suffrage was formed. Similar Women's Suffrage groups were formed all over Britain. In 1887, seventeen of these individual groups joined together to form the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (known as NUWSS).

The NUWSS adopted a peaceful and non-confrontational approach. Members believed that success could be gained by argument and education. The organization tried to raise its profile peacefully with posters, leaflets, calendars and public meetings.

The steps towards equal rights came with the Married Woman's Property acts of 1870, 1882 and 1884 (amended again in 1925). These Acts enabled women to keep their property and money after marriage, where previously it was the automatic property of their husbands.

The denial of equal voting rights for women was supported by Queen Victoria, who in 1870 wrote, "Let women be what God intended, a helpmate for man, but with totally different duties and vocations."

We leave you with the following question to get you thinking:

If the Free market works so well, why do corporations need government subsidies?

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