On August 26, 1920 - eighty-eight years ago today - the
ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States was certified by Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of
State in the administration of then President Woodrow Wilson.
The Amendment reads simply enough - in two paragraphs containing
thirty-nine words: "The right of citizens of the United States
to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the Untied States or
any state on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to
enforce this article by appropriate legislation." I can hear my
daughter's response to that: Well, duh! They don't realize that
their own grandmother, who was a first generation Portuguese-
American, was three years old when she was guaranteed the
constitutional right to vote. It does seems perfectly obvious,
doesn't it? It is impossible to them that while the activism
began earlier, the American suffrage movement officially began
in 1848 at the first Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls,
NY. One of their resolutions w