I had just opened my packet of yeast preparing to mix it with warm
water and a bit of sugar before beginning to make bread.
Wait! came the voice from my elbow.
I have a bread recipe for you to try. These White Mountain Rolls
are from New Hampshire that would have
been close to my Adams, Massachusetts childhood home. They really are simple,
and tasty.
I’d be glad to have the recipe. But maybe we can discuss why you titled
your most famous speech ‘Women Want Bread, Not the Ballot? to suggest that women didn’t want the vote?
I must have given that address hundred of times over the course of the last two decades of my work. It was so well known that the title was featured in posters advertising my appearance. Here's how I began that argument: I'm here to answer the popular objection 'a woman wants bread not the ballot.' She wants nothing but a home with her daily needs supplied, and if she gets these, she is happy. I think I shall be able to prove to you that the only possibility of her securing bread adn a home for herself is to give her the ballot.
I must have given that address hundred of times over the course of the last two decades of my work. It was so well known that the title was featured in posters advertising my appearance. Here's how I began that argument: I'm here to answer the popular objection 'a woman wants bread not the ballot.' She wants nothing but a home with her daily needs supplied, and if she gets these, she is happy. I think I shall be able to prove to you that the only possibility of her securing bread adn a home for herself is to give her the ballot.
It was, you see an economic argument, based on the tradition of English economic argument.
What do I need for the bread? And then you can tell me more.
My familiar cooking and intellectual companion gathered milk, butter,
an egg, sugar, salt, and flour and we began.
Of course the title is ironic. My point was one I’d
mentioned and written about for years. It is, in fact, the underpinning of my
suffrage efforts. A woman can not control her economic life is she does not
have the right to vote.
You gave this many times, right?
Yes. It was my most
well-known address and I presented it to audiences across the nation for nearly
two decades.
Do you have a copy of it?
Oh my no. I spoke
from memory and knew the points of argument so well, that I never had the
entire speech written out. Nor did I keep notes. I spoke from my mind and my
heart.”
How did you begin?
I would start my typically two-hour address with the
statement that disenfranchisement if a political, industrial, and moral degradation.
Years ago in England when the working men, starving in the mines and factories,
gathered in mobs and took bread wherever they could get it, their friends tried
to educate them into a knowledge of the causes of their poverty and degradation.
At one of these “monster bread meetings” held in Manchester, John bright said
to them, “Workingmen, what you need to bring you cheap bread and plenty of it
is the franchise.” But those ignorant men shouted back to Mr. Bright, precisely
as the women of America do to use today, “it is not the vote we want. It is
bread; and they broke up the meeting, refusing to allow him, their best friend,
to explain to them the powers of the franchise.”
Did you confine your remarks to the experience in England?
Of course not. After I discussed the positive effect of
enfranchisement on the lives of English workers, I then brought the discussion
to this nation. After speaking of the effectiveness of labor strikes, I brought
my comments to the lives of women and the ballot.
What did you say?
It is said that women do not need the ballot for their
protection because they are supported by men. Statistics show that there are
3,000,000 women in this nation supporting themselves. In crowded cities of the
East they are compelled to work in shops, stores and factories for the merest
pittance. In New York alone, there are over 50,000 of these women receiving
less than fifty cents a day. Women wage-earners in different occupations have
organized themselves into trades unions, from time to time, and made their
strikes to get justice at the hands of their employers just as men have done. I
detailed the experience of labor actions.
How did you end?
I put it into human terms. Women, denied the ballot, the
legitimate means with which to exert their influence, and, as a rule, being
lovers of peace, they have recourse to prayers,
and tears, those potent weapons of women and children, and, when they
fail, must tamely submit to wrong or rise in rebellion against the power that be.
Women’s crusades against saloons, brothels and gambling-dens, emptying kegs and
bottles into the streets, breaking doors and windows and burning houses. All go
to prove that disfranchisement, the denial of lawful means to gain desired
ends, may drive even women to violations of law and order.
And then I brought it around to the Constitution.
Hence to secure both national and “domestic tranquility.” To
“establish justice,” to carry out the spirit of our Constitution, put into he
hands of all women, as you have into those of all men, the ballot, that symbol
of perfect equality, that right protective of all other rights.
It really was quite well received.
My companion was modest in her evaluation of the effect of her words
and gently turned my attention from the power of her words to the yeast and
flour before us.
White Mountain Rolls
1 ½ cups milk
¼ cup butter
1 package instant dry yeast
¼ cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt, optional
1 lightly beaten egg white
4 to 5 cups flour
Heat the milk just to a simmer. Remove from heat, add the
butter, and set aside until the butter is melted and the milk is cooled to
about 90 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast, water, and
tablespoon of sugar. Set aside until the mixture bubbles. Add the milk mixture
and egg white. Stir in the sugar and 3 cups of the flour. Stir until the batter
is well mixed. Continue adding the flour until you have a non-sticky dough.
Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Lightly butter the mixing bowl.
Turn the dough so there is a buttered side that is on top. Cover with a
slightly damp kitchen towel. Set the bowl in a warm place until the dough has
doubled in size. Punch the dough down.
Break off pieces about the size of an egg. Form them into oblong rolls, about 3
inches long. Place on lightly greased baking pan and allow to rise until
double. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake until the rolls are lightly browned
on top and baked through, about 15 to 20 minutes.
Makes about 36 rolls 4 inches long and an inch in diameter.
Adapted from Maria
Parloa’s Kitchen Companion, Maria
Parloa The Clover Publishing Company,
New York by Estes and Laurian, Boston
1887.
Susan’s Bread not
Ballots speech can be found in Women
of the Suffrage Movement various
authors published by Musaicum Books musaicumbooks@okpublishing.info
Return to Overview Essay
No comments:
Post a Comment