Jo Kuchle and Barbara Schuhmann are both lawyers, raised in Kentucky, longtime Fairbanks residents and past presidents of Fairbanks Rotary.  Their presentation was originally given to their Rotary club.  They put so much time into it and found the topic so interesting they have offered it to other clubs.

 

The US Constitution has very little to say regarding who qualifies to vote.  The decision was left to the states by the constitutional provision that powers not specifically federal were the states.  Generally states limited voting to white men who owned real property and paid taxes.  Those limitations limited the voting to about 10% of the population.

 

The movement to extend voting rights to women was initially associated with the abolitionist movement, the fight to eliminate slavery as well as the effort to ban the manufacture, possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages The effort traces it’s organized beginning to 1848 in New York.  Interestingly enough Western states were the first to extend the vote to women with the first occurring in 1890.  The territory of Alaska was the last of the territories to extend the right, in 1913.  The 19^th Amendment to our national constitution passed the US House of Representatives and Senate in the spring of 1920 and was ratified by Tennessee in August in of 1920 becoming law.  While that ended the fight over extending the vote to women it did little to clarify women’s rights in many other fields.  Nowhere are women’s rights identified as being constitutionally the same as men’s delineated.  While laws often require equality, laws can be changed by a simple majority.  That realization led to the near enactment of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1975 and sent to the states for ratification.  The act had a seven year time limit for the states to ratify, a hurdle no previous amendments had.  In January 2020 Virginia became the 38^th state to ratify.  Due to the seven year provision the current status is unclear.  It is generally agreed that to become part of the constitution Congress must repeal the time limitation.   If and when that will occur is an open question. 

 

We enjoyed the company of 29 members and guests last Friday.

 

 Pre-meeting banter revolved around members recollections of Fairbanks winters.  Our speakers, Fairbanks Rotary past presidents Barbara Schuhmann and Jo Kuchle had to use their well-honed skills as attorneys to defend their decision to live in Fairbanks.  Taking a contrary view were both Truebloods, Nelson Defendorf and President Art Clark.  President Art had to explain his absence last week due to computer issues.  The excuses were rejected by what this editor calculates as a two thirds majority.  President Clark bought his way out with a $50 happy buck to Angie Rush in gratitude for conducting the meeting.  Our speakers introduced their guests including grandparents celebrating their 76^th wedding anniversary! Rick Goodfellow led us in the pledge.  Tim Trueblood offered two thoughts-for-the-day.  One was from C.S. Lewis “You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.”  The second, from Abraham Lincoln was “Nearly all men can stand adversity but if you want to test his character give him power.”  (editors note: This quote is frequently attributed to Lincoln.  Actually it was uttered ABOUT Lincoln by a Robert G. Ingersoll in January of 1883).

 

In happy bucks Rick Goodfellow and Jan Ingram recounted their ordeal returning from a visit to the (soon to move) National Archives in Seattle.  A disgruntled passenger on their Alaska Airlines flight phoned in a bomb threat from the plane while it was still on the ground.  That proved to be a bad strategy for the caller.  It also caused Jan and Rick to spend their unexpected hours in Seattle, which they put to good use pretending to be tourists while the aircraft was searched.  Tim and Ted Trueblood gave $5 remembering their move 66 years ago from Shaw Creek, near Fairbanks, to Anchorage.  Kevin Fimon pledged $5 to welcome our visitors.  Ginger George-Smith gave $5 guilty dollars as penance for missing meetings recently.  She has been working under the erroneous impression that her health is more important than her rotary attendance.