Far Beyond Woman Suffrage

October 25, 2021

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage

by David McCracken

alt-history/coming of age

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote

It isn’t just about women in long skirts finally voting. The racists and the rich know that, and the politicians worry.

Mercy Martin has an inside view as the battle for woman suffrage nears a climax, but she encounters many puzzles:

So many women and Southern states oppose votes for women;

So many people are afraid it would bring on free love, abandonment of family, economic catastrophe, or communism.

So many suffragists are willing to abandon black women voters.

From an innocent teen to a young adult, Mercy has a central role in the campaign. She advances from confinement in a suffragist jail cell to the national campaign for the suffrage amendment. She campaigns around Tennessee, ending at the capitol for the explosive climax in the last state that might ratify the amendment and grant the vote to women.

Why should something so clearly right be so hard, and why were some bitter compromises made? Mercy is right in the middle, relied on by key players. Along the way, she acquires a husband, a baby, and better parents than she was born with.

This is an intimate view via alternative historical fiction, as accurate as it can be and as thoughtful and moving as it must be. In this first novella of a series, Mercy jumps into the campaign for woman suffrage and prepares for a vital role in the coming decades. She’ll continue on into the wider civil rights struggle growing out of woman suffrage.

Excerpt:

Progress? 1/12/1918

I excitedly wait before my shift on the line to discuss with Miss Sue news I heard about, that the House approved the woman suffrage amendment 274 to 136 two days ago! “So, we’re almost there?” I ask her when she’s passing by, checking how we pickets she’d assigned for the day are doing.

Her mouth tightens: “Sweety, we’ve just begun. That’s just over the required 2/3, and I understand the Senate will refuse even to debate it until October. “

“How can that be? Don’t they know it’s right … and important?”

“They’re afraid of the heat they’ll get from both sides and probably can’t line up the votes to pass it. In Southern states, a vote for woman suffrage is political suicide because negro women there would be able to combine their votes with Northern liberals.”

I look down: “Then it’s hopeless?”

“No, an election is coming. If they postpone a vote until after the election, we might win the few more seats we need.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. We’re not letting any of them off the hook, especially not Woodrow Wilson. It’s his Democratic party, his responsibility. No excuses. He’s got to produce the votes.”

About The Author

David McCracken became a political activist when the Supreme Court ruled against school segregation. Fellow students joined him in urging the school board in Winchester, KY, to integrate immediately. He campaigned for a Democratic governor and joined the ACLU before he graduated from the University of Kentucky. After debating at U.K., he got a degree in economics and a job with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

When his daughters approached school age, he became increasingly concerned with how he wanted them schooled. Researching that, he decided teaching was what he really wanted to do. He got a master's degree in elementary education at Murray State University. He taught for several years, until the fact that his girls qualified for reduced-price lunches based on his salary got to him. Ronald Reagan's anti-government policies prevented him from returning to government work, so he took programming courses and shifted careers again. Programming was like being paid to solve puzzles all day, but teaching eventually drew him back until retirement.

For many years of this time, he was working intermittently at a novel that became Fly Twice Backward: Fresh Starts in Times of Troubles. This concerned his waking on his twelfth birthday, trying to figure out what had happened, following his new opportunities, and ultimately outliving an evil president resembling Donald Trump. After thirty-six years, David finally published it as an interactive alt-history Kindle novel. He soon started, Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote, an alt-history novelette dealing with the campaign for woman suffrage. He finished this piece in just ten months. At 81, he is bold(?) enough to plan this as the first of a six-volume set dealing with the far-reaching results and implications of woman suffrage. His completed novels and another in the works are presented for discussion on a new website, DoFancifulFlights.com

David now lives with his third wife, stepdaughter, and step-grandson near Winchester, VA. He has a son from his second marriage, six grandchildren, and two stepchildren. And a wonderful black dog with four white feet.

Q&A With the Author

When did you first consider yourself to be a writer?

As my first novel, Fly Twice Backward: Fresh Starts in Times of Troubles, neared readiness, I saw I was finally going to finish a novel and it was good.

What advice do you have for a new writer?

Write what you want to say, what is meaningful to you, or what’s the point? .

What is the easiest part of the writing process for you?

Taking a break from writing. Well, except when I really want to get something finished before moving on to bed or house chores.

What is your favorite part of this story?

I have two favorite scenes: the opening scene in the jail and the climactic one in the Tennessee House. The opening one was a challenge, to get an exciting start with a delicate topic and to set up its relation to denial of woman suffrage. Innocent Mercy doesn’t realize what happened to her with no friends in the police van on the way to the jail, in a life-changing event. Making it believable with an intimation of noise, fear, pain, and confusion was tricky. But I got no complaints after I finalized it. I hope readers realize the important connection between what happened and woman suffrage.

The final vote in the final state needed had to have a lot of drama and a lot of information. I blended these together to make it work. I think I succeeded: reader comments indicate so, and it still chokes me up to read what these women accomplished.