Latest / Woman Suffrage and Politics / 38 - Woman Suffrage and Politics by Carrie Chapman Catt, Nettie Rogers Shuler
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter thirty one, Part two of Woman Suffrage and Politics.
- 0:05Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
- 0:10Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
- 0:14Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Woman Suffrage and Politics, The Inner
- 0:20Speaker 1: Story of the Suffrage Movement by Carrie Chapman Kat and
- 0:24Speaker 1: Nettie Rogers Schuller. The States that did not ratify as
- 0:31Speaker 1: a visible demonstration of its belief in states rights. On
- 0:34Speaker 1: February twenty fourth, the Senate and House voted to send
- 0:38Speaker 1: seven anti suffrage members to West Virginia to urge that
- 0:41Speaker 1: legislature to reject the amendment. The next day, two resolutions
- 0:45Speaker 1: were introduced in the legislature. One was to repeal, rescind,
- 0:50Speaker 1: and recall the resolutions ratifying the so called Eighteenth Amendment
- 0:54Speaker 1: to the Constitution of the United States. The other authorized
- 0:58Speaker 1: and requested the Governor of Maryland to call on the
- 1:00Speaker 1: national government in behalf of the state of Maryland to
- 1:04Speaker 1: have the so called Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act
- 1:08Speaker 1: declared null envoid. On March thirtieth, by a vote of
- 1:12Speaker 1: twenty to seven, the Senate passed a joint resolution quote
- 1:16Speaker 1: authorizing and directing the Attorney General of Maryland to bring
- 1:20Speaker 1: suit or suits to prevent the Secretary of the United
- 1:23Speaker 1: States from proclaiming the Federal Suffrage Amendment prior to the
- 1:27Speaker 1: holding of a referendum thereon in certain states, and to
- 1:31Speaker 1: test the validity should the same be ratified by the
- 1:34Speaker 1: elected legislatures of three fourths of the states. In September,
- 1:39Speaker 1: just before the legislature adjourned, it was discovered that the
- 1:42Speaker 1: resolution of rejection had not been sent officially to the
- 1:46Speaker 1: governor of the state and by him to the Secretary
- 1:48Speaker 1: of State in Washington. It was brought before both houses
- 1:52Speaker 1: again on September twenty second, at which time the ratification
- 1:56Speaker 1: resolution was voted down. There was great expects in Democratic
- 2:01Speaker 1: circles that North Carolina would ratify. Democratic leaders emphasized that
- 2:05Speaker 1: the Republican states of Connecticut, Vermont, and Delaware having failed,
- 2:09Speaker 1: it would be of strategic value if the Democratic Party
- 2:12Speaker 1: could get the glory of the thirty sixth ratification. Furthermore,
- 2:17Speaker 1: it was maintained that if the North Carolina legislature defeated
- 2:20Speaker 1: the Suffrage Amendment, it would defeat the Democratic candidate for
- 2:24Speaker 1: president in November, while if it ratified it would virtually
- 2:27Speaker 1: assure success to the Democratic Party in November. Of all
- 2:32Speaker 1: the Southern states, North Carolina now presented the greatest hope,
- 2:36Speaker 1: not only because of the number of prominent men in
- 2:39Speaker 1: federal and state positions in favor of ratification, but because
- 2:43Speaker 1: the North Carolina press was almost a unit for it.
- 2:47Speaker 1: The Republican State Convention in March had for the first
- 2:50Speaker 1: time seated two women delegates and had put a woman
- 2:53Speaker 1: on the ticket for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. In April,
- 2:57Speaker 1: the Democratic State Convention had seated women. United States Senator
- 3:02Speaker 1: Simmons and Governor T. W. Bickett, always opponents of suffrage,
- 3:06Speaker 1: had announced themselves in favor of ratification. The only discouraging
- 3:11Speaker 1: symptom was the attitude of United States Senator Overman, who said, quote,
- 3:16Speaker 1: I have been and still am opposed to woman suffrage.
- 3:19Speaker 1: It is fundamental with me, deep and inborn. But I
- 3:23Speaker 1: recognize the fact that it seems inevitable. Could the Democratic
- 3:28Speaker 1: Convention which was held in April of nineteen twenty have
- 3:31Speaker 1: dodged the question and deferred action. Undoubtedly it would have,
- 3:35Speaker 1: But the friends of ratification were there in force. The
- 3:38Speaker 1: suffrage plank as it came from the committee recommended that
- 3:41Speaker 1: the federal suffrage Amendment should not be ratified, but that
- 3:45Speaker 1: a state amendment should be submitted to the voters. Two
- 3:48Speaker 1: minority reports were offered, one to present to the Convention
- 3:52Speaker 1: the question whether the platform should contain a plank for ratification,
- 3:57Speaker 1: and the other to eliminate all reference to woman sefe
- 4:00Speaker 1: Men said that never in the history of the Democratic
- 4:03Speaker 1: Party in North Carolina had there been such a contest
- 4:06Speaker 1: over a platform. Finally, a substitute was presented for all
- 4:10Speaker 1: the reports, which read, quote, this Convention recommends to the
- 4:14Speaker 1: Democratic members of the General Assembly that at the approaching
- 4:18Speaker 1: special Session, they vote in favor of the ratification of
- 4:21Speaker 1: the proposed nineteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution quote. This
- 4:26Speaker 1: was carried five hundred and eighty five to four hundred
- 4:29Speaker 1: and twenty eight. The attention of the whole country thereupon
- 4:33Speaker 1: focused on North Carolina, and many people believed that this
- 4:37Speaker 1: convention majority, though small, forecast favorable action in the legislature.
- 4:43Speaker 1: Early in the summer, in response to an appeal by
- 4:45Speaker 1: President Wilson, Governor Bickett had replied, in part, quote, I
- 4:50Speaker 1: hope the Tennessee Legislature will meet and ratify the amendment
- 4:53Speaker 1: and thus make immediate action by North Carolina unnecessary. We
- 4:57Speaker 1: have neither the time nor money, and such action on
- 5:00Speaker 1: the part of Tennessee would save this state the feeling
- 5:02Speaker 1: of bitterness that would surely be engendered by debate on
- 5:06Speaker 1: the subject that would come up in the legislature. I
- 5:08Speaker 1: have said all that I intend to say on the
- 5:10Speaker 1: subject of ratification. While I will take my medicine, I
- 5:14Speaker 1: will never swear that it tastes good, for it doesn't
- 5:17Speaker 1: end quote. The North Carolina political situation was further complicated
- 5:22Speaker 1: by an exciting governatorial primary. There were three candidates in
- 5:26Speaker 1: the field for governor. Two of them opposed ratification, and
- 5:29Speaker 1: one made defeat of the Federal Suffrage Amendment his chief issue.
- 5:33Speaker 1: On August tenth, the legislature met in special session to
- 5:36Speaker 1: consider questions of taxation. The enemies of ratification had been busy.
- 5:42Speaker 1: On August eleventh, around Robin, signed by sixty three House members,
- 5:46Speaker 1: was sent to the General Assembly of Tennessee, which read quote,
- 5:50Speaker 1: we the undersigned Members of the House of Representatives of
- 5:53Speaker 1: the General Assembly of North Carolina, constituting the majority of
- 5:56Speaker 1: said body, send greetings to the General Assembly of Tennessee,
- 6:00Speaker 1: and assure you that we will not ratify the Federal
- 6:03Speaker 1: Suffrage Amendment, interfering with the sovereignty of Tendency and other
- 6:07Speaker 1: states of the Union. We most respectfully request that this
- 6:11Speaker 1: measure be not forced upon the people of North Carolina.
- 6:14Speaker 1: En The news of this statement as it flashed over
- 6:17Speaker 1: the country caused consternation in Democratic ranks. The fact that
- 6:21Speaker 1: such action had been taken before the legislature had really
- 6:25Speaker 1: organized showed party leaders that a force determined to defeat
- 6:28Speaker 1: ratification was at work. The ratificationists decided to make a
- 6:32Speaker 1: sudden and decisive coup and pursue thereto. On August thirteenth,
- 6:36Speaker 1: the governor appeared before the Joint Assembly. He said, in
- 6:40Speaker 1: part quote, it is well known that I have never
- 6:43Speaker 1: been impressed with the wisdom or of the necessity for
- 6:46Speaker 1: women's suffrage in North Carolina. But gentlemen, in the words
- 6:50Speaker 1: of Grover Cleveland, a condition, not a theory, confronts us.
- 6:54Speaker 1: Women's suffrage is at hand. It is an absolute moral
- 6:57Speaker 1: certainty that inside of six months some states will open
- 7:01Speaker 1: the door and women will enter the political forum. No
- 7:04Speaker 1: great movement in all history has ever gone so near
- 7:07Speaker 1: the top and then failed to go over. We may
- 7:09Speaker 1: just as well realize, gentlemen, that this country is no
- 7:12Speaker 1: longer an association of states, but a nation. Whatever a
- 7:16Speaker 1: majority of the people of the nation want is going
- 7:19Speaker 1: to be the supreme law of the land. I realize
- 7:22Speaker 1: more keenly now than ever before, that states rights have
- 7:25Speaker 1: passed away. The very most this General Assembly can do
- 7:29Speaker 1: is to delay for six months a movement it is
- 7:32Speaker 1: powerless to defeat. This being true, I am profoundly convinced
- 7:36Speaker 1: that it would be the part of wisdom and grace
- 7:38Speaker 1: for North Carolina to accept the inevitable and ratify the amendment.
- 7:44Speaker 1: There was pathos in this courageous but reluctant recognition of
- 7:48Speaker 1: incapitulation to the new order. It could not have been
- 7:51Speaker 1: an easy task to stand before a legislature representing two
- 7:54Speaker 1: and one half millions of North Carolina people and tell
- 7:57Speaker 1: them that the political faith handed down by the their
- 8:00Speaker 1: fathers and grandfathers, and treasured by them as fundamental basis
- 8:04Speaker 1: of government, were but musty relics of by gone days.
- 8:08Speaker 1: The governor was severely criticized for asking the Assembly to
- 8:12Speaker 1: ratify for party reasons without urging on members. The sanctity
- 8:16Speaker 1: of convention obligations. Republicans declared that they were obeying the
- 8:20Speaker 1: behests of their state and national conventions, even as Democrats
- 8:24Speaker 1: should be expected to live up to theirs. The Republicans
- 8:28Speaker 1: in Senate and House were resentful. The result of the
- 8:31Speaker 1: governor's message was to leave the Democrats unmoved and to
- 8:34Speaker 1: incense the Republicans. In the afternoon, news came from Tennessee
- 8:39Speaker 1: of the Senate victory, and on the same day the
- 8:42Speaker 1: resolution to ratify was introduced in the Senate of North Carolina,
- 8:46Speaker 1: referred to the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, and within fifteen
- 8:50Speaker 1: minutes reported favorably seven to one. Simultaneously, the resolution was
- 8:55Speaker 1: introduced in the House and referred to the Committee on
- 8:58Speaker 1: Constitutional Amendments. August seventeenth, amid scenes which had not been
- 9:02Speaker 1: witnessed since the days of the Civil War, the North
- 9:05Speaker 1: Carolina Senate began consideration of ratification. Great crowds surged through
- 9:10Speaker 1: the capital, the East wing being assigned to ratificationists and
- 9:15Speaker 1: the West wing to rejectionists. For five hours a heated
- 9:19Speaker 1: debate raged with charges and counter charges. When agreement to
- 9:23Speaker 1: vote was reached, a resolution was unexpectedly made to defer
- 9:27Speaker 1: action until the regular meeting of the legislature in nineteen
- 9:30Speaker 1: twenty one, and was carried twenty five to twenty three.
- 9:34Speaker 1: It is quite possible that when this resolution to block
- 9:38Speaker 1: immediate action was introduced, it took the friends of Suffrage unaware.
- 9:42Speaker 1: But it is also true that there were suffraged senators who
- 9:45Speaker 1: were glad to make use of any excuse to avoid
- 9:48Speaker 1: a vote on the direct issue before the election. The
- 9:51Speaker 1: opposition forces planned to bring the ratification up under special
- 9:55Speaker 1: order in the lower House in the meantime and dispose
- 9:58Speaker 1: of it quickly. Call it up and kill it right,
- 10:02Speaker 1: was the way the anti suffrage floor leader described it.
- 10:05Speaker 1: The ratification resolution was called up in the House on
- 10:08Speaker 1: August eighteenth and defeated. A rejection resolution was immediately reported
- 10:13Speaker 1: by the Constitutional Amendment Committee. It was tabled in the
- 10:17Speaker 1: House without a dissenting voice, thus closed the North Carolina
- 10:21Speaker 1: Chapter on ratification. The attention of Democratic leaders next turned
- 10:26Speaker 1: to Louisiana. The women there had early strengthened their position
- 10:30Speaker 1: by uniting all organizations under one head called the Ratification Committee,
- 10:35Speaker 1: and there were many favorable assets. All of the newspapers
- 10:39Speaker 1: in the state, except for advocated the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
- 10:43Speaker 1: Martin Behermann, Mayor of New Orleans, who had killed the
- 10:46Speaker 1: state suffrage Amendment in nineteen eighteen, had not only become
- 10:50Speaker 1: converted to woman suffrage but to ratification. The New Orleans
- 10:54Speaker 1: Democratic Association and the State Central Committee were in favor.
- 10:58Speaker 1: The opposition centered in New Orleans, where certain elements, mainly
- 11:02Speaker 1: the liquor interests aroused in the campaign of nineteen eighteen,
- 11:06Speaker 1: opposed woman suffrage in any form, and there was other
- 11:10Speaker 1: opposition on reaching Baton Rouge. In April, suffragists from the
- 11:14Speaker 1: National American Woman's Suffrage Association saw women who had worked
- 11:18Speaker 1: for suffrage for twenty five years and more lined up
- 11:21Speaker 1: on the side of the anti suffragists because of their
- 11:24Speaker 1: states rights belief. On May tenth, the General Assembly convened,
- 11:29Speaker 1: and on the eleventh, the joint resolution for ratification was
- 11:33Speaker 1: presented in both houses, while a state amendment and a
- 11:37Speaker 1: bill providing for the payment of poll taxes by the
- 11:39Speaker 1: women in case the state amendment became a law were
- 11:43Speaker 1: introduced in the House. On May thirteenth, Governor Pleasant submitted
- 11:47Speaker 1: the Federal Suffrage Amendment to both houses with the message
- 11:50Speaker 1: of many pages urging the legislature not to ratify it,
- 11:53Speaker 1: but instead to submit a state amendment. On the same
- 11:57Speaker 1: day arrived two anti suffrage representatives from mayors Maryland. They
- 12:01Speaker 1: appealed to Louisiana to join hands with Maryland and kill
- 12:04Speaker 1: the federal suffrage amendment and entered no protest against state
- 12:08Speaker 1: suffrage if Louisiana should desire to adopt it. On May seventeenth,
- 12:12Speaker 1: John M. Parker was inaugurated governor. It had been expected
- 12:16Speaker 1: by people throughout the country that Governor Parker would be
- 12:19Speaker 1: of great assistance in the ratification campaign. As a progressive
- 12:23Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen, he had been a candidate for Vice
- 12:26Speaker 1: President of the United States on a platform that endorsed
- 12:30Speaker 1: suffrage by national amendment. In his campaign speeches in the
- 12:34Speaker 1: autumn of nineteen twenty, while running for governor, mister Parker
- 12:37Speaker 1: had repeatedly said, I am for suffrage. It's almost here
- 12:41Speaker 1: and we must have it. Yet there appeared, mysteriously, with
- 12:45Speaker 1: or without his knowledge, in many parts of the state,
- 12:48Speaker 1: copies of his platform containing a state's rights plank, presumably
- 12:52Speaker 1: designed to placate those who were opposed to the federal
- 12:55Speaker 1: suffrage amendment. This was not known to the women, and
- 12:58Speaker 1: they were totally unprepared when shortly after his inauguration he
- 13:02Speaker 1: announced that he was going to keep hands off the
- 13:04Speaker 1: suffrage fight, it was a matter for the legislature anyway,
- 13:08Speaker 1: and even refused to receive a deputation of women from
- 13:11Speaker 1: the Louisiana Auxiliary to the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
- 13:16Speaker 1: In answer to a telegram from President Wilson urging his
- 13:20Speaker 1: interest in influence, he answered that he found a great
- 13:23Speaker 1: difference of opinion among the legislators, large numbers opposed to
- 13:27Speaker 1: any kind of woman suffrage, and all being Democrats, any
- 13:31Speaker 1: dictation on his part would be unwise. Early in June,
- 13:35Speaker 1: a hearing was held in the House Chamber. The hour
- 13:38Speaker 1: was eight thirty in the evening. One of the suffrage
- 13:41Speaker 1: speakers reported to the National Suffrage Association, I will never
- 13:46Speaker 1: face anything more thrilling or more fearsome. I stood on
- 13:49Speaker 1: the press platform just below the speaker's desk, with the
- 13:52Speaker 1: press people sitting all about me, legislators on the floor
- 13:55Speaker 1: and on the aisle steps, the President and members of
- 13:58Speaker 1: the National Auxiliary in the seats with the legislators or
- 14:01Speaker 1: perched on the tops of the desks. They were all
- 14:04Speaker 1: over the place where they could be conspicuously seen and heard,
- 14:08Speaker 1: especially heard. The audience was terribly near. I could touch
- 14:12Speaker 1: the first of them, and way up to the roof
- 14:14Speaker 1: was a sea of faces. I could not write my
- 14:17Speaker 1: speech beforehand. It had to be borne out of the
- 14:20Speaker 1: inspiration of the day's events, the occasion, and the other speeches.
- 14:24Speaker 1: When I looked at the men, most of them crouching
- 14:26Speaker 1: behind an old tradition of state sovereignty and a pitiful,
- 14:30Speaker 1: make believe fear of Negro domination, I was filled with
- 14:33Speaker 1: such indignation that my speech came tumbling out. I challenged
- 14:37Speaker 1: the quality of their democracy, and said they voted with
- 14:40Speaker 1: their party only because of one issue, the Negro question,
- 14:44Speaker 1: but that in everything else they were more spiritually akin
- 14:47Speaker 1: to Henry Cabot Lodge and the other tories. The women
- 14:51Speaker 1: raised one great shout, and many of the men joined them.
- 14:54Speaker 1: I told them that in the Mississippi Valley, on the
- 14:57Speaker 1: border of the Great West, and out through all the
- 14:59Speaker 1: reaches of the Great West itself, no such word was
- 15:02Speaker 1: known as the one reiterated over and over again in
- 15:05Speaker 1: the legislature of Louisiana and on the streets, And that
- 15:09Speaker 1: was the word sovereign prefixed to the name of their state.
- 15:13Speaker 1: That we knew no sovereign states. We knew only the
- 15:16Speaker 1: United States, the Union, where more and more the selfish
- 15:20Speaker 1: interests of sections were being merged in the common good
- 15:24Speaker 1: of all people. End ex. Governor Pleasant, in his argument
- 15:29Speaker 1: against ratifications, said, quote, the South never has stood for
- 15:34Speaker 1: the fifteenth Amendment. It is true that seven Southern states
- 15:37Speaker 1: are recorded as having ratified it. Yet it was done
- 15:40Speaker 1: by carpetbag rule. It was ratified in these halls with
- 15:44Speaker 1: negroes sitting as legislators and a carpet bag governor in
- 15:48Speaker 1: the office below. Ratification of the nineteenth Ameddment not only
- 15:52Speaker 1: would give suffrage to the white women, but to the
- 15:54Speaker 1: Negro women of the state. If we ratify the nineteenth Amendment,
- 15:58Speaker 1: we ratify the fifteenth and give suffrage to the Negro men.
- 16:02Speaker 1: End quote. Reviewing these arguments, mister fan Or Brazil cried
- 16:07Speaker 1: that he did not believe quote that any law can
- 16:11Speaker 1: be enacted that will let you, red blooded as you are,
- 16:14Speaker 1: stand by and let the negro vote. The death knell
- 16:18Speaker 1: of forced bills was sounded in seventy eight, and you
- 16:21Speaker 1: know it. I know it too. Because I was there
- 16:24Speaker 1: in my parish with a gun, and the only reason
- 16:27Speaker 1: that I was not imprisoned is that a friend furnished
- 16:29Speaker 1: me a fast horse. And to day there is a
- 16:32Speaker 1: federal indictment pending against me. Up there. I can promise
- 16:35Speaker 1: you one thing, and that is that if the Federal
- 16:38Speaker 1: Amendment is ratified, there will be no Negro women voting
- 16:41Speaker 1: in the parish of Natchitoches. That sentence caught the fancy
- 16:47Speaker 1: of the crowd. No nor in Red River either roared
- 16:51Speaker 1: a deep horse, nor in Plaque Mine, and they won't
- 16:54Speaker 1: vote in Sabine. You can bet neither anywhere. J Y Sanders,
- 16:59Speaker 1: United States Congressman, appealing for ratification and answering the Negro
- 17:03Speaker 1: arguments set in part quote, there ain't but one thing,
- 17:06Speaker 1: and you might as well remember it that keeps Louisiana, Mississippi,
- 17:10Speaker 1: and Alabama white. And that is this that we have
- 17:13Speaker 1: decreed that the pollitium of our liberty and the corner
- 17:16Speaker 1: storm of our civilization rests for all time in the
- 17:20Speaker 1: white democratic primary, and that once the primary is over,
- 17:23Speaker 1: there is not, nor under God's providence, shall there ever
- 17:26Speaker 1: be any general election. Endo. From May twenty seventh, to
- 17:31Speaker 1: July eighth, Senate and House played football with the ratification,
- 17:35Speaker 1: state suffrage and poll tax resolutions. In the meantime, Champ Clark,
- 17:40Speaker 1: former Speaker of the House of Representatives, addressed the General
- 17:44Speaker 1: Assembly and urged ratification In answer to an appeal from
- 17:48Speaker 1: members of the National's Auxiliary. Homer Cummings wired mister Bharman
- 17:53Speaker 1: to help on the grounds of party advantage, and James M. Cox,
- 17:57Speaker 1: governor of Ohio, Democratic nominee for President of the United States,
- 18:02Speaker 1: wired members of the Legislature to act favorably, saying the
- 18:06Speaker 1: legislature owes such action to the Democratic Party. It was
- 18:10Speaker 1: clear from the first that the state amendment was only
- 18:13Speaker 1: as subterfuge, and as such it was killed. Ex Governor Pleasant,
- 18:17Speaker 1: its chief sponsor, was reported to have said that he
- 18:20Speaker 1: did not care whether it went through or not. All
- 18:22Speaker 1: he wanted was to kill ratification with the resolution to
- 18:26Speaker 1: let the voters of the state decide the question of
- 18:28Speaker 1: women suffrage by vote at the Poles defeated, the Pole
- 18:31Speaker 1: tax resolution was withdrawn, The ratification resolution was defeated in
- 18:36Speaker 1: the House, and action indefinitely postponed in the Senate. The
- 18:40Speaker 1: Legislature then completed its record before adjourning July eighth by
- 18:44Speaker 1: passing the rejection resolution in the House and withdrawing it
- 18:47Speaker 1: from the Senate files. The Florida Legislature was still in
- 18:50Speaker 1: session when the federal suffrage amendment passed Congress, and on
- 18:54Speaker 1: June fifth, nineteen nineteen, Sidney J. Katz, Governor, sent a
- 18:59Speaker 1: message to the legislature pointing out that Florida would be
- 19:02Speaker 1: the first state to ratify if it chose move that
- 19:06Speaker 1: the governor's message be referred to. The Committee on Unfinished
- 19:09Speaker 1: Business yelled a chorus of voices. This was met with
- 19:13Speaker 1: loud guffaws of laughter, as that is a committee that
- 19:16Speaker 1: never reports suffrage lost by skylarking in the House. Read
- 19:20Speaker 1: the newspaper headlines next day, and under them was this quote.
- 19:25Speaker 1: The suffrage Amendment resolution would no doubt have passed, as
- 19:28Speaker 1: earlier in the session of resolution proposing submission of a
- 19:30Speaker 1: state suffrage amendment had carried, but that the spirit of
- 19:34Speaker 1: fun had permeated the House and practically killed all business
- 19:37Speaker 1: end quote. The legislature adjourned on June sixth without taking
- 19:42Speaker 1: action on the Governor's message asking for ratification the Constitution
- 19:46Speaker 1: of Florida regarding ratification of federal amendments reads quote, no
- 19:51Speaker 1: convention or legislature of this State shall act upon any
- 19:54Speaker 1: amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by
- 19:57Speaker 1: Congress to the several States, unless such convention or legislature
- 20:01Speaker 1: shall have been elected after such amendment is submitted. It
- 20:06Speaker 1: was later that this same provision in the Tennessee Constitution
- 20:09Speaker 1: was held to be outruled. But even at this time,
- 20:12Speaker 1: it was known that the legislature of Florida had ratified
- 20:15Speaker 1: the Federal Prohibition Amendment, though half of the members composing
- 20:19Speaker 1: it were elected before the amendment was submitted. To the
- 20:23Speaker 1: request of the National Suffrage Association for a special session,
- 20:27Speaker 1: the answer of the governor was a most emphatic no.
- 20:30Speaker 1: Boastered up with a statement which read quote, I have
- 20:34Speaker 1: no intention of calling the legislature to consider the woman's
- 20:37Speaker 1: Suffrage Amendment. I did my best to pass the same
- 20:40Speaker 1: at an extra and a regular session. The legislators were
- 20:44Speaker 1: very much opposed, and it would do no good to
- 20:46Speaker 1: call them together again for the same purpose. End quote.
- 20:50Speaker 1: There was just the same, a continuation of appeals all
- 20:53Speaker 1: through the year. Legislators were interviewed, and no stone was
- 20:57Speaker 1: left unturned. To secure a Sessionlorida, as well as Tennessee,
- 21:01Speaker 1: was affected by the decision of the United States Supreme
- 21:04Speaker 1: Court regarding the Ohio referendum case, and when this decision
- 21:08Speaker 1: came in June nineteen twenty and legal obstructions were by
- 21:11Speaker 1: it set aside. It was hoped that Florida, where many
- 21:14Speaker 1: towns had given municipal suffrage, would break the shackles that
- 21:18Speaker 1: bound her to tradition and take her place as one
- 21:20Speaker 1: of the ratifying states. But she did not. Florida was
- 21:24Speaker 1: the only state in the United States that successfully evaded action.
- 21:30Speaker 1: During the last year of the campaign, there hung on
- 21:32Speaker 1: the wall at the National Suffrage Headquarters a large map
- 21:35Speaker 1: of the United States which recorded the suffrage history of
- 21:38Speaker 1: each state by a system of differently colored stars. When
- 21:42Speaker 1: the campaign was completed, thirty eight of the states bore
- 21:45Speaker 1: an additional star to show that they had ratified the
- 21:48Speaker 1: Federal Suffrage Amendment, while nine had a black star to
- 21:51Speaker 1: show that they had failed to ratify it. Florida had none.
- 21:55Speaker 1: These black starred states were in a row along the
- 21:58Speaker 1: Atlantic seaboard from Delaware to Louisiana, the majority constituting the
- 22:02Speaker 1: heart of what was once the Southern Confederacy. But was
- 22:06Speaker 1: the Black record really made in defense of states rights
- 22:10Speaker 1: against federal dictation? Not a bit of it? The proof
- 22:14Speaker 1: it was the South that led the campaign for prohibition
- 22:18Speaker 1: by federal amendment. The measure was introduced in the Senate
- 22:21Speaker 1: by a member from Texas, and of the nineteen Southern
- 22:24Speaker 1: senators who voted against the submission of the Federal Suffrage
- 22:28Speaker 1: Amendment fourteen voted to submit the Federal Prohibition Amendment fifteen.
- 22:34Speaker 1: Ratifications of the Prohibition Amendment took place the year following
- 22:37Speaker 1: its submission. Eleven of them were those of Southern states.
- 22:41Speaker 1: Every state that failed to ratify the Woman's Suffrage Amendment
- 22:44Speaker 1: on the alleged ground of federal interference ratified the Federal
- 22:48Speaker 1: Prohibition Amendment. An argument which claims that it is a
- 22:52Speaker 1: violation of states rights for New Jersey, Connecticut, or Rhode
- 22:55Speaker 1: Island to ratify woman's suffrage and impose it upon South Carolina, Alabama,
- 23:00Speaker 1: or Georgia which rejected it, but that it is no
- 23:03Speaker 1: violation of states rights for Southern states to ratify federal
- 23:07Speaker 1: prohibition and impose it upon New Jersey, Connecticut, or Rhode
- 23:11Speaker 1: Island which rejected it. Is more ingenious than convincing to summarize.
- 23:17Speaker 1: Of the ten states that did not ratify the Federal
- 23:20Speaker 1: Suffrage Amendment, Florida took no action in either house. George's
- 23:24Speaker 1: vote was null and void, as Senate and House did
- 23:26Speaker 1: not act on a joint resolution. Delaware ratified in the
- 23:30Speaker 1: Senate and refused to take action in the House. Mississippi
- 23:33Speaker 1: ratified in the Senate and defeated ratification in the House.
- 23:37Speaker 1: North Carolina voted to postpone action on the ratification resolution
- 23:41Speaker 1: in the Senate and tabled the rejection resolution in the House.
- 23:44Speaker 1: South Carolina passed a concurrent instead of a joint rejection resolution,
- 23:49Speaker 1: and each house voted on a different measure. Louisiana passed
- 23:53Speaker 1: a rejection resolution in the House, but the Senate Journal
- 23:56Speaker 1: shows the rejection resolution to have been withdrawn from the
- 23:59Speaker 1: Senate file. Maryland discovered just before the legislature adjourned that
- 24:04Speaker 1: its rejection of February seventeenth had not been officially conveyed
- 24:07Speaker 1: to the Federal Secretary of State, and on September twenty
- 24:10Speaker 1: second voted down a ratification resolution but did not present
- 24:14Speaker 1: the rejection resolution as the Federal Suffrage Amendment had been
- 24:18Speaker 1: proclaimed a month before Alabama and Virginia adopted joint rejection
- 24:22Speaker 1: resolutions in both houses. These two states therefore represented the
- 24:27Speaker 1: total tally of states that were actually scored in the
- 24:30Speaker 1: rejection program of the anti Suffragists. End of Chapter thirty
- 24:35Speaker 1: one read by Sandra