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37 - Woman Suffrage and Politics by Carrie Chapman Catt, Nettie Rogers Shuler · Woman Suffrage and Politics

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Speaker 1: Chapter thirty one, Part one of woman Suffrage and Politics.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All libervox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Woman Suffrage in Politics, The Interstore
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Speaker 1: of the Suffrage Movement by Carrie Chapman Katt and Nettie
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Speaker 1: Rogers Schuller. The States that did not ratify it, is
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Speaker 1: doubtful if any man, even among suffragemen, ever realized what
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Speaker 1: the suffrage struggle came to mean to women before the
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Speaker 1: end was allowed in America. How much of time and patience,
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Speaker 1: how much work, energy and aspiration, how much faith, how
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Speaker 1: much hope, how much despair went into it. It leaves
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Speaker 1: its mark on one. Such a struggle it fills the
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Speaker 1: days in it rides the knights, working, eating, drinking, sleeping.
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Speaker 1: It is there. Not all women in all the states
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Speaker 1: of the Union were in the struggle. There were some
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Speaker 1: women in every state who knew nothing about it. But
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Speaker 1: most women in all the states were at least on
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Speaker 1: the periphery of its effort and interest, when they were
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Speaker 1: not in the heart of it. To them all its
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Speaker 1: success became a monumental thing. The action of their respective
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Speaker 1: legislatures in ratifying the Federal Suffrage Amendment was greeted by
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Speaker 1: the women of every state with a vast state pride
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Speaker 1: and gratification because that commonwealth stood forth before the world
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Speaker 1: as an upholder of the American ideal of democracy. To
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Speaker 1: the women of ten states of the Union, this pride
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Speaker 1: and gratification were denied. The men of ten states left
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Speaker 1: it to the generosity of the men of other states
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Speaker 1: to enfranchise their own wives, mothers, sisters, daughters. One of
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Speaker 1: the ten was Delaware, the only one north of the
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Speaker 1: Mason and Dixon line. The other nine were Virginia, Maryland,
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Speaker 1: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida.
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Speaker 1: In preceding pages, it has been set forth that the
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Speaker 1: original plan of the opposition was to secure thirteen refusals
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Speaker 1: to ratify. This was later modified into a plan to
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Speaker 1: secure the adoption of forthright rejection resolutions in thirteen states.
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Speaker 1: If this had proved successful, it would have been next
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Speaker 1: in order to ask for a proclamation of defeat. By
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Speaker 1: the use of this rejection resolution, it was hoped to
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Speaker 1: to raise the question whether a succeeding legislature could adopt
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Speaker 1: an amendment that the preceding legislature had formerly rejected. The
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Speaker 1: rejection resolution read resolved by the General Assembly of the
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Speaker 1: State of the House and the Senate, concurring that the
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Speaker 1: proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States be
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Speaker 1: and hereby is rejected as an unwarranted, unnecessary, undemocratic, and
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Speaker 1: dangerous interference with the rights reserved to the States or
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Speaker 1: to the people in both state and federal constitutions. And
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Speaker 1: be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution
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Speaker 1: be filed with the Secretary of the United States, as
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Speaker 1: the expressed will of the people of as registered in
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Speaker 1: their Constitution and by their elected representatives in the General Assembly,
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Speaker 1: to retain the fundamental rights of local self government vested
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Speaker 1: in the States or in the people. And be it
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Speaker 1: further resolved that we call upon our sister states of
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Speaker 1: the Union to uphold and defend the right of each
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Speaker 1: state to decide who shall vote for its own officers,
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Speaker 1: and to oppose and reas project any amendment to the
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Speaker 1: Constitution of the United States that would transfer control of
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Speaker 1: state franchises to the Federal Congress without the consent of
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Speaker 1: the people themselves. As duly exercised under their several state constitutions.
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Speaker 1: The resolution used was practically the same in all states,
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Speaker 1: except that the words unwarranted, unnecessary, undemocratic, and dangerous were
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Speaker 1: used interchangeably. The keynote of the opposition that was to
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Speaker 1: be directed against ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment by
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Speaker 1: the Southern States had been struck as early as June tenth,
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Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, just six days after the submission of the amendment,
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Speaker 1: in a statement issued by Senator Lee S. Overman of
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Speaker 1: North Carolina. The prominence of Senator Overmen in administration councils
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Speaker 1: is long service in the Senate, and his prestige throughout
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Speaker 1: the South made an in de impression upon those to
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Speaker 1: whom his message was directed. In my opinion, said he.
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Speaker 1: The Woman's Suffrage Amendment just adopted by Congress is a
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Speaker 1: reaffirmation of the fifteenth Amendment. I wonder if this is
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Speaker 1: appreciated throughout the South. This latter amendment simply goes a
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Speaker 1: step further than the fifteenth Amendment. In addition to saying
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Speaker 1: that the right of suffrage shall not be abridged by
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Speaker 1: reason of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, the
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Speaker 1: new amendment adds the word sex. The language is not identical,
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Speaker 1: but it is evident that the woman's suffrage resolution is
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Speaker 1: a PostScript to the former amendment, which we have always opposed.
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Speaker 1: In the South, the illiterate colored woman, for instance, irrespective
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Speaker 1: of our non conception of the duties of citizenship, may
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Speaker 1: vote and pair with the most intelligent woman of the
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Speaker 1: Caucasian race. Congress reserves the right of appropriate legislation to
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Speaker 1: enforce this mandate, regardless of this state. That is the
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Speaker 1: condition in a nut. I wonder if woman suffrage applicates
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Speaker 1: in the South have taken into consideration all the embarrassing
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Speaker 1: features possible under such legislation. Through the years since the
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Speaker 1: Force Bill had ceased to be operative, there had been
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Speaker 1: talk of its revival, and the dread of that possibility
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Speaker 1: ever hung over the heads of Southern legislators like the
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Speaker 1: sword of Damocles. Coincident with the passage of the Federal
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Speaker 1: Woman's Suffrage Amendment had come the demand for self determination
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Speaker 1: on the part of the black people of the Southern States.
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Speaker 1: A dispatch from Paris the last week of June nineteen
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Speaker 1: nineteen had carried the story of the appearance there of
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Speaker 1: an American Negro William Trotter, who was seeking to have
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Speaker 1: the Negro question taken up by the Peace Conference along
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Speaker 1: with the Irish, Jewish and other racial questions. This demand
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Speaker 1: created a further disturbance in the minds of representatives from
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Speaker 1: Southern states. There was also the occasional question whether Southern
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Speaker 1: representation in Congress should be reduced in accord with the
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Speaker 1: federal Constitution. There had been threats of this, and political
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Speaker 1: conventions threats might become an actuality damaging figures could be
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Speaker 1: a rat against the South. In nineteen sixteen, one hundred
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Speaker 1: and fifty nine thousand, seven hundred and forty nine votes
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Speaker 1: cast in Georgia elected twelve members of Congress, while nine
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Speaker 1: hundred and ninety nine thousand, seven hundred and eighty one
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Speaker 1: votes in California elected eleven members of Congress. In other words,
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Speaker 1: thirteen thousand, three hundred and twelve votes in Georgia had
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Speaker 1: as much power as ninety thousand, eight hundred eighty nine
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Speaker 1: votes in California. Spread out on the record, this precarious
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Speaker 1: position of justice in the South was a menace to
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Speaker 1: the whole Democratic Party at each election. The leaders of
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Speaker 1: that party were not blind to the danger. Every effort
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Speaker 1: was made by them to persuade Southern legislatures to ratify
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Speaker 1: the Federal Suffrage Amendment. They profess that the rejection of
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Speaker 1: the amendment in these states not only meant certain defeat
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Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party at the polls in nineteen twenty,
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Speaker 1: but that the hostility of northern women voters might be
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Speaker 1: aroused to the extent of insisting on enforcing the fifteenth
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Speaker 1: Amendment with all the horror of racial strife and loss
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Speaker 1: of self government. President Wilson wired the governors of all
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Speaker 1: the Southern states, urging ratification from the viewpoint of expediency
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Speaker 1: and warning them that the National Democratic Party's success was
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Speaker 1: at stake. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, Attorney General A.
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Speaker 1: Mitchell Palmer, and the Chairman of the National Democratic Committee,
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Speaker 1: Homer Cummings also sent urgent requests to party leaders and
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Speaker 1: to members of the legislatures. The only outcome was the
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Speaker 1: condemnation of the President, who was called a meddler, and
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Speaker 1: resentment against the National Chairman for what was termed outside interference.
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Speaker 1: The press in many of the Southern states was favorable.
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Speaker 1: It scured the legislators for their ignorance and unprogressiveness. The
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Speaker 1: Press of Savannah, Georgia said, the majority of the legislature
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Speaker 1: is opposed to suffrage. Of course, we can't blame them
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Speaker 1: for that. The fault is not theirs, that their intellects
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Speaker 1: are limited or their consciences dwarf. We the people have
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Speaker 1: elected them. We are to blame, not they. No rational
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Speaker 1: person hopes to defeat the amendment. All they can possibly
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Speaker 1: be done is to write down Georgia as one of
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Speaker 1: the few, if not the only, state that opposes right
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Speaker 1: and justice with their own feeble bulk. Georgia, the empire
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Speaker 1: state of the South that she is self styled, was
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Speaker 1: the first to reject the Federal Suffrage Amendment. In will
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Speaker 1: informed circles, there was no great surprise over this action
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Speaker 1: before the session convened. Members of the Georgia Auxiliary to
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Speaker 1: the National American Women Suffrage Association and their friends in
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Speaker 1: the legislature realize the impossibility of ratification and decided to
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Speaker 1: wait a year in the hope of a growing suffrage sentiment. Usually,
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Speaker 1: when the advocates of a measure withhold it, bonents make
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Speaker 1: no objection. Not so in Georgia. The opposition introduced ratification
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Speaker 1: resolutions in Senate and House for the announced purpose of
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Speaker 1: defeating them. Never in any legislative body have the opponents
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Speaker 1: of a measure shown themselves so bloodthirsty and vindictive, declared
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Speaker 1: a representative on the floor. In both houses, these resolutions
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Speaker 1: were referred to the Committees on Constitutional Amendments, one of
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Speaker 1: which had five bills proposing to amend the state constitution
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Speaker 1: so as to enfranchise women, on which no action had
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Speaker 1: ever been taken. When the joint hearing was held, a
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Speaker 1: rejection resolution was substituted in both committees. The vote was
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Speaker 1: unfavorable to suffrage. In the Senate, the report was unexpectedly
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Speaker 1: called a few days later, and a motion to disagree
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Speaker 1: with the committee report was lost. As ratification was considered hopeless,
10:51
Speaker 1: friends in the Senate attempted to postpone action indefinitely by
10:55
Speaker 1: a filibuster, which lasted for several days and was the
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Speaker 1: means of rereac committee the entire suffrage question through the
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Speaker 1: Committee on Constitutional Amendments, with the understanding that he would
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Speaker 1: remain there the balance of the session of July twenty fourth,
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Speaker 1: The same day that this agreement was made, a rejection
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Speaker 1: resolution was introduced in the Senate reported favorably by the committee,
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Speaker 1: and after several hours debate was carried. The Senate also
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Speaker 1: voted down a proposition to submitter suffrage amendment to the
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Speaker 1: state Constitution on the same day. The rejection resolution was
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Speaker 1: carried in the House. During the debate in the Senate,
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Speaker 1: a bitter attack was made on the amendment, with many
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Speaker 1: acrimonies and personal references. It was called a vicious peace
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Speaker 1: of legislation. Susan B. Anthony was declared the worst enemy
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Speaker 1: the South ever had. One senator affirmed, we opponents of
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Speaker 1: the amendment are trying to save the women of Georgia
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Speaker 1: from a repetition of reconstruction days. It is not a
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Speaker 1: question of women's suffrage, but of protecting georgia womanhood. Another
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Speaker 1: said it would deprive the South of every right to
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Speaker 1: control its own suffrage and place it forever under the
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Speaker 1: dominant North. He cared not what position the Democratic Party
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Speaker 1: took in the matter, he would insist on Georgia recording
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Speaker 1: what she believed to be a vital matter of right,
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Speaker 1: even if her action ends the life of what was
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Speaker 1: once the Democratic Party. Still another said women should not
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Speaker 1: be allowed to vote their privilege and obligation is to
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Speaker 1: bear children. The sole intent of this voting privilege is
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Speaker 1: to equalize white women with enigma women. These suffragists men
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Speaker 1: and women are out with a propaganda for race suicide.
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Speaker 1: Women are now refusing to bear children because of the
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Speaker 1: policy of women's suffrage. Women who vote came here to
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Speaker 1: induce Georgia women to refuse to bear children, which was
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Speaker 1: the sole aim and end for having women at all,
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Speaker 1: according to Bible doctrine. In the House, the final period
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Speaker 1: of debate was one of the most tempestuous since the
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Speaker 1: reconstruction days. At times there were a dozen representatives on
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Speaker 1: their feet at the same time clamoring for recognition. The
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Speaker 1: grant of unanimous consent gave opportunity for a parliamentary battle
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Speaker 1: exceeding in interest anything that the Georgia legislature had ever
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Speaker 1: indulged in. During the debate, one proponent of suffrage that
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Speaker 1: I heard it stated that very high official in the
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Speaker 1: Democratic Party in the state has publicly announced that if
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Speaker 1: the suffrage is given to women, he will quit the party.
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Speaker 1: But where will we go. The Republicans are for it,
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Speaker 1: the Socialists stand upon it. Even the Bolsheviks are on
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Speaker 1: this platform. If we take the wings of the morning,
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Speaker 1: and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. We
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Speaker 1: will find it in Russia, in Germany, in England, in Scandinavia,
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Speaker 1: in Switzerland, and the islands of the sea. It would
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Speaker 1: be interesting to see the eminent gentleman, like Noah's dove,
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Speaker 1: finding no place for his foot till with wearied wing
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Speaker 1: he comes back to the ark of his fathers. Both
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Speaker 1: Senate in House passed resolutions rejecting the suffrage Amendment, the
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Speaker 1: subject matter of both being practically the same, but neither
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Speaker 1: resolution was passed by both houses as there were no
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Speaker 1: joint resolution. No resolution ever reached the governor, so the
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Speaker 1: action was not void by overreaching itself. Georgia's virulence was
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Speaker 1: officially as if it had not been. If the President
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Speaker 1: of the Senate and the Speaker of the House had
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Speaker 1: been less anxious to send the official notice of the
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Speaker 1: rejection of the Federal Suffrage Amendment to the Congress, they
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Speaker 1: might have remembered that they had failed to sign a
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Speaker 1: joint resolution. According to one newspaper, Alabama crave the privilege
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Speaker 1: of being first to reject the Federal Suffrage Amendment without
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Speaker 1: a technicality. She was from the beginning of the ratification campaign.
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Speaker 1: There was evidence of a determination on the part of
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Speaker 1: Alabama's United States senators that the adverse vote they had
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Speaker 1: registered against the federal suffrage Amendment in Washington should be
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Speaker 1: vindicated by their state legislature. The defeat of ratification in
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Speaker 1: Alabama can therefore be laid squarely at the door of
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Speaker 1: the Democratic senators Oscar W. Underwood and John H. Bankhead
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Speaker 1: Governor Keilby and Lieutenant Governor Nathan L. Miller, both mad
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Speaker 1: attained neutral attitudes. The liquor opposition worked openly. Then national
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Speaker 1: Democratic leaders urged ratification on the grounds of party expediency,
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Speaker 1: all the more because the Republicans were claiming credit for
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Speaker 1: nine of the eleven ratifications already secured at that time.
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Speaker 1: The State Democratic Committee twenty to thirteen adopted a resolution
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Speaker 1: which read, we pledged our support in every proper way
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Speaker 1: to accomplish the result desired. But the opposition machine was
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Speaker 1: well oiled and not a cog in a single wheel
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Speaker 1: failed to turn. Governor Kelby transmitted the resolution without recommendation
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Speaker 1: by joint resolution. The Senate and House were to act
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Speaker 1: simultaneously on July seventeen, but the House broke the agreement,
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Speaker 1: and the Senate alone took action. After defeating a motion
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Speaker 1: to defer action and one to postpone indefinitely, the Senate
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Speaker 1: passed a resolution to reject the amendment. The women hoped
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Speaker 1: for postponement in the House, as the rejection resolution carried
15:57
Speaker 1: the provision that a message should be sent to the
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Speaker 1: federal Second Scretary of State, the President of the Senate,
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Speaker 1: and Speaker of the House, before the state of Alabama
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Speaker 1: could be recorded as rejecting the amendment. On August thirteenth,
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Speaker 1: the Republican minority in the legislature, five members in the
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Speaker 1: House and one in the Senate, issued a statement declaring
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Speaker 1: that they intended to vote in favor of ratification in
16:18
Speaker 1: accordance with the mandate from their party. But on September two,
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Speaker 1: the Senate defeated the ratification resolution, and on the seventeenth,
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Speaker 1: the House adopted the rejection resolution. No one had expected
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Speaker 1: Mississippi to ratify. The members of the Mississippi Auxiliary to
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Speaker 1: the National American Women Suffrage Association pointed to the statement
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Speaker 1: of Senator John Sharp Williams as indicating encouragement. He favored
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Speaker 1: a white woman's primary, in which the women of the
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Speaker 1: state might say whether they wanted the ballot or not.
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Speaker 1: He was inclined to women's suffrage and thought that with
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Speaker 1: safeguards it might be made a bulwark of white supremacy
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Speaker 1: in the state. It was also the favorable attitude of
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Speaker 1: state officials. Terran Governor Theodore G. Bilbo had replied to
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Speaker 1: Governor Burnquist of Minnesota when he took the poll of
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Speaker 1: governors that the Mississippi legislature would be called in the
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Speaker 1: autumn and he expected ratification. His farewell message, delivered in person,
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Speaker 1: closed with the words vote to that man who raises
17:17
Speaker 1: his hand against the onward march of this progressive movement.
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Speaker 1: The newly elected Governor Lee M. Russell, in his inaugural
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Speaker 1: address January twenty, devoted more time to the question of
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Speaker 1: ratification than to any other topic. Mississippi women argued that
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Speaker 1: their legislators could not consistently urge states rights as a
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Speaker 1: reason for not ratifying because the same legislators had ratified
17:40
Speaker 1: the Prohibition Amendment in fifteen minutes time and the same
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Speaker 1: principle was involved. They did not know the elasticity about
17:47
Speaker 1: Mississippi legislator's logic. The men who did not hesitate to
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Speaker 1: ratify a federal amendment under which it was made a
17:54
Speaker 1: crime for a man to buy a bottle of beer.
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Speaker 1: In New York refused to ratify a federal amendment which
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Speaker 1: placed the white women of their state on the same
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Speaker 1: constitutional level as the colored men. Without warning to the
18:05
Speaker 1: friends of suffrage, of rejection resolution was offered in the
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Speaker 1: House on January twenty one. It was not referred to
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Speaker 1: a committee, but rushed to a vote, and, amid cheers
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Speaker 1: and laughter, after ten minutes debate, it was carried. The
18:17
Speaker 1: resolution was sent to the Senate and by referred to
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Speaker 1: the Committee on Constitution. A new resolution ratifying the amendment
18:25
Speaker 1: was then presented and failed of adoption. Then the rejection
18:28
Speaker 1: resolution was recommitted to the Constitution Committee. We arrested until
18:32
Speaker 1: March thirty, whenning Committee of the Whole, a ratification resolution
18:37
Speaker 1: was substituted. The vote in the Senate was iss twenty
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Speaker 1: two Nays twenty two, Lieutenant Governor H. H. Castile breaking
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Speaker 1: the tie and casting an affirmative vote. News of this
18:47
Speaker 1: favorable action spread all over the country, and the suffrage
18:51
Speaker 1: center of interest was suddenly shifted from Republican Delaware to
18:54
Speaker 1: Democratic Mississippi. Telegrams came pouring into Mississippi, offering congratulations and
19:00
Speaker 1: appealing to the House to make Mississippi the thirty sixth state.
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Speaker 1: When the substitute resolution to ratify was presented to the
19:07
Speaker 1: House the next day, March thirty one, a motion was
19:10
Speaker 1: made that the House do not concur with the Senate
19:13
Speaker 1: resolution of ratification. Hoots, cat calls, and jeers drowned the
19:18
Speaker 1: words of speakers. In the midst of the confusion, calls
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Speaker 1: for the vote became loudon insistent. The author of three
19:24
Speaker 1: state suffrage bills introduced at this session attempted to speak
19:28
Speaker 1: against ratification. Representative R. H. Watts of Ranking County interpolated,
19:33
Speaker 1: I would rather die and go to Hell than vote
19:36
Speaker 1: for woman's suffrage, and the press said the boys cheered
19:39
Speaker 1: nearly a minute. The substitute resolution was read at three o'clock.
19:43
Speaker 1: At three fifteen, the vote had been taken, the resolution
19:46
Speaker 1: to ratify announced as defeated, and the clerk was reading
19:49
Speaker 1: another bill. A curious incident of the suffrage action in
19:53
Speaker 1: Mississippi was that the legislature later passed bills making provision
19:57
Speaker 1: for the women to vote in primary and general elections.
20:01
Speaker 1: Both contingent upon the ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment.
20:06
Speaker 1: The same legislature passed a suffrage referendum bill, which was
20:10
Speaker 1: voted on in November nineteen twenty after the enfranchisement of women,
20:14
Speaker 1: and received eyes thirty nine one hundred and eighty six
20:18
Speaker 1: nays twenty four two hundred and ninety six. Even in Mississippi,
20:22
Speaker 1: the people were for suffrage more than three to two,
20:25
Speaker 1: but the bill was not adopted, as the law requires
20:28
Speaker 1: a majority, not a plurality, of all the votes cast
20:32
Speaker 1: on an amendment. By then, however, women had already been
20:35
Speaker 1: enfranchised under the Federal Suffrage Amendment. Unfortunately, for Southern women,
20:40
Speaker 1: the state law in Mississippi required registration in four months
20:44
Speaker 1: and in Georgia six months before election. Since ratification was
20:48
Speaker 1: not completed until August nineteen twenty, the women in these
20:51
Speaker 1: two states were barred from voting in nineteen twenty. The
20:54
Speaker 1: only states where women were not allowed to participate in
20:57
Speaker 1: the election, South Carolina women had no illusions about ever
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Speaker 1: securing the vote from South Carolina men, through ratification or otherwise.
21:07
Speaker 1: Their experience in nineteen seventeen with a state referendum bill
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Speaker 1: defeated by the Senate and withdrawn at the women's request
21:14
Speaker 1: from the House because they knew it would fail. Had
21:16
Speaker 1: given them a realization that their legislatives did not favor
21:20
Speaker 1: votes for women by any method whatsoever. One newspaper made
21:24
Speaker 1: it plain from the beginning that the electorate and the
21:26
Speaker 1: General Assembly of South Carolina representing it, will never vote
21:29
Speaker 1: for women's suffrage for no better reason than that other
21:32
Speaker 1: states vote for it. Nor will the state be governed
21:35
Speaker 1: by the exigency of the National Democratic Party or any
21:39
Speaker 1: other party when it considers the matter of limiting or
21:41
Speaker 1: expanding its electorate. On January fourteenth, nineteen twenty, the joint
21:46
Speaker 1: resolution to ratify was introduced and referred to the Judiciary Committee,
21:50
Speaker 1: which reported it unfavorably. In the House, on January twenty two,
21:54
Speaker 1: a concurrent resolution to reject the amendment was carried. This
21:58
Speaker 1: House action of voting on a measure without referring it
22:00
Speaker 1: to a committee or placing it on the calendar was unprecedented.
22:04
Speaker 1: In debate, a speaker wanted a joint resolution which will
22:08
Speaker 1: kill the infernal thing now and forever. Another city had
22:11
Speaker 1: told some of the women lobbyists that more hell and
22:15
Speaker 1: the devil would be raised over this thing than anything else.
22:18
Speaker 1: On January twenty nine, the rejection resolution was carried in
22:21
Speaker 1: the Senate. The Virginia legislature assembled on August thirteen, nineteen nineteen,
22:26
Speaker 1: in special session, and the Federal Suffrage Amendment was submitted
22:30
Speaker 1: by the governor without recommendation, as the session was called
22:33
Speaker 1: specifically for good roads and does. Answers to a questionnaire
22:37
Speaker 1: submitted to members showed that it would be impossible to
22:40
Speaker 1: obtain ratification. The Virginia Auxiliary of the National American Women
22:44
Speaker 1: Suffrage Association intended to wait for the regular session of
22:48
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty to press for action. However, the opponents of
22:51
Speaker 1: suffrage ured through a rejection proposal in the House without debate.
22:55
Speaker 1: Ten minutes before the nineteenth nineteen adjointment. The Senate voted
22:59
Speaker 1: to postpone it up until the next session. In nineteen twenty,
23:03
Speaker 1: conditions in Virginia were not greatly improved, for although there
23:06
Speaker 1: were sixty one new members in the two houses who
23:09
Speaker 1: had been elected since the last legislature, it was acknowledged
23:12
Speaker 1: to be not only a reactionary but a very wet body.
23:16
Speaker 1: These men resented the ratification of the Prohibition Amendment, and
23:19
Speaker 1: it had crystallized their sentiment against the approval of any
23:23
Speaker 1: federal legislation. The Federal Relations Committee reported in favor of
23:28
Speaker 1: the rejection resolution. In both Senate and House, a ratification
23:32
Speaker 1: resolution and another to refer ratification to the voters were
23:36
Speaker 1: substituted for the rejection resolution. In the Senate, on February sixth,
23:40
Speaker 1: after a debate of twelve hours, the rejection resolution was
23:43
Speaker 1: adopted by a vote of twenty four to ten, and
23:46
Speaker 1: on February twelve, the House also adopted it by vote
23:49
Speaker 1: of sixty two to twenty two. Although the Virginia legislators
23:52
Speaker 1: voted against the federal suffrage amendment, they knew that it
23:55
Speaker 1: would be ratified, and on March twelve, a qualifications bill
23:59
Speaker 1: to anable Virginia women to vote contingent on ratification of
24:03
Speaker 1: the federal amendment, and a resolution to submit to the
24:06
Speaker 1: voters a woman suffrage amendment to the state Constitution were
24:09
Speaker 1: adopted by both houses. This action was intended to appear magnanimous,
24:14
Speaker 1: but it appeared only feudal. In Virginia, a referendum amendment
24:18
Speaker 1: must pass two consecutive legislatures and then be submitted to
24:22
Speaker 1: the voters for their decision. Before it becomes a law.
24:25
Speaker 1: As only three states were then needed to complete ratification,
24:28
Speaker 1: Virginia women could be enfranchised under the Federal Suffrage Amendment
24:32
Speaker 1: long before the Virginia referendum could reach the voters. All
24:36
Speaker 1: the Republican senators in the Virginia legislature voted for ratification,
24:40
Speaker 1: but most of the Democratic senators and members of the
24:43
Speaker 1: lower house ignored the request to ratify that came from
24:46
Speaker 1: the head of their own party, the President of the
24:49
Speaker 1: United States. They publicly declared that as far as they
24:52
Speaker 1: would concerned, their party could go to Spanish, that democracy
24:55
Speaker 1: could go down, that it makes little difference in Virginia
24:58
Speaker 1: who has control of the government and laws Washington. They
25:01
Speaker 1: scorned the hundreds of telegrams and letters from their own
25:04
Speaker 1: constituents and the thirty two thousand state petitioners requesting ratification.
25:09
Speaker 1: As one senator said, they set their minds in defiance
25:12
Speaker 1: of justice and fair dealing. They didn't get the pulse
25:15
Speaker 1: of the times. In Maryland, as in other states, the
25:18
Speaker 1: women had tried for many years to get some form
25:20
Speaker 1: of suffrage from their legislature, but without success. In the
25:24
Speaker 1: Federal Suffrage Amendment was submitted in June of nineteen twenty.
25:27
Speaker 1: Pressure was at once brought by the Maryland Auxiliary to
25:30
Speaker 1: the National American Women Suffrage Association to induce Governor Harrington
25:34
Speaker 1: to call a special session, but he advised waiting until
25:37
Speaker 1: the regular session because the legislature had not been elected
25:41
Speaker 1: with the question of the amendment before the people. After
25:44
Speaker 1: the regular session convened January seventh, nineteen twenty, the ratification
25:48
Speaker 1: resolution was introduced in the Senate and sent to the
25:51
Speaker 1: Committee on Federal Relations, while in the House it was
25:54
Speaker 1: sent to the Committee on Constitutional Amendments. A hearing was
25:57
Speaker 1: set for February eleventh, but when informed of the date
26:00
Speaker 1: was inconvenient for speakers and suffrage leaders who would be
26:04
Speaker 1: in Chicago attending the convention of the National American Women
26:07
Speaker 1: Suffrage Association, the chairman of the Senate committee agreed to
26:10
Speaker 1: postpone the hearing until the eighteen The surprise of the
26:13
Speaker 1: suffragists was therefore great when on February ten, at the
26:16
Speaker 1: reconvening of the session, the chairman of the House Committee
26:19
Speaker 1: on Constitutional Amendments insisted on the hearing for February eleven.
26:24
Speaker 1: The canvass of the committee showed a majority in favor
26:27
Speaker 1: of the date being February eighteen, so the suffragists returned
26:30
Speaker 1: to their homes. Next morning, Baltimore papers announced that the
26:33
Speaker 1: hearing would be held February eleven. The suffragists learned that
26:37
Speaker 1: the priestceding night the Speaker had transferred the suffrage amendment
26:40
Speaker 1: from the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, which was favorable, to
26:43
Speaker 1: the Committee on February Relations, which was hostile. None of
26:47
Speaker 1: the members of the Suffrage Ratification Committee spoke at the hearing.
26:50
Speaker 1: The House Committee refused a hearing. The Senate Committee granted
26:53
Speaker 1: one fort February seventeen. Early that morning, suffragists gathered from
26:57
Speaker 1: all over the state, and at ten thirty, led by
26:59
Speaker 1: bar they marched into the State House. They presented resolutions
27:03
Speaker 1: and petitions, representing over one hundred and twenty five thousand
27:06
Speaker 1: residents of Maryland. The women made their appeal to Governor Ritchie,
27:10
Speaker 1: successor to Governor Harrington. Answering, he said that the platform
27:14
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party of the state in which he
27:16
Speaker 1: was elected opposed suffrage, and that he could not ask
27:18
Speaker 1: the legislatives to repudiate their platforms. Early in the afternoon,
27:23
Speaker 1: the rejection resolution was reported favorably and carried in both
27:26
Speaker 1: Senate and House. In the House, thirty three of the
27:28
Speaker 1: forty five Republicans and two of the fifty six Democrats.
27:32
Speaker 1: In the Senate, seven Republicans and two Democrats voted against
27:35
Speaker 1: the rejection resolution in Chapter thirty one, Part one