Page 130 - Reviewing the forty years of effort by suffragists between 1870 and 1910 and comparing the carefully filed reports of all the States year after year, the suffragists of 1910 arrived at some conclusions: (1) The more favorable public opinion was and the more numerous the pledges of State Senators and Assemblymen, the more certain were suffrage amendments not to pass Legislatures. (2) the better the campaign, the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls. (3) The majorities which defeated amendments were clearly composed of ignorant Americans and foreigners, controlled, that is organized, persuaded or bought, by some master mind. (4) The rank and file of men in the dominant parties accepted platforms and tickets as framed by party leaders without question and voted as advised. (5) The average party leader played “the game of politics,” using these voters as pawns, and the big stakes were power, patronage and graft. (6) The real influence which dictated platforms and tickets were monied interests which made gigantic contributions to party treasuries or their candidates’ campaign funds. (7) Here and there a statesman, “fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky,” kept faith with the people.

Page 285 - On one state hung all the suffragists hopes in 1910 for winding up referenda campaigns and compelling federal action by the Congress. That State was New York. In point of suffrage, New York had become the most intensively organized State in the Union. The New York State Legislature of 1910 after being pressed to hold a vote on woman suffrage, did not act, but its failure to do so was not received, as in the earlier days, with silent resignation. Instead, in New York a procession and open-air protest meeting were held on May 21, 1910. Ten thousand people in Union Square listened to the speeches the suffragists made and furnished the largest suffrage demonstration ever held to that date in the United States. It was also the beginning of the long line of huge American processions for woman suffrage. Ninety automobiles were in line, each decorated in yellow, and behind them came marching on foot the College Equal Suffrage League in cap and gown, the Women’s Political Union and the women of many trades. Many suffragists gathered upon the streets with the crowds, too timid as yet to join in the procession, but among them were some who became the boldest leaders of the spectacular campaign that was to follow. The City Party method grew its membership from 20,000 in 1910 to over 500,000 in 1917.

Page 442 - An amendment requires three quarters of the State Legislatures to ratify it and at the time there were 48 States. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment. On Monday, August 9, 1920 in Nashville, members of the Tennessee State Legislature accepted invitations to the 8th floor of the Hermitage Hotel, where a group of anti-suffrage men dispensed old Bourbon and moonshine whiskey with lavish insistence. Prohibition had been passed but the prohibition law was not enforced that week. On August 13, 1920 the Tennessee Senate approved the 19th Amendment with a vote of 25 to 4. The male anti-suffrage lobby, from early morning of each day until the wee small hours of the next, threatened and cajoled the embattled 62 Tennessee members of the House who had signed pledges to vote in favor of suffrage. They were baited with whiskey, tempted with offers of office, loans of money, and every other device which old hands at illicit politics could conceive or remember. An alleged attempt to kidnap a suffrage member was made. Various schemes were started to get rid of enough suffrage legislators to allow the opposition a chance to act, a favorite proposal being that men might conveniently get messages calling them home.

Engaged in this nefarious intrigue was what old-timers recognized as the former “whiskey lobby” in full force, the one-time railroad lobby which was alleged to have directed Tennessee politics for years, and a newer manufacturer’s lobby. All pretense was thrown aside and all three worked openly as one man, although who paid the bills the public never knew. Every day men dropped from the poll (the survey of House members indicating how they would vote on suffrage). All men checked as bribable on the poll, taken before the Legislature met, fell from it.

On August 18, 2020, the Tennessee House approved the 19th Amendment by a vote of 49 to 47. There were two votes that turned at the last minute to make this victory possible. The first was Banks Turner. The second was Harry Burn, a 24 year old Republican representative who stated as one of the reasons that he changed his vote, “I knew that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”

Page 492 - Lax election laws and methods often opened doors for corruption, and by, and with, the assistance of party officials, suffrage elections were stolen. The knowledge that elections can be controlled and manipulated, that a purchasable vote and men with money and motives to buy can appear upon occasion, that an election may be turned with “unerring accuracy” by a bloc of the least understanding voters, that conditions produce many politicians but few statesmen, began long ago to modify for Americans the fine pride in political liberty still the boast upon the 4th of July. On the other hand, in spite of all the weaknesses of the American government, no conscientious man or woman should ever have lost sight of four counter facts, (1) The United States will never go back to government by kings, nobilities or favored classes. (2) It must go forward to a safe and progressive government by the people; there is no other alternative. (3) Women have had a corrective influence in department after department of society and the only one pronounced “a filthy mire” is politics where they have not been. (4) The problem of leading government by majorities through the mire to the ideal which certainly lies ahead is one which women should share with men.