WOMAN’S VOTE IN AMERICA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18062, 28 December 1920, Page 8

WOMAN’S VOTE IN AMERICA

WON THROUGH A MOTHER. The vote in the Tennessee Legislature to ratify t’he Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving women equal voting rights with men, came at the conclusion of ono of the most spectacular and dramatic fights ever witnessed in a legislative body in the United States, and the victory was won by the bare majority of 49 to 47. The suffragists had been making desperate efforts to persuade the Governors of the various States to call a special summer session to consider the Nineteenth Amendment, so that the last remaining State necessary to ratify the amendment could be brought into line in time to permit of women voting for the President in November. The Governor of Tennessee finally consented, but opinion in the State seemed so evenly divided on the question that either side despaired of obtaining a decision. The Speaker of the State Assembly did his best to table the resolution, but he was defeated by 48 to 48. The motion to ratify was carried as the result of an eleventh-hour decision by Harry Burn, a young Republican, who had just previously received a letter from his mother, asking him to “be a good boy and give me a vote.” Mr Burn admitted that he had intended to vote against ratification, but his mother’s appeal won. Suffragists from all over the country had flocked to Nashville, and crowded into the assembly until every inch of space was occupied. When Mr Burn shouted “Aye!” they launched an uproarious demonstration; women screamed frantically, scores threw their arms around the necks of those nearest them, and danced, so far as it was possible to do so in the mass of humanity. A hundred suffrage banners waved wildly, and many removed the yellow flowers they had been wearing and threw them upward to meet a similar shower from the galleries. There were few tears of joy shed; some wiped their eyes, but, on the whole, they considered that it was no time for w r eeping—their happiness was far beyond that stage. It is regarded as remarkable that Tennessee should be the State to decide woman suffrage, because the South, from the first, has been the stronghold of the “antis.” and no fewer than eight Southern Slates had previously rejected the amendment.