In April, 1914, the State convention was again held in Jackson. Among the speakers were Rabbi Brill of Meridian and Mrs. Alex Y. Scott of Memphis. Mrs. Dent was re-elected president. In the fall for the first time there was a suffrage section in the parade that marked the opening of the State Fair. Six women, gowned in white and wearing yellow silk Votes for Women badges marched—Mrs. Ella O. Biggs and Miss Sadie Goeber bearing a banner inscribed Women vote in twelve States, why not in Mississippi? followed by Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Avery Harrell Thompson, Mrs. Sarah C. Watts and Mrs. R. W. Durfey and they were generously cheered along the way.
In the spring of 1915 the State convention was held in Greenville. Dr. Shaw was a guest, stopping on her way to Jackson, where under the auspices of the Equity League she spoke in the House of Representatives to a large audience, many standing throughout her address, which made a profound impression. The convention was well attended. Some of the interesting features were "an hour for men" presided over by Congressman B. G. Humphries, with excellent speeches; a five o'clock tea, given by the Belvidere Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the presentation of the motion picture play, Your Girl and Mine. Miss Pauline V. Orr was elected president. Miss Orr served as president for two years, widely extending the influence of the association through the hundreds of young women who came under her instruction at the Industrial Institute and College, where for many years she held the chair of English.
The annual convention was held in 1916 in the city hall in Meridian, where nineteen years before the State Woman Suffrage Association was organized, and Mrs. Pattie Ruffner Jacobs of Alabama, auditor of the National Association, made an address on the opening evening. During the following year eight new leagues were formed. The convention met in Starkville in April, 1917, and addresses were made by Dr. Shaw, Miss Margaret Hamilton Erwin, president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association; Mrs. Walter McNab Miller, first vice-president of the National Association; Mrs. W. H. Price, president of the Mississippi Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Mrs. Edward F. McGehee, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs. Miss Orr, the president, declining re-election was succeeded by Mrs. McGehee. The United States had now entered the war and the suffragists began to concentrate on war work. As chairman of the Woman's Committee, Mississippi Division of the National Council of Defense, she was able to help popularize woman suffrage.[101]
In April, 1918, a one-day conference was held in the Capitol at Jackson, when Mrs. Marion B. Trotter of Winona was elected president and brought a great deal of energy and enthusiasm into her office. No convention was held in 1919 but at the close of the meeting of the State Federation of Women's Clubs in Clarksdale in November a conference of the suffragists present was called. It was there decided to organize to support the ratification of the Federal Amendment, which had been submitted by Congress and was to come before the Legislature the following January. Mrs. B. F. Saunders of Swan Lake, retiring president of the federation, was made chairman of the Ratification Committee; Mrs. Trotter, treasurer; Mrs. Somerville chairman of Petition and Press Work; Mrs. McClurg chairman of Finance. By request the National Association sent into the State its organizers, Miss Watkins of Arkansas and Miss Peshakova of New York. Mrs. Cunningham, president of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association and a national worker, also came to assist. Petitions were circulated, leaflets published and distributed, newspapers enlisted and legislators systematically interviewed. The organization thus speedily effected worked during the session of 1920. In April of this year the convention of the State Federation, held in Gulfport, closed with a "suffrage luncheon," a brilliant affair attended by 125 prominent men and women. Speeches were made by the Hon. Barney Eaton, a lawyer of Gulfport; Mrs. S. P. Covington, its president, and others. The State League of Women Voters was organized at this time with Miss Blanche Rogers chairman.
It had been the hope for years to have an endorsement of woman suffrage from the Federation of Women's Clubs, a strong and popular organization numbering over 3,000 of the State's leading women. During its annual meeting in 1916 Miss Orr, president of the State Suffrage Association, had introduced a favorable resolution and with Mrs. Somerville, Mrs. J. W. McGrath of Canton, Mrs. William Baldwin of Columbus and Mrs. W. S. Lott of Meridian led the fight for suffrage. Mrs. William R. Wright of Jackson headed the opposition, which asked for the postponement of the question until the next year and won. At the next convention, held in Meridian in 1917, the resolution was introduced by Miss Ann Rothenberg (now Mrs. Rosenbaum) of Meridian and passed almost unanimously. In 1919 at the annual meeting held in Clarksdale, during the presidency of Mrs. Saunders, a resolution endorsing the ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment was carried with but one dissenting vote, that of Mrs. Lizzie George Henderson of Greenwood, daughter of the late U. S. Senator J. Z. George. When the League of Women Voters was formed the next year Mrs. Henderson was among the first to join it.
In 1919, the State Teachers' Association passed unanimously a resolution endorsing woman suffrage introduced by Professor Frederick Davis Mellen of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College, the son of the late Reverend Thomas L. Mellen, one of Mississippi's earliest suffragists. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union here as elsewhere was a great school for women, teaching them the need of the ballot, and the majority of its members were suffragists but all through the years the minority, who did not want the question brought into the Union, overruled their wishes. Mrs. Harriet B. Kells, the president for many years and a lifelong suffragist, was not able to overcome this situation and it never endorsed woman suffrage.
There never has been any organized opposition among Mississippi women. During the session of the Legislature in 1920 there was an open attempt to organize opposition to ratification of the Federal Amendment but it failed.
Legislative Action. After the suffrage association in 1913 decided to ask for the submission of an amendment to the State constitution to enfranchise women the preliminary work of interviewing legislators and distributing appropriate literature was conducted by the chairman of the Legislative Committee, Mrs. Nellie Nugent Somerville, the president, Mrs. Annie Kinkead Dent, and other members. The president at her own expense sent the Woman's Journal and other literature to all legislators for three months. The concurrent resolution asking for the submission was introduced in the House Jan. 9, 1914, by N. A. Mott of Yazoo county. Senator Hall Sanders of Tallahatchie county offered it in the Senate three days later. The House Committee on Constitution, to which the bill was referred, granted a hearing, at which speeches were made by Mrs. Monroe McClurg, Miss Belle Kearney, Mrs. Somerville, Miss Kate Gordon (La.), Judge Allen Thompson and Colonel Clay Sharkey. The committee reported unfavorably by a majority of one. A minority report was made by the chairman, Henry A. Minor of Noxubee county, and others. Representative Mott offered a resolution inviting the women to present their case in the House the next day, which was carried by a close vote about one o'clock in the afternoon and the hearing was set for ten the next morning. The Daily News had gone to press and the Clarion Ledger, a morning paper, had some time before forbidden its columns to any news or notices in any way favoring woman suffrage or advertising it.
The president of the Equity League of Jackson, Mrs. J. W. Tucker, with her assistants, announced the hearing over the telephone, the legislators spread the story and when the women who were to speak filed into the House on that memorable morning of January 21 they found all available space occupied and the galleries overflowing. An invitation was sent to the Senators to come over but so many had already deserted their posts for the House that there was not a quorum to vote on the invitation. Hilary Quin of Hinds county, Speaker of the House, presided, introducing the speakers and extending every possible courtesy. They were Mrs. McClurg, Miss Kearney, Miss Orr, Miss Gordon, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Somerville. The speeches made so profound an impression that hardly had the last word been spoken when there came a loud and insistent call from the enemies for adjournment. The bill was presented next day. Emmett Cavette of Noxubee county strongly championed it and Speaker Quin left the chair to make a speech in its favor. Representative S. Joe Owen of Union county vigorously led the fight against it and it was lost by 80 noes, 42 ayes.
In 1916 the women's organizations united in a bill making women eligible to serve as county school superintendents and on the boards of educational and benevolent institutions. During the session of 1918 the suffrage association being in the midst of war work took no initiative in behalf of legislation but Senator Earl Richardson of Neshoba county on his own account introduced in the Senate a concurrent resolution to amend the State constitution. The members of the Equity League gave assistance; Mrs. Isaac Reese of Memphis was invited to come to the Capitol and on the day the vote was taken she and Miss Kearney made brief speeches before the Senate. On motion of Senator P. E. Carothers the question was submitted without debate, which was a disappointment to its friends, H. H. Casteel of Holmes county declaring that he had remained up nearly all of the night before preparing his speech. The vote was a tie, 21 to 21. The House took no action.