The remainder of Mrs. Warner's régime was filled with efforts in the Legislature for the Presidential suffrage bill. She began in September and worked unceasingly until its passage the next April, financing the campaign with some small assistance from her board. During the hundredth anniversary of the city of Memphis in June, a notable State event, a suffrage "victory" celebration was held with addresses by Mayor Monteverde and leading suffragists.
The eleventh annual convention was held in the Tulane Hotel, Nashville, June 4, 5, 1919. During the second day's session news came of the submission of the Federal Amendment by the U. S. Senate and excitement ran riot. Telegrams of congratulation were sent to Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw, U. S. Senator McKellar and the Tennessee Representatives who voted for it. It was a dramatic ending of the long contest—long even in Tennessee, for here too women had grown old and died in the struggle. Tributes were paid to those who were gone, among them Mrs. Meriwether who had given her life to the work. The two pioneers present, Mrs. Allen and Miss Terrett, gave reminiscences of the early days. Mrs. George Fort Milton was elected president.
A call was issued for the final convention of the State association and the first convention of the Tennessee League of Women Voters to meet May 18, 19, 1920, in the House of Representatives at Nashville. This was signed by the presidents of the following State associations: Suffrage, Mothers' Congress and Parent Teachers', Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Federation of Music Clubs, Daughters of the American Revolution and Press and Authors' Club. Mrs. Milton presided over the convention and Miss Mary Boyce Temple, regent of the D. A. R., presided over the first conference of the League of Women Voters. The association and the League were merged and Mrs. Milton was elected chairman.[171]
Legislative Action. 1911. This year for the first time a resolution was introduced by Senator Walter White of Dayton "to amend the constitution so as to give women the ballot." It was referred to the Constitutional Amendment Committee, Alfred A. Adams, chairman, which reported adversely. The women in charge were Mrs. J. D. Allen, State president, and Attorney Frances Wolf, legislative chairman.
1915. The suffragists espoused two bills. The association of which Mrs. McCormack was president worked for a new State constitution because of the great difficulty of changing the old one. The association of which Mrs. Dudley was president asked for an amendment. It received a "courtesy" vote in favor from the first Legislature and did not come before a second. Mrs. McCormack, Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Henry J. Kelso, Mrs. Hall and Miss Wester were the Legislative Committee.
1917. In March the Legislature passed an Act amending the charter of Lookout Mountain so as to give the women Municipal suffrage. The prime mover was Attorney James Anderson and Mayor P. F. Jones, and the other commissioners voted unanimously for it. Mrs. Ford, the State president, a lifelong resident, had the previous year registered there in order to call attention to the injustice of "taxation without representation" but her name was removed from the records. Early in 1917 Mrs. Ford called on President Wilson at the White House and asked him to send a message to the Legislature in favor of the pending Presidential suffrage bill, which he did.
[Mrs. Ford's thorough account of the fortunes of this bill through the Legislatures of 1917 and 1919 is so largely covered by the report in Part I of this chapter that it is omitted here.][172]
After the law was enacted Mrs. Kenny and Mrs. Kimbrough appeared at the office of the county trustee and made a tender of the amount due as their poll tax. He refused to receive it, acting under instructions from the county attorney who declared that the laws of the State exempted women. They then filed a bill in the Chancery Court of Davidson county asking a decision. Chancellor Newman dismissed it with an opinion in part as follows: "It will be observed by Section 686 of the code that those liable for poll taxes are males between the ages of 21 and 50 years on the 10th day of January the year the assessment is laid. Women were not liable Jan. 10, 1919, for poll tax and plainly it was never the purpose or intent of Section 1220 that a qualified voter as a condition precedent to the right to vote should produce satisfactory evidence that he had paid a poll tax assessed against him for which he was not liable.... All women between the ages of 21 and 50 years, otherwise qualified as voters, are entitled to vote in the November election of 1920 without paying a poll tax for 1919." The case was taken to the Supreme Court, which ruled that women did not have to pay in order to vote that year.
Ratification. When the Legislature of Washington in March, 1920, ratified the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment making the 35th, there came an absolute stop. The southeastern States had rejected it and it had been ratified by all the others except Vermont and Connecticut, whose Governors refused to call special sessions. It looked as if the women of the United States would be prevented from voting at the presidential election in November for the lack of one ratification. There was every reason to believe that the Legislature of Tennessee would give this one if it were not prevented by a clause in the State constitution. Meanwhile the ratification of the Federal Prohibition Amendment by the Ohio Legislature had been sent to the voters by a recent law, they had rejected it and an appeal had been taken to the U. S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the referendum law. On June 1, in Hawk vs. Smith, this court held that a referendum to the voters on the ratification of Federal Amendments was in conflict with Article V of the Federal Constitution, therefore null and void, as this Constitution was the supreme law of the land. The decision said: "It is not the function of courts or legislative bodies, National or State, to alter the method which the U. S. Constitution has fixed."
Article II, Section 32 of the Tennessee constitution reads: "No convention or General Assembly of this State shall act upon any amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by Congress to the several States unless such convention or General Assembly shall have been elected after such amendment is submitted." The presumption was naturally that this clause was nullified by the U. S. Supreme Court's decision. On June 10, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Suffrage Association, telegraphed Governor Albert H. Roberts, urging him to call an extra session. He, thereupon, sought the opinion of Attorney General Frank M. Thompson as to the power of the present Legislature to ratify, who answered that it would have the power. He said that he had submitted the question to the U. S. Department of Justice through Solicitor General John L. Frierson, to whom President Wilson had also appealed, whose answer in brief was as follows: "The ruling of the Supreme Court in the Ohio case and the consideration which I gave to this question in preparing those cases for hearing leave no doubt in my mind that the power to ratify an amendment to the Federal Constitution is derived solely from the people of the United States through this constitution and not from the people or the constitution of the State. The provision of the Tennessee constitution that no Legislature shall act on an amendment to the Federal Constitution unless elected after the proposal of the amendment, if valid, would undoubtedly be a restriction upon that power.... If the Legislature is called in extra session it will have the clear right to ratify."