In 1914 Miss Safford published a bulletin, showing that the State Association had auxiliaries in Jacksonville, Lake Helen, Orlando, Zellwood, Pine Castle, Winter Park, Pensacola, Milton, Miami, Tampa, and a Men's Equal Suffrage League in Orlando with Mayor E. F. Sperry as president and Justin Van Buskirk as secretary. Miss Kate M. Gordon, president of the Southern Woman's Suffrage Conference, had held a successful meeting in Jacksonville. The Orlando League had had a float in the trades' parade of the midwinter fair and a booth at the fair where the names of voters in favor of submitting a State suffrage amendment were obtained. It had had "teas" for replenishing the treasury and closed the year with a banquet complimentary to the Men's League. A committee was preparing a program on the laws of the State for the next year's work. The Pensacola league was arranging to issue a special edition of the Journal and have a booth at the tri-county fair. Most of the leagues had formed classes to study history and the duties of citizenship and had distributed literature and some of them had held a celebration on May 2, as the National Association had requested.
The first annual convention, held at Pensacola, Dec. 8-10, 1914, stressed the pledging of candidates for Congress and Legislature and securing signatures to petitions. The second, at Orlando, Feb. 3, 1915, formed congressional districts, according to the plan of the National Association. The third, at Miami, March 15-16, 1916, arranged for suffrage schools and planned to assist work outside the State. The fourth, at Tampa, Nov. 20, 1917, found the members busy with war work. The fifth, at Daytona, Nov. 19, 1918, planned to introduce a bill for Primary suffrage in the Legislature and co-operate with the Federation of Women's Clubs to secure it. The sixth, at Tampa, Oct. 30-31, 1919, was devoted to plans for ratification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment and citizenship.
While the State association could show no definite accomplishment, its work had been largely educational and a considerable public sentiment in favor of woman suffrage had been created. Its organization and growth center about the name of the Rev. Mary Augusta Safford, a pioneer worker in the suffrage cause in several States. She came in 1905 to make Florida her home from Des Moines, Iowa, where she had been pastor of the Unitarian church for eleven years. Her energy, enthusiasm and devotion carried all before her and but for her organization might have been delayed for years. For four years she was the untiring State president, then Mrs. Frank Stranahan served in 1917, Miss Safford again in 1918. The following, in addition to those elsewhere mentioned, are among those prominent in the suffrage work in the State: Mrs. A. E. McDavid, Miss Minnie Kehoe, Pensacola; Mrs. Susan B. Dyer, Winter Park; Mrs. H. W. Thompson, Miss C. H. Day, Milton; Mrs. S. V. Moore, Cocoanut Grove; Mrs. Kate C. Havens, Miami; Miss Pleasaunce Baker, Zellwood; Mrs. Grace Hanchett, Orlando.
From its beginning the association worked for the Federal Suffrage Amendment, although it tried also to obtain from the Legislature the submission of a State amendment to the voters. In 1915 Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the national president, assisted Miss Safford and the other workers in holding conventions in several congressional districts. Many local meetings were held, much literature distributed, resolutions secured and legislators interviewed. The Federation of Women's Clubs, the largest organization of women in the State, endorsed the movement. In 1916 Miss Safford went for a month to assist the campaign in Iowa, to which the association sent $100, and the vice-president, Mrs. Frank Tracy, directed the State work. New leagues were formed, delegates to the national presidential conventions were interviewed and Florida women attended those in Chicago and St. Louis. Dr. Shaw was present at the State convention where 550 members were reported and the distribution of 750 packages of literature. A series of meetings was held in cooperation with the Congressional Committee of the National Association and work in the Legislature was done.
By 1918 a number of counties had been organized and the State convention, encouraged by the granting of Primary suffrage to women in Arkansas and Texas, decided to make this its legislative work for 1919, and plans were made to raise $5,000 through local conferences. A State organizer was put into the field and the National Association sent its recording secretary, Mrs. Halsey W. Wilson, a trained worker, to assist the State organization. In January, 1919, Dr. Shaw attended a conference at Orlando and $1,000 were raised; later at a conference in Tampa, $198 and at one in Miami and West Palm Beach $260. Miss Elizabeth Skinner was appointed State organizer and the National Association sent one of its most capable organizers, Mrs. Maria McMahon. The 38 county chairmen had obtained nearly 2,500 signatures to petitions to the Legislature and an active campaign was undertaken for Primary suffrage.
In January, 1919, the National Association's Congressional Committee sent its secretary, Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham of Arkansas, and its press secretary, Miss Marjorie Shuler of New York, to spend several weeks in a quiet campaign to influence U. S. Senator Park Trammell to cast his vote for the Federal Suffrage Amendment, this being considered useless in the case of Senator Duncan U. Fletcher. They secured newspaper comment in favor, interviews with prominent people and resolutions from conventions, but these had no effect. At the annual convention in October the following officers were elected: President, Mrs. John T. Fuller, Orlando; first vice-president, Mrs. Edgar A. Lewis, Fort Pierce; second, Miss Elizabeth Skinner, Dunedin; third, Dr. Minerva B. Cushman, St. Petersburg; corresponding secretary, Mrs. W. R. O'Neal, Orlando; recording secretary, Mrs. C. E. Hawkins, Brooksville; treasurer, Mrs. Clara B. Worthington, Tampa; auditors, Mrs. J. W. McCollum, Mrs. J. D. Stringfellow, Gainesville; Legislative Committee, Mrs. Amos Norris, chairman, Tampa. A memorial meeting was held for Dr. Shaw, who had died July 2.
The annual meeting in 1920 took place in Orlando. Mrs. Fuller was re-elected and plans for extensive work were made but the association was not quite ready to merge into a League of Women Voters. This was done April 1, 1921, and Mrs. J. B. O'Hara was elected chairman.
Legislative Action. Before the State Association was organized the Equal Franchise League of Jacksonville decided to ask the Legislature, which met in April, 1913, to submit to the voters a woman suffrage amendment to the State constitution. A bill was prepared and an appeal for assistance made to the National American Association. In response it sent its very capable field worker, Miss Jeannette Rankin, who went with the executive officers of the league to Tallahassee. Its president, Mrs. Roselle C. Cooley, said in her report: "The House of Representatives decided to hear us in a Committee of the Whole, at an evening session. In this case it meant the whole House, the whole Senate and the whole town. Seats, aisles, the steps of the Speaker's rostrum were filled, windows had people sitting in them and in the hall as far as one could see people were standing on chairs to hear the first call for the rights of women ever uttered in the Capitol of Florida. Four women and three men spoke, the vote of the committee was publicly called at the close of the speaking and the bill passed into the House of Representatives without recommendation. Weary days and weeks of waiting, time wasted on petty legislation, members going home for week-ends and not returning for Monday work kept us still anxious. At length the bill was called and the vote was 26 ayes to 38 noes.
"As we were leaving for our homes on Saturday evening a Senator said: 'If you will come into the Senate we will show those men how to treat ladies.' So we went back on Monday and were fortunate in having for our sponsor Senator Cone of Columbia county, the leader of the Senate. He took up our bill, placed it on the special calendar and advised us in our procedure, the bill having come into the Senate with favorable recommendation from the committee. Again the weary waiting, the petty legislation, the filibustering of the 'corporation' members and the whisky men, and at last a motion to postpone indefinitely was carried by one majority, 15 to 16, the sixteenth man being one who had been with us from the first until this moment."
The Legislature meets every two years and in 1915 the State association, which had now sixteen well organized branches, was sponsor for the bill, or resolution, and a large number of legislators had promised their support. Hearings were granted by both Houses, but it was defeated.