The convention of 1917 met in October at Des Moines and Miss Lawther was re-elected. The country was now in the midst of war, and, like patriotic women everywhere, Iowa suffragists turned all their attention to helping win it. Miss Lawther served on a special committee appointed by the Governor to organize the women of the State for war activities. Every woman on the suffrage board filled an important position in the various State war organizations and every county chairman and local member was active in the work of her community. The women worked long, full days for the war and far into the night for suffrage.
When the State convention met at Cedar Rapids in September, 1918, the women were still immersed in war work. Meanwhile the Lower House of Congress had voted to submit the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment and for some months the efforts of the association had been centered on this amendment. It had secured pledges from all the Iowa representatives in Congress to vote for it except Harry E. Hull, who voted against it. In June a "suffrage school" had been held in Penn College, Oskaloosa, for the express purpose of educating women in the need of this amendment and the necessity of educating State legislators to the point where it would be ratified as soon as it was submitted. Miss Lawther was again re-elected but resigned the next June and Mrs. James E. Devitt, the vice-president, filled the office.
In 1919 the association was in the thick of the struggle to obtain from the Legislature Primary and Presidential suffrage. The former was defeated; the latter passed both houses in April. The Federal Amendment was ratified by the Legislature July 2.
The work of the Equal Suffrage Association seemed finished. The half century of agitation, education and evolution was completed. The 48th and last annual convention was held Oct. 2, 1919, in Boone, which had been its hostess many times, and the association was happily dissolved by unanimous vote. The State League of Women Voters was at once organized with Miss Flora Dunlap, chairman, and the old workers faced the new task of making political suffrage for women the privilege and blessing they always had believed it would prove to be.
Legislative Action. A resolution to submit to the voters a woman suffrage amendment to the State constitution was introduced in every General Assembly beginning with 1870. In the early years petitions were sent, the number of signatures rising from 8,000 in 1884 to 100,000 in 1900, but after that time they were almost entirely given up, as they had no effect. The resolution was introduced according to custom in the Legislature of 1902. Also according to custom, not always so carefully observed, the Senate passed the resolution by 28 to 16, this being the Senate's year for this courtesy, and the House accepted the report recommending indefinite postponement.
In 1904 the resolution was defeated in the House and did not emerge from the Senate committee. In 1906 this program was repeated. The meeting of the Legislature was now changed to the odd years and in 1907 the above program was reversed. After this year the members omitted even the customary graciousness of an understanding that one body would pass it and the other kill it, thus keeping the women friendly and dividing the responsibility for the defeat, and both Houses in 1909 rejected it.
In 1911 the Senate treated the resolution in a most contemptuous manner by voting to strike out the enacting clause and then passing it. This was the last time it was defeated. The tide was changing and even the most confirmed opponents knew that it was a rising and not a falling tide. Fortunately most of the active workers who sat through that humiliating experience lived to see the men who were responsible for it either retired entirely from public life or so changed in sentiment as to claim a place among those who "always believed in woman suffrage."
The neighboring State of Kansas fully enfranchised its women in 1912, as did several other western States, and favorable pressure was growing very strong. In 1913 the resolution to submit the amendment passed in the House on February 20 by a vote of 81 to 26 and in the Senate on March 7 by a vote of 31 to 15. The deadlock was broken and every suffragist rejoiced.
The resolution had to pass two Legislatures and in July, 1914, the Republican State convention strongly urged the next one to pass it. In 1915 this was done, by the Senate on February 12 by a vote of 38 to 11, and by the House on the 23rd by one of 84 to 19. The date for the referendum to the voters was set at the time of the primary elections, June 5, 1916, over three years from the time the resolution was first passed. After forty-five years thus far had the workers for woman suffrage arrived.