Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/435

 women of Tennessee I shall derive one substantial pleasure from it if I am still living, the joy and exultation of my little daughter, who has been a pronounced and persistent suffragist since she was nine years old. She has taken a keen and intelligent interest in all of my struggles, has rejoiced in the hour of my victory and wept in the hour of my defeat. She is the connecting link between me and the woman suffrage cause.

In behalf of all the good people of Tennessee, I extend greetings to your great association and express the hope that your sojourn in the historic Volunteer State may be filled with pleasure and profit to each and every member of your convention.

The Governor's daughter was introduced to the convention and it settled itself in anticipation of the stories of the campaigns for woman suffrage amendments which had ended with the general election the preceding week, in some of them with victory, in others with defeat. Miss Anne Martin, president of the Nevada Suffrage Association, was heartily applauded as she told of the triumph in her State, saying:

The suffrage victory in Nevada means not only a solid equal suffrage West and another step toward equal suffrage for the United States but a triumph for better government in Nevada. It is the most "male" State in America, perhaps in the world. The census of 1910 shows that there are two men to every woman. Law, custom, social life are more nearly man-made than those of any other country; consequently Nevada needs the help of her women to modify law, custom and social life, the help of those women whose pioneer mothers stood shoulder to shoulder with the men in building up a great commonwealth out of a wilderness. Owing to the transitory character of many of the industries, such as the construction of irrigation works, railway construction and mining, there are nearly three times as many unattached men living outside of home influences as there are married women in the State.

The male population is over 50 per cent. transient; the population of women is only 20 per cent. transient, as they have permanent occupations on the farms and in the schools. The argument of the anti-suffragists that "the women do not want it" was answered by a house-to-house canvass throughout the counties of the State. In many of them at least 90 per cent. of the women enrolled themselves in favor of equal suffrage and their signatures are on file at the headquarters of the Nevada [Equal Franchise Society. The fact that out of a voting population of only 20,000 a majority of 3,400 votes was cast to give women the franchise shows not only that men all over the State were just and fair-minded but that they must have instinctively felt the need of women's help

The story of victory for Montana was related by Miss Mary