Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/709

 them did not wish to spare the time and money for another meeting so soon the conference was given up. In 1919 the convention of the National Association was held in St. Louis and in 1920 in Chicago, which made the conference unnecessary, and then the Federal Amendment was ratified and the long contest was ended.

The Southern Woman Suffrage Conference was formed as the result of a Call sent out in 1913 by women of the southern States to the Governors of those States to meet them in conference and prepare for the extension of woman suffrage by State enactment rather than by Federal Amendment. Women from every southern State signed the Call, although in North and South Carolina and Florida not a vestige of suffrage organization existed. Miss Kate Gordon, who inaugurated the conference, felt impelled to begin some distinctly southern suffrage movement when listening to the effort of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Louisiana, to secure the ratification of the Income Tax Amendment upon the sole and only ground that it was a Democratic party measure. To make woman suffrage a Democratic party measure seemed then the logical field for immediate, intensive propaganda. The Congressional Committee of the National American Association was vitalizing into activity the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment. What more logical from a political standpoint than for the southern suffrage forces to advance with a flank movement in harmony with the traditions and policies of the Democratic party?

In November, 1913, there assembled in New Orleans the organization force of the Southern Conference, with representatives from almost all of the southern States. The platform adopted was primarily for State's Right Suffrage. Miss Gordon was elected president and Miss Laura Clay of Kentucky vice-president; Mrs. John B. Parker of Louisiana corresponding secretary; Mrs. Nellie Nugent Somerville of Mississippi treasurer. The plan of campaign consisted of the establishment of headquarters in New Orleans; the creating of an active press bureau and the holding of conferences in the southern States, particularly those