Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/227

 Governor James D. Black, defeated at the election by Edwin P. Morrow, was a staunch and life-long suffragist. When he was filling out Governor Stanley's unexpired term and he received a telegram in June, with all other Governors of Southern States, from the Governor of Louisiana, asking him to oppose ratification of the Federal Amendment, he gave to Mrs. Breckinridge a ringing interview for use in the press to the effect that he would not oppose it. Governor Morrow, a Republican, had always been a friend of woman suffrage in whatever form it was asked.

Kentucky suffragists could easily remember when they could poll but one vote in Congress—that of John W. Langley. When in 1919 the final vote was taken on the Federal Amendment but one of the State's ten votes in the Lower House, that of A. B. Rouse of Covington, was cast against it. There was one vacancy. Senator George B. Martin voted for the resolution and Senator J. C. W. Beckham against it. He had voted against it in February, when, having passed the House, it was lost in the Senate by a single vote.

. The November legislative election in 1919 resulted in a Republican House and a Democratic Senate. The Republicans caucused and agreed to vote for ratification. Governor Morrow urged it in a vigorous message personally delivered to the Legislature in which he said:

A government "of the people by the people" can not and does not exist in a commonwealth in which one-half of its citizens are denied the right of suffrage. The women of Kentucky are citizens and there is no good or just reason why they should be refused the full and equal exercise of the sovereign right of every free people—the ballot. Every member of this General Assembly is unequivocally committed by his party's platform declaration to cast his vote and use his influence for the immediate enfranchisement of women in both nation and State. Party loyalty, faith-keeping with the people and our long-boasted chivalry all demand that the General Assembly shall break all previous speed records in ratifying the Federal Suffrage Amendment and passing all measures granting political rights to women.

By agreement, a Democrat, Senator Charles M. Harriss, presented the resolution for ratification in the Senate, and a Republican, Joseph Lazarus, in the House. On Jan. 6, 1920, the first day of the session, it was passed by a vote of 30 ayes, 8 noes in