Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/242

 sked for by all the suffrage organizations, which now included a new group—the Equal Rights Party—formed by Miss Florence Huberwald. Owing to the absence of Mrs. Meehan, Mrs. H. B. Myers, vice-chairman, was active head of the party most of the year. In November Mrs. Lydia Wickliffe Holmes of Baton Rouge was elected State chairman at the annual convention in New Orleans. Under her leadership all the groups in accord with the policy of the National Suffrage Association were merged before the close of 1917, so that the Woman Suffrage Party now included the Equal Suffrage League, the Equal Rights Party and the Louisiana League for Equal Suffrage, formed the winter before in New Orleans by Mrs. W. J. O’Donnell. At the annual convention in New Orleans Mrs. Holmes was re-elected.

State headquarters, known as Suffrage House, were established in New Orleans in February, 1918, a large house on St. Charles Avenue, which was furnished largely through the efforts of Mrs. O’Donnell, who was in charge. In May a resolution for a State suffrage amendment, introduced in the Upper House by Senator Leon Haas of Opelousas, was combined with one brought by Representative Powell in the House, and passed on June 18, to be submitted to the voters in November. Active campaigning for its adoption at the polls began in September under a Joint Campaign Committee of the Woman Suffrage Party and the State Suffrage Association. In spite of the influenza epidemic thousands of signatures were obtained to a petition asking Governor Ruffin G, Pleasant to issue a proclamation calling on the electors to vote for it. This he did and those in the State at large responded favorably, but their voice was nullified by the adverse votes cast in the machine-controlled wards of New Orleans at the behest of Mayor Martin Behrman, and the amendment was lost by 3,605 votes. The annual convention held at Suffrage House in New Orleans after the election chose Mrs. Holmes again for president.

In the winter of 1919 an attempt was made to secure such a modification of the Federal Suffrage Amendment before Congress as might meet the objections of southern opponents by removing the fear of federal interference with elections. An amendment was devised by Assistant Attorney General Harry