Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/397

 was arranged for the State convention to meet in Lincoln at the time Governor Samuel R. McKelvie had called this special session to ratify the amendment. The convention en masse saw the ratification of both Houses on August 2 by unanimous vote and had the joy of being present when it was signed by the Governor, who had been a consistent friend of the cause. The regular session had memorialized Congress by joint resolution to submit the Federal Suffrage Amendment and requested Senator Gilbert M. Hitchcock of Nebraska to vote for it. He voted against it every time it became before the Senate. The other Senator, George W. Norris, voted in favor each time and was always a helpful friend of woman suffrage.

The last State convention met in Omaha June 13-15, 1920, with 104 delegates in attendance. With Mrs. Charles H. Dietrich, who had been elected president the preceding year, in the chair, the association was merged into the Nebraska League of Women Voters and Mrs, Dietrich was made chairman.

On Saturday, Aug. 28, 1920, at noon, whistles were sounded and bells were rung for five minutes in Omaha and South Omaha to celebrate the proclamation by the Secretary of State at Washington that the woman suffrage amendment was now a part of the constitution of the United States and the struggle was over.

In December, 1919, there assembled in Lincoln a convention to rewrite Nebraska’s constitution, to be submitted to the electors Sept. 21, 1920. This convention put a clause in the new constitution giving full suffrage to women. Using the power delegated to it by the Legislature it provided that women should vote on the constitution and that the suffrage amendment should go into effect as soon as the adoption of the constitution was announced by the Governor. The rest of it was to wait until Jan. 1, 1921. This was done in order that women might vote at the general election in November, 1920. Before the constitution went to the voters the Federal Amendment was proclaimed and women were fully enfranchised. With women voting the constitution received 65,483 ayes, 15,416 noes.