Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/624

 608 HISTORY OP WOMAN SUFFRAGE neighboring towns. Miss Catherine J. Wester, a Kingston suf- fragist, had a six weeks' newspaper debate in the Chattanooga Times. A booth was maintained at the Appalachian Exposi- tion, and 590 names of visitors from Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi were registered in the suffrage booth at the Tri- State fair in September at Memphis. The fourth State convention was held at Memphis in the Business Men's Club Feb. 18, 1911, and the president, Mrs. Allen, reported suffrage trips to Little Rock, Ark., and Jackson, Miss. Addresses were given by Attorney Robert Beattie and by H. P. Hanson, vice-president of the Southern Conference on Child and Woman Labor, who brought word that the Mem-- phis Typographical Union was on record for woman suffrage. Mrs. Beattie was elected vice-president and Dr. Madge Patton Stephens secretary. The Nashville club was organized Septem- ber 28, with Mrs. Guilford Dudley president; one at Morristown November 3, with Mrs. Hannah Price Hardy president; one at Chattanooga December 9, with Mrs. E. W. Penticost president. By 1912 a new era had dawned with five of the largest cities organized and affiliated with the State association. It held its annual convention at Nashville January 10-11. Governor Ben W. Hooper addressed it and stated that he was "on the fence" as to the suffrage question. Mrs. Allen was elected honorary president and Miss Sarah Barnwell Elliott president. Miss Elliott spent two months of this year speaking in the State and she also spoke in Birmingham, in New York and the Mississippi Valley Conference in Chicago. In December a suffrage club was organized in Jackson with Mrs. C. B. Bell president. J. W. Brister, State Superintendent of Schools, gave a suffrage ad- dress at Nashville. The State convention was held again at the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Jan. 6, 7, 1913. The principal speakers were ex- Governor John I. Cox, U. S. Senator Luke Lea, Misses Laura Clay of Kentucky and Mary Johnston of Virginia. Mrs. Vir- ginia Clay Clopton; as president, sent greetings from the Hunts- ville, Ala., league, reorganized after a lapse of thirty years with the same president. The main discussion was whether to intro- duce a suffrage bill in the Legislature. Mrs. Margaret Ervin