Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/625

 TENNESSEE 609 Ford urged it, saying that, though it had small chance, it was well to accustom the Legislature to the idea. The matter was placed in the hands of Miss Elliott, Mrs. French, Mrs. Dudley and Mrs. Scott, who recommended that no bill should be introduced. Mrs. Allen and Miss Elliott were re-elected and Mrs. James M. McCormack was made vice-president-at-large ; Miss Clay and Miss Johnston spoke on the loth at a large meeting in Chattanooga and Miss Clay the following Sun- day in the Universalist church. On April 7 Miss Elliott and Mrs. Dudley marched in Washington in a parade to the Capitol to interview the Tennessee representatives in Congress on the Federal Amendment. This year Miss Jeannette Rankin of Mon- tana, an organizer for the National Association, came to assist. By October the State membership was 942 and fifteen newspapers were reached regularly with suffrage matter. Booths were con- ducted at many of the county fairs and a "suffrage day'* was given at the Memphis Tri-State fair, when the outside speakers were Miss Clay and Miss Kate Gordon of Louisiana. The News Scimitar issued a suffrage edition. A second convention met in Morristown, October 21, 22. Miss Sue S. White was elected secretary, Mrs. Hardy State organizer and the other officers continued. At the national convention in Washington in November Miss Wester and Mrs. Ford repre- sented Tennessee on the "committee of one hundred," which, led by Mrs. Medill McCormick, chairman of the National Con- gressional Committee, called upon President Wilson to enlist his assistance. That year and each succeeding year letters, telegrams and petitions were sent to the President and to the Tennessee Representatives in Congress urging their support of the Federal Amendment. One petition from Chattanooga bore a thousand signatures. By 1914 the- six largest cities in the State were organized and the majority of the clubs celebrated National Suffrage Day, May 2, with parades and open air meetings to the amazement and interest of the people. The Chattanooga parade, with a s band, ended at the Court House where the steps of that building were aglow with yellow bunting. Mrs. Wesley Martin Stoner of Y ton, D. C, was the principal speaker and