Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/640

 624 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE vote from no to aye, making the vote 50 ayes, 46 noes, and moved to reconsider. 1 By the rules of the House Speaker Walker had for three days the exclusive right in which to call up the motion to reconsider, after which others could do so. During this time the opponents worked madly to get one of the loyal 49 to change his vote without avail. They attempted every unscrupulous scheme known to control legislation. All failing, as a last desperate move, 36 in the early morning hours made a hegira to Decatur, Ala., where they remained for about ten days. On August 23 the seats of the "antis" were conspicuously vacant. As the Speaker had not asked for a reconsideration, Mr. Riddick moved to call from the Journal the motion to reconsider. Speaker Walker ruled this out of order, giving among other reasons that Judge E. F. Langford of the Chancery Court had granted a temporary injunction restraining the Governor, Secre- tary of State and Speakers from certifying to Secretary of State Colby that the Legislature had ratified. Mr. Riddick appealed from the decision of the chair and it was not sustained. He then moved that the House reconsider its action in concurring in the Senate ratification, which was defeated by 49 noes, 9 present and not voting. He next moved that the Clerk of the House be in- structed to transmit to the Senate the ratification resolution, which was carried by a viva voce vote. Governor Roberts, himself formerly a Judge, could not be checked by the devices of the opposition but asked Attorney General Thompson to place the matter before Chief Justice D. L. Lansden of the State Supreme Court. He issued a writ of supersedeas and certiorari, which, taking the matter out of the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court, 1 Burn's vote so angered the opposition that they attempted to fasten a charge ot bribery on him. On a point of personal privilege he made a statement to the House which was spread upon the Journal. After indignantly denying the charge he said: "I changed my vote in favor of ratification because I believe in full suffrage as a right; I believe we had a moral and legal right to ratify; I know that a mother's advice is always safest for her boy to follow and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification. I appreciated the fact that an opportunity such as seldom comes to mortal man to free 17,000,000 women from political slavery was mine. I desired that my party in both State and Nation might say it was a Republican from the mountains of Blast Tennessee, purest Anglo-Saxon section in the world, who made woman suffrage possible, not for any personal glory but for the glory of his party." [Lack of space prevents giving the names of the immortal 49, which were sent with the chapter.]