Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/132

Il8 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE burg; corresponding secretary, Mrs. W. R. O'Neal, Orlando; recording secretary, Mrs. C. E. Hawkins, Brooksville ; treasurer, Mrs. Clara B. Worthington, Tampa; auditors, Mrs. J. W. Mc- Collum, Mrs. J. D. Stringfellow, Gainesville; Legislative Com- mittee, Mrs. Amos Norris, chairman, Tampa. A memorial meet- ing was held for Dr. Shaw, who had died July 2. The annual meeting in 1920 took place in Orlando. Mrs. Fuller was re-elected and plans for extensive work were made but the association was not quite ready to merge into a League of Women Voters. This was done April i, 1921, and Mrs. J. B. O'Hara was elected chairman. LEGISLATIVE ACTION. Before the State Association was organ- ized the Equal Franchise League of Jacksonville decided to ask the Legislature, which met in April, 1913, to submit to the voters a woman suffrage amendment to the State constitution. A bill was prepared and an appeal for assistance made to the National American Association. In response it sent its very capable field worker, Miss Jeannette Rankin, who went with the executive officers of the league to Tallahassee. Its president, Mrs. Roselle C. Cooley, said in her report: "The House of Representatives decided to hear us in a Committee of the Whole, at an evening session. In this case it meant the whole House, the whole Senate and the whole town. Seats, aisles, the steps of the Speaker's rostrum were filled, windows had people sitting in them and in the hall as far as one could see people were standing on chairs to hear the first call for the rights of women ever uttered in the Capitol of Florida. Four women and three men spoke, the vote of the committee was publicly called at the close of the speaking and the bill passed into the House of Repre- sentatives without recommendation. Weary days and weeks of waiting, time wasted on petty legislation, members going home for week-ends and not returning for Monday work kept us still anxious. At length the bill was called and the vote was 26 ayes to 38 noes. "As we were leaving for our homes on Saturday evening a Senator said: 'If you will come into the Senate we will show those men how to treat ladies.' So we went back on Monday and were fortunate in having for our sponsor Senator Cone of