was as follows: "An Act to provide that women may vote in all primary elections: From and after the passage of this act and subject to all the provisions of the laws of this State as to age, residence, citizenship, payment of poll taxes and otherwise regulating the manner and form of holding the same, but especially exempt from every disqualification, direct or indirect, on account of sex, every woman shall have the right to vote at any primary election held under the laws of this State."
This form of suffrage is unique and deserves some explanation. William Hodges, Associate Justice of the Court of Civil Appeals, Texarkana, Texas, suggested the idea to Senator O. S. Lattimore of Fort Worth, who formulated the bill of which the Arkansas bill is substantially a copy. The Texas Legislature defeated it. Mr. Riggs wired for a copy of the bill, had a similar one drawn and submitted it to U. S. Senator Kirby and a number of prominent lawyers, all of whom were unanimous in the belief that it was constitutional. Justice Hodges said, "I have felt deep interest in the suffrage question for several years and the idea of permitting women to participate in Primary elections occurred to me casually as I was thinking of how to meet the stubborn opposition offered in the Texas Legislature to the submission of an amendment to the constitution."[1] Mr. Riggs said his eagerness to pass a suffrage bill was to do justice to the women of Arkansas and to keep a promise to his mother that if he ever was elected to the Legislature he would introduce and work for one.
The Legislature of 1917 was soon discovered to be a progressive assembly and gave promise of success for the bill. Mrs. Ellington decided the time had come to adopt business methods in the suffrage lobby and undertook with Mr. Riggs the whole responsibility of guiding this bill on its eventful journey through the House and Senate. The suffragists held themselves in readiness to do any special work needed, which they did quietly and
- ↑ In June, 1912, Miss Kate Gordon offered a Primary bill as a substitute for the constitutional amendment in the Louisiana Legislature, but it never came out of committee. Miss Gordon said: "The idea came to me as a solution of the woman suffrage question in a flash and it struck me as a good one. The Primary idea was mine as early as 1912."
