RATIFICATION. When the Federal Amendment went to the last vote in Congress, the Iowa delegation maintained its record on each vote that had been taken, both Senators and ten of the eleven Representatives--all but Harry E. Hull--casting their votes in the affirmative. Immediately Mrs. Devitt of Oskaloosa, acting president, and Mrs. Fred B. Crowley of Des Moines, corresponding secretary of the State association, requested Governor William L. Harding to call a special session of the Legislature to ratify it. It met on July 2 in special session for this sole purpose. Men and women had made their way early to the Capitol, filling the galleries and the rear of the chambers. The legislators, too, were apparently as happy as boys, with a new idea of real democracy in Iowa. It seemed like a gathering of great-hearted, honest-of-purpose men who were eager to do an act of justice. The joyous expressions of these men, who had taken hot, dusty rides on day trains from their farms and stores in the scorching July weather to come and cast their votes for ratification, assured the women of victory. It was a wonderful moment. After a joint session at 10 a. m., to hear the reading of the Governor's message, by 11:40 the vote had been taken in both Houses. Every Senator but two was present and was recorded in the affirmative; the vote in the House was 96 ayes, 5 noes; E. H. Knickerbocker, Linn county; T. J. O'Donnell, Dubuque; C. A. Quick and George A. Smith, Clinton; W. H. Vance, Madison. Senators J. D. Buser of Conesville and D. W. Kimberly of Davenport were absent. The former had voted against Presidential suffrage and the latter had not voted. An informal luncheon followed in one of the Des Moines tea rooms which had often housed the suffragists in times of desolation and it was turned into a jollification meeting. Three former State presidents and other women spoke and there were many present for whom the occasion meant the fulfillment of an idea to which they had given years of devoted service. FOOTNOTES: [50] The History is indebted for this chapter to Miss Flora Dunlap, president of the State Equal Suffrage Association 1913-1915 and chairman of the League of Women Voters. [51] Space is given to this report because it is a fair illustration of the conditions under which woman suffrage amendments were defeated again and again in different States. CHAPTER XV. KANSAS.[52] Kansas was not yet a State when in 1859 twenty-five of her justice-loving men and women met and formed the first association to gain political freedom for women, and the liberty lighting torch kindled then was kept aflame by organization for fifty-three years before the women received equal political rights with the men in 1912. A State Equal Suffrage Association was formed in 1884 and thereafter annual conventions were held.