Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
In 1915 a plank was obtained in the Republican State platform
endorsing woman suffrage, largely through the work of Mrs. Murray
Hubbard, chairman of a committee from the Federation of Women's Clubs.
When the Legislature met in January, 1916, the Republicans, under the
leadership of Edwin P. Morrow, caucused and agreed to support solidly
the resolution to submit a suffrage amendment to the State
constitution. The legislative work of the State association was
managed by Mrs. Breckinridge, chairman, and Mrs. Hubbard,
vice-chairman. The resolution was presented in the Senate by Thomas A.
Combs and in the House by W. C. G. Hobbs, both of Lexington and both
Democrats. It passed the Senate by 26 ayes, 8 noes. In the House it
was held in the committee and although three test votes were made in
an effort to bring it out and a majority was obtained on one of them,
a two-thirds vote was necessary and it was not allowed to come to a
vote. No Republican in the Senate gave an adverse vote and only three
in the House. Governor A. O. Stanley (Democrat) used the full strength
of the administration, even invoking the aid of the Kentucky
delegation in Congress, to kill the measure in the House.
This year the Republican and Progressive State conventions endorsed
woman suffrage, the Democrats refusing to do so. At the national
Republican convention in Chicago the Kentucky member of the
Resolutions Committee voted for the suffrage plank in its platform. At
the national Democratic convention in St. Louis all the twenty-six
delegates, on account of the "unit ruling," cast their votes for the
State's rights suffrage plank.
During 1917 suffrage work was displaced by war work, of which Kentucky
suffragists did a large share. They were asked to raise $500 for the
Women's Oversea Hospitals of the National Association and more than
doubled the quota by the able management of Mrs. Samuel Castleman of
Louisville. Under the direction of Mrs. E. L. Hutchinson of Lexington
a plan to raise money for an ambulance to be named in honor of Miss
Laura Clay, the pioneer suffragist, was successfully carried through.
In 1918 for the first time there was every reason to believe that a
resolution to submit a State amendment would pass the Legislature, but
a majority of the State suffrage board voted to conform to the desire
of the National Association to avoid State campaigns and concentrate
on the Federal Amendment and no resolution was presented.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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