Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
1914. The full suffrage bill was introduced by Representative Manion
and a quiet committee hearing held, with representatives from the
State Suffrage Association and the Woman Suffrage Party. It received
60 ayes, 41 noes in the House, but not the necessary two-thirds.
Amending Article 210 had become a city administration measure and was
slated for success. A donation towards a Tuberculosis Hospital in New
Orleans had been made by Mrs. John Dibert and the gift was
municipalized by a condition which required a certain annual revenue
from the city. She desired to be a member of the hospital board, but
was ineligible under this article. The Era Club gave notice that it
would challenge her eligibility and she supported its position. The
long desired amendment was on the way to a successful passage, but
went on the rocks because of the club's campaign against a financial
measure for refunding the city debt known as the Nine Million Bond
issue, in which the provisions for the public schools and the
teachers' pay were totally inadequate and it was to be in effect for
fifty years! The Era Club and the Mothers' Co-operative Club protested
and worked against this political-financial alliance. In retaliation
twenty-four hours before the election the order went to the voters to
defeat the amendment to Article 210, which would have made women
eligible to serve on school and charity boards, and they did so.
1918. Governor Ruffin G. Pleasant recommended in his message the
submission of a woman suffrage amendment to the State constitution.
The State association had a resolution for it introduced in the House
by Frank Powell; the Woman Suffrage Party one in the Senate by Leon
Haas, and it passed in both.
CAMPAIGNS. There have been two campaigns in the interest of woman
suffrage in Louisiana, one for preparing for an expected
constitutional convention which would have met in 1915, and the other
in 1918 to amend the State constitution by striking out the word
"male." A special session of the Legislature in 1915 proposed a
convention to revise the constitution and submitted the question to
the voters. Immediately Miss Jean Gordon, president of the State
Suffrage Association, accompanied by Miss Lilly Richardson and Mrs.
Ida Porter Boyer, visited the various parishes and formed working
committees in 40 of the 63. The enthusiastic reception wherever they
went was practical testimony to the sentiment for woman suffrage that
they knew existed and could be utilized if the politicians could be
made to submit the amendment to the voters. The latter rejected the
proposal to hold a convention, but the work done by the women laid the
foundation for the campaign three years later.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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