Mr. T A. Wright, vice-president of
the Knoxville Board of Commerce, was
invited to deliver an address of welcome on the part of Knoxville voters,
but was called away from the city.
However, he wrote a letter to Mrs.
French, which was read, in which he
welcomed the convention through the
medium of writing.
Judge Henry R. Gibson was intro-
duced as being the first Knoxville
voter to advocate woman suffrage
openly. He referred to an editorial
which he had written thirty years ago
advocating women's rights, when he
was editor of a Knoxville daily paper.
Response to the hearty welcome and
greetings was made by Miss Ernestine
Noa, of Chattanooga. Miss Noa's response was one of the features of the
evening. In eloquent language, she acknowledged the hearty welcome that
has always been accorded in Knoxville.
Mrs. Seaton, of Connecticut, vice-
president of the Connecticut state
league and also chairman of the national program committee, was introduced and called upon for an address.
Mrs. Seaton was given an ovation. She
is regarded as one of the movement's
most gifted and talented women, and
is in high demand all over the country
at conventions. She told of having
seen the results of woman suffrage in
California, where she spent part of the
past summer. She stated that the city
of Los Angeles had been cleaned up by
the citizens since the advent of woman
suffrage in that state. "Los Angeles," she said, "has been called the only chemically pure city on the whole country."
She explained the efforts of
[suf]fragists in Connecticut where
[cond]tions are different from those in
most states.
Woman's Vote Helps Home.
"We agree that the woman's place is
in the home," said Mrs. Antoinette
Funk, of Chicago, who was introduced
as the last and principal speaker of
the session. "I hope that it shall ever
be. But the time has come when the
woman must protect her home, she
must maintain the old home influences
by taking a hand in the government of
the states and nation. She must vote.
"Some people argue against woman
suffrage the proposition that voting
would keep woman away from her
home and children. It took me just
eighteen minutes to go from my home
to the polls, cast my vote, and return."
Mrs. Funk declared that the talk of
women being polluted by voting was
bosh and nonsense. She said that if
the polling places are so filthy and
dirty, it is high time for the women to
take a hand and clean up their morals.
She replied to other such arguments
against woman suffrage which she
branded as absurd. The health of the
home would be benefited, she stated,
by the women taking a hand in politics. Conditions, she averred, which
now exist as a result of corrupt politics would be banished, and the sanitation of cities would be much improved by the women who are cleanly
by nature. In this connection she said
impure foods are manufactured and
sold broadcast.
Coming to the much desired aim of
all suffragists, .the vote, Mrs. Funk
stated that the time has come when
suffrage advocates do not have to
argue the ethics of the question, but
how will the vote be gotten.
The principal barriers to obtaining
legislation in favor of woman suffrage
in the states, she maintained, are the
constitutions of the states themselves.
She said that if a national amendment
could be secured, enfranchising women
it would take twenty-five years for the
states separately to change their constitutions so as to allow woman suffrage. She gave several examples of
this, illustrating by the example of
New Mexico and Illinois.
Following Mrs. Funk's address, a
collection was taken, for the purpose
of defraying the expenses of the convention. Then the speakers mixed
with the audience, and Knoxville women were given a chance to meet personally suffrage celebrities.
Says the Omaha Daily News-- "Rarely has the lash of the "Interest" been swung more effectively over the backs of the representatives of the people of the state, than was the case last week in the Nebraska legislature when telegrams and telephone calls poured in on representatives demanding that they vote against equal suffrage. The result was defeat, by vote of 50 to 49. However the Nebraska suffragists will also appeal to the initiative, and are already preparing their petitions. The Missouri suffragists were disappointed but not surprised last week, when their amendment was referred to committee through the pressure brought to bear upon the various senators by the liquor men, who fear that the State will go "dry" if women are allowed to vote. In case the legislature also refuses to submit the measure, the women will invoke the initiativem feeling confident that they can secure the requisite number of names to their petitions.
