TENNESSEE MAY
SAVE SUFFRAGE
Governor Urged to Include Rati-
fication In Extra Session;
Opinion Given.
Special To The Knoxville Sentinel.
WASHINGTON, June 21.—Tennessee may save the suffrage situation.
A provision in the constitution of
this presidential suffrage state, which
requires that a legislature must be
elected on the question at issue in a
constitutional amendment before it
can vote on ratification has been held
up to this time to prevent that state
from ratifying before 1920 elections.
The decision by the supreme court
in the Ohio referendum case is now
however, according to a statement issued by the National Woman's party
held by the best legal authority to
invalidate that state constitutional
provision—a similar provision also
exist in the constitution of Florida.
Every effort will be made by the
National Woman's party to induce
Governor Roberts of Tennessee to
respond favorably to the resolution
recently passed by the state democratic convention urging him to call
a special session to provide the machinery for women to exercise the
presidential suffrage accorded them
under the state law in the coming
elections and to include in his call
the ratification of the suffrage
amendment.
A letter was sent to him by Miss
Sue White, Tennessee chairman of
the Woman's Party, formally making a request for an immediate special session.
Miss White, who has been in consultation with the solicitor general
of the United States and other legal
authorities stated a the headquarters
of the Woman's Party today:
"I discussed this matter with
Solicitor General of the United
States, W. L. Frierson, a member of
the Tennessee bar and one of the
foremost lawyers of the country.
His official position deters him
from giving a written opnion, and I
have not the authority to quote any
opinion he may have expressed privately, further than to say that from
my construction of all that he said,
I am quite sure he has considered
the question quite carefully and if
in position to express an opinion for
publication it would be to the effect
that ratification by the present
Tennessee legislature would be legal
and proper under the principles laid
down by the supreme court of the
United States in the Ohio case."
Senator Walsh, of Montana in
letter to Miss White dated June 18,
said:
"The question you propound.. . .is
a most interesting one, the proper solution of which is not simple. I am
impressed, hewever, with the view
that it follows logically from the decision of Hawke vs. Smith by the
supreme court of the United States,
popularly known as the Ohio case,
that the attempted restriction in the
Tennessee constitution on the authority of the legislature in that respect in ineffective and inoperative
"There is, in my mind, scarcely
any limit to which one must not go
logically with respect to conditions
and restrictions which may be
thrown about the act of ratification
by the legislature through constitutional provisions, if we admit the
validity of the specific restriction appearing in the Tennessee Constitution."
Joseph W. Folk, also in a letter
to Miss White, expressed a similar
opinion. He said in part: "The
supreme court of the United States
held that the federal constitution
provides the method for its amendment, one of the methods being by
the ratification of the legislatures of
three-fourths of the states. The
court held that this authority of the
federal constitution can not be limited or restricted in any way by pro-
visons of the state constitutions....
"The provision of the Tennessee
constitution in question is clearly an
attempt to require that all proposals
for the amendment of the federal
constitution shall be submtted to a
vote of the people of the state as a
condition precedent to ratification by
the legislature of that state. This is
what the supreme court of the United
States has held could not legally be
done. Therefore, in my opinion,
ratification by a special session of
the legislature, duly called by the
governor, by proclamation including this subject, would answer the
requirements of the federal consti-
tution and be a legal and binding
ratification of the nineteenth amend-
ment.'
Women's Suffrage
