Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-06-17
DEMOCRATS VOTE
|. STATE BY State
\ SUFFRAGE PLANK
Bourbon Convention Adjourns After
Bitter Fight Over Question Of
Favoring Franchise for
Women.
RPLATF0RM FINALLY APPROVED
Stone, Sleepless for Over Thirty
4. Hours, Gives Report to
2 Walsh to Read.
WILSON GETS WHAT HE WANTS
PLATFORM FINALLY APPROVED
WILSON GETS WHAT HE WANTS

St. Louis, June l6.-The democratic
national convention finished its work
today by adopting the party platform
exactly as approved by President Will
son and submitted by the resolutions
committee, including the planks on
Americanism and favoring woman
suffrage, but not until the harmony
of its three days session had been
rippled with row over the suffrage
plank.
No voice was raised against the
vigorous declarations of the Ameri-
canisrl plank. AT one time it looked
as if the, suffrage plank had been
lost, but Senator Walsh of Montana
had told the convention that Presi-
dent Wilson himself had considered
it vital to party success it was voted
into the platform by ballot of 8SSH
to 1879.
> Adopted Without Roll Call.
The whole platform was then
adopted without roll call. As it went
into the platform the suffrage plank
stands:
1--WE favor the extension of the
franchise to the women of this coun-
try, state by state, in the same terms
as to the men,"
The woman suffrage leaders consid-
cred it much more favorable decla-
ration than they got from the repub-
lican convention at Chicago. They
threw all their force behind it, and
won the support of the administra-
ton leaders, who were found fight
ing for them when danger threatened.
Haggard and worn from an all
night session, the platform makers
were not ready with their report until
afternoon, when Senator Stone, sleep-
less for more than thirty hours, took
the speakers stand and, explaining
that he was too tired to read the
document. gave over this task to Sen
ator Walsh Of Montana and Senator
Hollis of New Hampshire. They
Spelled" each other reading the long
declaration. r.-.- -."
Fight Is in Air.
The fight on the suffrage platform
was in the air. Everybody was keyed
up to it and when, at the conclusion
Of the reading of the platform, Martin
Lomasney of Boston delegate,
claimed the attention of the chair,
it was thought that he was opening
the fight, and it was several minutes
before the shouts of approval and
cries of disapproval could be stilled
sufficiently to hear that he wanted
to put the convention on record as
sympathizing with "the people of Ire
land"
"Raus nit emf roared Baltimore
delegate, and the convention hall
rocked with laughter"
The real fight broke Immediately
after, however, when Governor Fer
guson of Texas, who headed the
minority report against the admins
tration plank, was given thirty min-
ltes in which to present it.
The Suffrage Plank.
The plank offered by the minority
was this:
THE democratic party has always
stood for the sovereignty of the sew
eral states in the control and regula-
ton of elections. We reaffirm the
historic position of our party in this
regard and favor the continuance of
that wise provision of the federal con-
stitution which vests in the several
states of the union the power to pre-
scribe the qualifications of their
electors"
With Governor Ferguson, it was
signed by former Representative Bart
lett of Georgia, James R. Nugent of
New Jersey and Stephen B. Fleming
Of Fort Wayne, Ind.
The burden of Governor Ferguson's
argument was that suffrage, being
purely states right question, the
wording the majority plank was a
presumptuous recommendation to the