Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1920-07-28
They Turn to Tennessee

WHETHER the Legislature of the Vol
wv unteer State will provide the thirty
sixth vote necessary to ratify the nineteenth
or suffrage amendment to the Federal Con-
sttution is still an unanswcrable question,
notwithstanding the pressure which is being
laid upon the legislators who will soon as
somblc in extra session at Nashville. There
is decidedly reasonable doubt as to the dis
position of these men to violate the laws of
their own State i'll order to force female suf-
fragc on Il group of States which do not
want it and have refused by their own votes
to have it.
1t is quite true that all the high priests
anu nigh pricstesSes of the suffrage cause
are moving upon the Tennessee capital.
They are arriving by the score and will
execute as skillful and as braZen Il piece
OF lobbying as the country has witnessed.
BACK OF these lobbyists. moreover, are the
political influences which persuaded Cover
nor Roberts TO call an extra session OF his
Legislature to consider the amendment.
There arc high and mighty Democratic
leaders whispering one minute and shouting
the next to the Democratic members of the
Legislature that the vote of Tennessee on
the side of women will bring to the Cox
Roosevelt ticket the support Of millions OF
women voters now waiting TO see to which
party they will owe their right to vote
There are powerful Republican leaders
warning the Republican members Of the
same Legislature that if the latter fail TO
have hand in ratifying the amendment
the G. o. p. may never recover from the
shock.
Also there are local considerations which
will weigh. The Tennessee Legislature al
ready has enfranchsed the women of its
State. Many of these women will punish
legislators who fail to so one step further
ana entranchise the women OF the whole
country, including five six million igno-
rant negro women of the South. Certain
ambitious party leaders in the State, in
Guiding Senator Mcclellan, will implore the
Legislature to act favoraby upon the
amendment and will use all their personal
influence TO that end.
In view OF all these facts, it would seem
more or less certain that the Tennessee
General Assembly would ratity and yet
there Is another side TO the picture. The
State Constitution prohibits action upon a
Federal amendment by Il Legislature elect
ed before such an amendment was submitted
10 the State. An acting Attorney General
of the United States has held that this
State enactment is not binding but no
word 10 that effect has come from the
United States Supreme Court or the State
Supreme Court, the only tribunals which
nave q right to pronounce !, provision Of
the Tennessee Constitution imperative.
Senator John X. Shields, OF Tennessee.
who, before he went to Washington, was
Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme
Court, is said to he unalterably opposed to
ratification by the Legislature of his State
and 10 have advised his friends at Nashville
that the acting Attorney-G General is abso-
lutely unwarrantcd i'll moving to nullify
section OF the Tennessee Constitution
Moreover, when the Nashville sitting
begins there will be delegations from non
ratitying States appearing before the Ten
nessee legislators TO oppose any action that
would force womans suffrage upon States
that do not want it, the same delegations
perhaps that appeared at Baton Rouge and
At Dover when Louisiana and Delaware
Legislatures had the question of ratification
under adviscmcnt That there will he n
stubborn fight on the banks OF Cumberland
before the Tennessee Legislature has adj
lournod appears TO be certain.