New-York tribune., 1920-03-28
Eyes of Nation
On Delaware i'm
Suffrage Fight
Pressure ON Republican
Leaders to Aid Ratifica-
tion on Theory Party Is
Responsible for Result
Pros Still Hope to Win
Atmosphere Of Ancient Ira
dition at Dover; School
Code Complicates Issue
By Emma Busbee

The political limelight is shining on
the State of Delaware as 1t never shone
before, for on the votes Of handful
of peach growers and country lawyers
on the ratification Of the Federal suf-
frage amendment rests the prestige OF
the Republican party in the minds Of
100000 women who will be voters
next fall.
Will the party allow the suffrage
amendment to fail In the thirty-sixth
state? That Is the question which
brought United States Senator Ball up
from Washington to consult with the
Governor of Delaware yesterday.
which sent T. Coleman du Pont, Re-
publican national committeeman, hur-
rying from New York to Wilmington,
and which kept the wires busy relay
ing stern calls from Republicans Of
prominence all over the country.
The Delaware Legislature is two
thirds Republican and the Governor
is a Republican. That places the re-
sponsibility squarely up to the Repub
hcan leadership, suffragists insist.
They are laboring with Daniel Layton,
chairman Of the Republican State Com
mittee, who is the bitterest enemy Of
suffrage in the state.
This Republican opportunity, in ad-
throughout the Country that the
"woman's hour has come" would seem
to be sufficient to guarantee ratifca-
ton. 1t would seem incredible that a
state so small and SO strongly Repub
lican could interfere with the votes Of
women in the Presidential election.
That is why, in spite of all the sur
fuences. the suffrage leaders still be-
lieve Delaware will fall into line.
Pancakes for Breakfast
1t is only when one goes into the
peach orchards and down to the slum
sections of Wilmington that he dis
covers that Delaware. for all its Re-
publicanism. is still Southern state.
They give you pancakes for breakfast
. in the hotels as invariably as they give
you water, and the legand of "our fine
old families" is on every ones tongue.
Dover boasts a beautiful Colonial
state house which is joy to artists.
and bears in every corner dim old
portrait or a bronze tablet commemo-
rating some hero of the early days Of
the Republic. Washington reviews the
Dover farmers marching off to war
in a great mural painting in the
Senate chamber, while the statue of
Caesar Rodney, the patriot who saved
the Declaration Of independence by
midnight ride more dramatic and
perhaps more important than Paul
Revere's, watches every statesman of
to-day as he rattles to the state house
in the village omnibus.
Next door to the state house is a
quaint, low ceilinged brick house,
matted with vines, which is equally a
part of Delaware's history, for in it
for two hundred years the Ridgleys
have lived-statesmen, every one of
them. 1t is from this house that Mrs.
Henry D. Ridgley, president of the
Delaware Equal Suffrage Association,
steps across the walk every day to
watch over the deliberations of the
suffrage session of the Legislature.
bearing name glorious in Delaware's
history, Mrs. Florence Bayard Hilles,
president of the Delaware branch of
the National Woman's Party.
The chairman of the legislative COM
mttee of the Equal Suffrage Associa-
tion is Miss Leah Burton, who comes
from Lewes, and is descendant Of
brother of Caesar Rodney. The famous
Cesar himself never married and the
reason was that his beautiful Tory
sweetheart detained him by deceit
when he should have been in Philadel-
phia signing the Declaration of 1nde-
pendence and necessitated his all night
ride after he found out her trickery
The suffragists of Delaware are glad
he never forgave that Tory. They re-
mind the ants of it every chance they
get and even use it on hesitating anti
suffrage members Of the House who are
known to have political ambitions for
the future.
But all this fine atmosphere Of
ancient tradition is dispelled when one
steps beyond the state house green in
Dover. The streets are lined with
muddy farm wagons and decrepit auto
mobiles. Two negroes driving a rat
tling car dash around the postofice
corner on the wrong side of the traffic
signal, plunging headlong into another r
automobile. No one thinks' it strange.