Posted 10:23 pm Monday, November 05, 2012
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Tylerites advocated for women's suffrage movement
With Election Day on Tuesday, the eyes of people around the nation and the world, for that matter, will be focused on the outcomes. But almost a century ago, the women of this nation were fighting for a say in the affairs of their world be it who should be president, working wages and hours, alcohol issues or educational ones.
As the women's suffrage movement gained momentum during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Smith County women played a role in helping further the cause.
In 1893, Tyler resident Mary Louise McKellar Herndon "was among many who signed a call for a convention to meet in Dallas to organize an Equal Suffrage Association for Texas, and to elect delegates to the World's Fair Convention of the National American Suffrage Association," according to research by Vicki Betts, professional librarian at the Robert R. Muntz Library at The University of Texas at Tyler.
At 53, Ms. Herndon was president of the northeastern division of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the wife of a former congressman and a leading member of First Baptist Church, Ms. Betts writes. In addition, she was a pre-Civil War graduate of Baylor when it was in Independence and the mother of eight grown children.
It was Ms. Herndon who in 1913 invited anyone interested to meet at her home to start the Smith County Equal Suffrage League.
Birdie Johnson, a veteran leader in several other organizations, agreed to serve as the league's first president.
The organization grew and local residents represented its cause at the state level.
Ms. Herndon's daughter, Elizabeth Herndon Potter, spoke about their efforts during a 1914 state convention in Dallas.
"The reason we want the feminine way of thinking directly expressed at the ballot box is because it is so different from the masculine method of approach toward any subject ..." she said, according to Ms. Betts' research. "It is not antagonistic; it merely rounds out the other half of the circle of life."
Although enthusiasm remained constant among some of the suffragists, it fluctuated among many others, much to the discontentment of those leading the effort.
"Tyler is a discouraging place -- people so enthusiastic over a thing for a short time, but it lacks continuity of effort," Ms. Potter wrote in a letter to headquarters in December 1914. "One must constantly pull them up out of a slough of despond."
When the state Legislature was in session, the cause naturally gained momentum. And in Tyler, this meant a greater push to educate the public.
"Tyler never had a suffrage march," Ms. Betts writes. "No woman ever chained herself to a tree downtown, or starved herself. Tyler was too conservative for that, and the ladies knew that they would antagonize more voters, all (of course) men, with those tactics than they might win."
Instead, the local suffragists hosted national speakers, showed a silent film, and wrote columns that appeared in the Tyler Paper, all designed to show people why women should have the right to vote.
The reasons for opposition were many. Some felt giving women the right to vote would distract them from tending to matters at home, Ms. Betts writes. Others saw government and politics as a man's world and something that would corrupt women, according to The Handbook of Texas online.
"In the minds of many Texans, woman suffrage was more than a political issue," A. Elizabeth Taylor writes in the online handbook. "It was a dangerous threat to the social order."
Suffragists countered, saying women were citizens and taxpayers and as such deserved a voice in government affairs. Voting would help them "function more effectively in their traditional roles," according to the handbook.
For four straight Legislative sessions, from 1911 to 1917, a resolution to enfranchise woman was introduced, but failed to pass the necessary hurdles to become law.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson wrote Ms. Potter expressing his hope that the Texas Legislature would give women the right to vote in primaries. And that year, it did. Charles B. Metcalfe, a state representative from San Angelo, introduced the bill that passed the House 84-34 and the Senate 18-4.
Primary suffrage did not require a state constitutional amendment and therefore did not have to go before voters, according to The Handbook of Texas online.
Birdie Johnson, president of the Smith County Equal Franchise League, was the first woman to register to vote in Smith County, according to Ms. Betts' research. Statewide, 386,000 women registered to vote in the first 17 days after the bill became law, according to the online handbook.
An estimated 3,000 Smith County women voted on July 27,1918, the first primary for which they had opportunity, according to the Tyler Daily Courier-Times.
Of those, 1,500 registered in Tyler, the newspaper reported.
But women still could not vote in general elections. In 1919, Gov. William P. Hobby supported a state constitutional amendment that would grant women the full right to vote. But it also would strip the voting rights from foreign-born residents who were not naturalized citizens but had filed paperwork declaring their intention to become a citizen.
The amendment passed by a large margin in Tyler and by a small margin at the county level. However, it failed statewide by 25,000 votes.
Suffragists attributed the defeat to the second factor that would have pulled voter rights from foreign-born, non-citizen residents.
A breakdown of votes showed counties with large noncitizen populations overwhelmingly opposed the proposed amendment, according to the online handbook.
Less than two weeks later, the federal constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote was sent to the states for approval.
On June 24, 1918, the Texas House voted for woman's suffrage 96-21. Despite some opposition, the Senate approved it four days later, according to the online handbook. Texas became the ninth state and the first of the former Confederate states to ratify what would become the 19th amendment to the Constitution.
On Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment and, because it achieved approval from three-fourths of the states, it became a part of the U.S. Constitution. Women thus gained the equal right to vote with men in every state in the U.S.
