NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1914
399
She spoke of memories which made Nashville dear to the whole country; referred to the merry barbecue which had been held for their entertainment the preceding day "at the old mansion of that great Democrat, Andrew Jackson," and continued:
When his Honor the Mayor spoke of the hope that if women entered into the political life of our country conditions would be made better, I forgot the North and turned back in memory to the great South, where no stronger argument in favor of our cause can be found than the women themselves. It is not the men who have made this nation what it is, it is the men and the women, and in no part of it have women contributed more than in the South. When we look back over its past history; when we see the land barren, the desolation everywhere; when we see the homes left destitute and the women prostrate by the graves of their dead; when we realize that the men were nearly all swept away—we know that the power which kept the South steadfast, which held the homes together, which cherished the traditions, which made the South what it is today was the loyalty, the patriotism, the unconquerable courage and the devotion of Southern women in that hour of darkness and despair. Had it not been for the new spirit of action born of the necessity of the times in the character of Southern women to inspire Southern men with hope and courage, desolation would still be over the South. They evolved from within themselves a power which no one knows that women possess until some hour of extreme trial calls it forth. Never has there been a test of human endurance and wisdom to which women have not responded and become the inspiration and the strength of manhood. If any women of this nation have ever bought their freedom and paid a dear price for it, it is the women of the Southland.
I cannot see how any man who calls himself a Democrat can fail to recognize that the fundamental principle of democracy is the right of the citizen to a voice in the government under which that citizen lives; much less can I understand how any southern man can look unmoved into the face of southern women knowing that they are branded as no other body of intelligent people in this country are—by disfranchisement—that they are deprived of that one symbol of power which elevates the citizens of a democracy out of the class of the defective and unfit. The only way men can redeem themselves, the only way they can be honest American citizens and Democrats is to stand by the fundamental principle of democracy— that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"—"governed" women as well as "governed" men. When Nashville and Tennessee and the South and the North and the East and the West shall stand on this basic principle of just government, then we shall have a republic, a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
At the close of the address this resolution was enthusiastically
