Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/129

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FLORIDA
115

suffragists and correspondence with Mrs. Cooley, president of the Jacksonville league, arrangements were made for calling a convention to organize a State association at Orlando at the time of the meeting of the State Federation of Women's Clubs. This took place Nov. 4, 1913, Miss Safford was chairman, Mrs. Isabel Stanley secretary of the convention and addresses were made by women from half a dozen towns. A committee was appointed to draft a constitution and by-laws which reported at an adjourned meeting on the 6th, when they were adopted and the following officers for the State Equal Suffrage Association were elected: President, Miss Safford, Orlando; first vice-president, Mrs. C. J. Huber, Webster; second, Mrs. Ella Chamberlain, Tampa; third, Miss Caroline Brevard, Tallahassee; corresponding secretary, Miss Elizabeth Askew, Tampa; recording secretary, Miss Frances B. Anderson, Jacksonville; treasurer, Mrs. John Schnarr, Orlando; auditors, Mrs. Anna Andrus, Miami, and Mrs. J. M. Thayer, Orlando.

In 1914 Miss Safford published a bulletin, showing that the State Association had auxiliaries in Jacksonville, Lake Helen, Orlando, Zellwood, Pine Castle, Winter Park, Pensacola, Milton, Miami, Tampa, and a Men's Equal Suffrage League in Orlando with Mayor E. F. Sperry as president and Justin Van Buskirk as secretary. Miss Kate M. Gordon, president of the Southern Woman's Suffrage Conference, had held a successful meeting in Jacksonville. The Orlando League had had a float in the trades' parade of the midwinter fair and a booth at the fair where the names of voters in favor of submitting a State suffrage amendment were obtained. It had had "teas" for replenishing the treasury and closed the year with a banquet complimentary to the Men's League. A committee was preparing a program on the laws of the State for the next year's work. The Pensacola league was arranging to issue a special edition of the Journal and have a booth at the tri-county fair. Most of the leagues had formed classes to study history and the duties of citizenship and had distributed literature and some of them had held a celebration on May 2, as the National Association had requested.

The first annual convention, held at Pensacola, Dec. 8-10, 1914, stressed the pledging of candidates for Congress and