Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/545

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OKLAHOMA
529

distribution of the usual "anti" literature, attempting to link the suffragists with Germans and with the negro vote. Miss Charlotte Rowe of Yonkers, N. Y., representing the National Anti-Suffrage Association, remained in Oklahoma during most of the campaign but their work was scattered and ineffectual.

The election took place Nov. 8, 1918, and the amendment received a majority of 25,428 of the votes cast on it. It had a majority of 9,791 of the highest number of votes cast at the election, a record that never had been equalled in any State. After the National League of Women Voters was organized at the convention of the National American Suffrage Association in March, 1919, a State League was formed in Oklahoma with Mrs. Phil Brown of Muskogee chairman.


Report of Mrs. Shuler to the Board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association on the Oklahoma Campaign.

Against the advice of the National Board with conditions adverse as they were in Oklahoma the legislative committee of the State Federation of Women's Clubs and some members of the State suffrage board secured the submission of an amendment to the voters in 1917 and appealed for help to the National Association. It found that the Oklahoma association was not organized as in other States with the club as the unit but was composed of individual memberships and was not an auxiliary of the National Association, not having paid dues for several years. After obtaining the submission there seemed to be a desire on the part of the women to waive all responsibility for the campaign, but they said that if the National Association considered the winning of it a necessity to its program, it should assume the entire financial responsibility.

On Jan. 19, 1918, Mrs. Nettie Rogers Shuler, corresponding secretary and chairman of campaigns and surveys; Mrs. T. T. Cotnam of Arkansas and Mrs. Charles H. Brooks of Kansas, directors of the National American Association, reached Oklahoma City. Several conferences were held with the State board none of whose members could give all their time to the campaign, although two would work for salary and expenses. It was evident