Attorney L. D. Miller of Chattanooga introduced the bill in the House and conducted the fight for it. It passed the third and final reading April 3 by 52 ayes, 32 noes. Speaker Seth M. Walker of Wilson county became a convert and eloquent advocate, leaving his desk to plead for it. [See Ratification.]
After the bill had been cleverly put to sleep by the President of the Senate, Andrew Todd, by referring it to the hostile Judiciary Committee, Senator E. N. Haston, who was its sponsor, secured enough votes to overrule his action and put it in the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which reported in favor. The enemies were led by Senator J. Parks Worley. The hardest fight that ever took place in the Senate was waged, and the outcome was not certain until Judge Douglas Wikle of Williamson county cast the deciding vote in favor, making the result on April 16, ayes, 17; noes, 14, a bare majority. At 10:30 the following morning Governor Roberts affixed his signature to the Act conferring upon women the right to vote for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States and in the Municipal elections throughout the State. More than half a million women were thus far enfranchised.[1]
Conspicuous and persistent among the enemies of the bill outside of the Legislature were U. S. Senator John K. Shields and Judge Vertrees. The latter, claiming to represent "others" filed a writ of injunction in the Chancery Court to test the validity of the law. Attorney General Frank M. Thompson and other able lawyers defended this suit, which was hotly contested, and this court, by Chancellor James B. Newman, in June declared the law unconstitutional. The case was appealed to the State Supreme Court, which in July, 1919, reversed this decision and declared the law valid.
When the Supreme Court rendered this decision the regular biennial registration was only ten days off and it was at the hottest period of the summer, when many women and most of the suffrage officials were out of town, but the registration was large in all the cities. In Nashville about 7,500 registered; in Knoxville about 7,000, and the type of those who presented
- ↑ Mrs. Frances Fort Brown of Nashville left a bequest of $3,000 to the National American Woman Suffrage Association and its board of officers appropriated enough of it to pay the expenses of this suit.
