United States Senate is hereby respectfully but urgently requested to act immediately and favorably upon the woman suffrage amendment, which has already received proper recognition by the House of Representatives; that such action is in full accordance with enlightened sentiment which sees no reason for further delay."
Unfortunately many friends, both men and women, were misled into believing that it would now be possible to win a complete suffrage victory in Texas, although 260,000 real American voters were away on account of the war and thousands of aliens remained at home to vote. Because of the delay in Congress on the Federal Amendment both Houses submitted by unanimous vote an amendment to the State constitution. It was handicapped by a "rider" which required full naturalization by every foreign-born man before he could vote, instead of merely his first papers as now. This ensured a negative vote from every alien. A telegram to Washington summoned Mrs. Cunningham to return immediately and take command of the campaign, for it would be a Herculean task to manage one successfully in less than three months' time in a State consisting of 253 counties and the vote to be taken May 24. It was impossible for the State association to finance such a campaign and the National Association, although disapproving of the referendum, contributed about $17,000.
President Wilson sent a cablegram from Paris urging the voters to give the amendment their support and the members of his administration used their influence in its favor. The State officials championed it and the party organization of the State and many in the counties put themselves behind it. All of the daily newspapers but one in the four largest cities advocated it. Almost every minister labored earnestly for it, many of them preaching in favor of it. Many excellent women engaged in the campaign, some of them even speaking on the street corners. The district, city and county chairmen of the State suffrage association totaled 400 earnest, active women with whom the headquarters kept in close touch through letters, press bulletins, telephone and telegraph. These chairmen were the medium through which 3,000,000 fliers and 200,000 copies of the Texas Democrat, an excellent paper edited for the occasion by Dr. A. Caswell Ellis of
