This photo in a full-page feature entitled "Woman Suffrage -- a five-generation fight for equality" published in the Rome News-Tribune on Sunday, August 26, 1973. It was one in a long series of full-page features written by Roger Aycock and appearing on the back page of the front section of the paper on Sundays. Sheila, who had previously been a reporter for the paper, had researched the suffrage movement in Floyd County previously and we had made a display about the movement at the Carnegie Library..
Here is a transcript of the Article with scans from the article interspersed.
Woman suffrage—a five-generation fight for equality
Roger Aycock — News-Tribune staff writer
Rome News-Tribune • Sunday, August 26, 1973
“EQUAL SUFFRAGE for women is not new, friend husband,” Miss Madelyn J. S. Wyly wrote in the Rome
Tribune-Herald of January 31, 1915. “It is just your knowledge of it that is recent.”
She spoke from long experience and strong conviction, both as a talented writer and as president of the Rome
Woman Suffrage Association, at whose meetings she presided over a membership of 250 ladies called together by a
common determination to win their rightful places in the world of everyday affairs.
In her regular bi-weekly newspaper column titled “Woman Suffrage,” Miss Wyly pointed out particular instances
to support her claim: women of Massachusetts had exercised the privilege of restricted balloting for 90 years, until
again disfranchised in 1807 by the congress; taxpaying widows in Sweden enjoyed municipal franchise in the 1860’s;
England had municipal suffrage for women in 1869, and Scotland, Ireland and other foreign countries had granted
voting rights to women.
IN THE United States women by 1915 already voted in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, California, Iowa, Kansas,
Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada on an equal rights basis. The movement to guarantee
equal rights under the United States Constitution had by February of 1915 moved the West Virginia legislature to
ratify a suffrage amendment by a vote of 76 to eight, with Texas, Tennessee, New Jersey, Arkansas and Pennsylvania
following suit. Territorial Wyoming (which entered the Union in 1890) had provided equal rights for women in 1869.
Along with other Southern and Eastern states, Georgia stubbornly resisted the steady pressure of feminist
organizations.
“In Georgia,” Miss Wyly’s column pointed out, “as in 12 other non-suffrage states, a man may will away his
minor children without the consent of their mother . . . Only last year Tennessee and Texas abolished an old law
transferring a woman’s property to her husband upon marriage—a law that is still in effect in Louisiana, constituting
an effective get-rich-quick scheme for men only . . .”
Only Arizona, California, Colorado and Washington had by 1915 enacted eight-hour-a-day work laws applying to
women, though 25 states enforced such laws for men. Suffragette states required equal pay for equal work, and set the
age of consent for girls at 18. In seven non-suffragette states, Miss Wyly reminded her readers, this equivocal limit
was set at age 14; one state drew the line at 12, and a single unnamed state permitted the age to drop to seven.
MUCH ATTENTION was drawn to Washington State, which on February 20, 1915, enacted a law establishing a
minimum wage of $10 a week for women in clerical office work.
“The commission there determined that $10 is a living wage, placing the receiver above want and above the
excuse of sacrificing herself for the necessities of life,” Miss Wyly wrote. “Other callings besides office work are
being investigated . . .”
The matter might well be taken up by the Georgia legislature, she concluded, since “employers here can pay
women for their work as little as they will stand for . . .”
Great interest in women’s rights was roused by the showing at Rome’s Bonita Theatre (on the site of today’s J. C.
Penney Store at 233-237 Broad Street) of an early silent movie sponsored by the Rome Woman Suffrage Association;
produced by the World Film Company under Selznick direction, this epic, according to a critical review in the
Tribune-Herald of February 23, 1915, smashed all records with its “seven pulse-throbbing acts” at 5 and 10 cents
admission.
IN THIS story a beautiful young suffragette advocate married a calculating suitor who invoked numerous state
laws to oppress his new bride; a review by Rome critic “Hapaid” described the plot as “including an exciting
hand-to-hand fight between a man and a woman, a quick march of events from a wedding to a murder and an auto
abduction scene that breaks all former speed records.”
January of 1915 was a crucial time for the equal rights movement. Supported by the Woman’s Club of Rome
(chartered at the county courthouse on March 18, 1896 by 25 prominent ladies of the community including Mrs.
Hallie Alexander Rounsaville, Mrs. Annie Gillespie Johnson, Mrs. Beulah Shropshire Moseley, Miss Martha Berry,
Mrs. Jennie Elliott Printup and Mrs. A. Holmes Cheney) and by the Nibelung Study Club, the militant Rome
Woman’s Suffrage Association maintained a steady pressure for recognition for its aims and support of its legislation.
Turning to state recognition, the National American Woman’s Suffrage announced through Chairman Mrs. Medill
McCormick that it was launching an intensified campaign for passage of the Shafroth-Palmer Resolution in the
Sixty-Fourth Congress, calling for a referendum in all states upon demand by eight per cent of voters.
The nation’s women were not the only victims of official opposition. The union movement suffered as well; the
United States Supreme Court, by a newspaper account of January 26, 1915, ruled that employers could legally require
employees to renounce union affiliations as a condition of employment—a ruling upheld by Chief Justice Charles
Evans Hughes, Justice William R. Day and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
LOCALLY, THE ladies of the Rome Woman’s Suffrage Association, in conjunction with the Woman’s Club, the
Club of the Nibelung and other cultural groups, planned a special suffrage edition of the Woman’s Magazine. This
monthly periodical, edited and published by Mrs. Beulah Shropshire Moseley (editor also of the older Rome Georgian
newspaper, founded in November of 1897), apparently appeared monthly, since the Woman Suffrage Edition
(masthead reproduced on this page) was numbered Volume Two, Number Eleven.
Its masthead page also stated the essence of the woman suffrage principle in a few brief lines: “In the dark ages, a
council of 74 men dignitaries was called to decide the issue of whether women had souls. Following a long and
serious debate, ballots were taken, and a majority of one vote . . . souls were granted to women. Had the rules of the
United States Congress been in operation, requiring a two-thirds majority . . . the providing of souls for women would
have met with a crushing defeat, and who knows what its status would be today?”
OTHER TERSE barbs declared: “It is said that a woman’s place is in the home, but a better place to vote from has
never been found . . . Women have every right to the only weapon of free government, the ballot.”
A one-page symposium included statements by such prominent business and professional men as Dr. E. A.
Osborne, publisher J. D. McCartney, D. J. Meyerhardt and Dr. W. J. Shaw. Mr. and Mrs. Taul White’s infant son,
Bradford, lent support with the motto: “I’m not a common baby, but a suffragette in arms.”
The greater portion of the special issue of March, 1915 was taken up by regular coverage of local women’s club
activities and personal mentions, but essential tenor of the edition was that of Miss Wyly’s editorial—the need of
women for legal justice and equal rights.
Successful printing of the special issue stemmed from the work of actively interested Rome women, including
contributions by the Rome Woman’s Club under President Mrs. A. W. Van Hoose, Club of the Nibelung President
Mrs. Charles R. Pitner, of the Mothers’ Club, Dramatic Club, Music Lovers Club and others, coordinated under the
leadership of Rome Woman’s Suffrage Association President Miss Madeline J. S. Wyly and Secretary Mrs. Beulah S.
Moseley.
OTHER ACTIVE association members were Mrs. Taul White, treasurer; Miss Zoe Eastman, Mrs. H. H.
Shackleton, Miss Lucille Watters, Mrs. H. W. Morton, Miss Louise O’Neill (Johnson), Mrs. James F. DeJournette,
Miss Alida Printup, Miss Cordelia Veal, Miss Minnie Rowell, Miss Carolyn Cobb, Miss Medora Field (Perkerson),
later widely known as author of “White Columns of Georgia,” “Who Killed Aunt Maggie” and “Blood on Her Shoe.”
Miss Ellen Penniman was active, as were Miss Jonnie Hine, Miss Sara Hardy and others.
The Rome Tribune-Herald, jointly owned by Colonel J. Lindsay Johnson, Wilson Hardy and Jack D. McCartney,
gave ample attention to the movement, possibly because Mrs. Johnson served as co-editor during the absence of the
Colonel (who, accompanied by his young daughter Letitia, had gone in 1914 as United States Census representative to
the Philippines, dying there in 1915) and saw to the suffrage group’s publicity.
MANY PROMINENT Rome men supported the movement, especially those opposed to the “whiskey interests.”
The Tribune-Herald of January 3, 1915 reported “a brilliant assembly of representative men and women who filled the
parlors of the Third Avenue Hotel on the evening of January 1 in response to invitations issued by the Rome Woman
Suffrage Association to a New Year tea.”
Young girls in yellow gowns (the association’s color) served punch on the balcony set apart by the hotel
management for the group’s meetings. The Reverend T. A. Osborne sang, and Attorney L. A. Dean, of Coligni, spoke
briefly along with John C. Foster and bank president John H. Reynolds. Mrs. H. H. Shackleton (whose husband,
representing Michigan industrialist R. G. Peters, helped to build the Rome & Northern Railroad in 1909-1910) read a
“peace paper” dealing with the growing threat of World War I.
The sometimes bitter opposition to the woman suffrage movement had its roots in practical issues that do not
obtain today. For example, all women’s organizations then took a strong stand against alcoholic drink, lending power
to the hard-driving male “dry” reformers (Rome’s Seaborn Wright was a powerful figure in that fight, and once was
considered as candidate for vice president of the United States on a Prohibition ticket) who sought to outlaw whiskey,
and wealthy liquor lobbies resisted any legislation that might enable women to vote against their industry.
EDITORIAL REACTION, while respectful enough, often was antagonistic and sometimes caustic. A
Tribune-Herald editorial cited an anti-suffrage dramatist and philanthropist, Mrs. Minnie Sabin Cooper, of another
state:
“Permit us to introduce the Superwoman,” the article began. “She will be beautiful, will have brains and will
prove herself the best wife and mother the world has ever known. She will not be a subman or imitation man. Mrs.
Cooper says, ‘For the last 50 years women have been trying hard to be like men . . . but we shall have to get two
things straight in our minds: first, we are as important as men, and, second, that importance will be manifested in
different ways to achieve its full effectiveness . . . The ideal wife is one who is able to provide for her husband’s
mental and spiritual comfort as well as for his material wellbeing . . .’”
On January 17 a “Farmer Radford” column in the Tribune-Herald said, in most unfarmerish style: “Our social
structure is built around woman, her crown of exalted womanhood is jeweled with the wisdom of saintly mothers . . .
Her noble achievements should not be blighted by the coarser duties of citizenship . . . American chivalry should
never permit her to bear the burdens of defending and maintaining government, but should preserve her unsullied
from the influence of politics and protect her from the weighty responsibilities of the sordid affairs of life that will
crush her ideals and lower her standards. Political gossip would cause her to neglect the home, forget to mend our
clothes, and burn the biscuits . . .”
A DELEGATION of nearly 100 women visited President Woodrow Wilson on January 7 to ask his support of the
current equal rights amendment. He was expected to answer, as he had done before, that the question should be
determined by states according to their individual preferences.
On January 13, 1915, the Mondell Resolution to submit the woman suffrage amendment for vote was beaten
“after acrimonious debate and a very turbulent scene . . .” Anti-suffrage forces were jubilant, but suffrage leaders still
determined. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and other women’s leaders predicted more favorable result when Congress is
again called to vote on the question . . .
Turning to state recognition, the National American Woman’s Suffrage announced through Chairman Mrs. Medill
McCormick that it was launching an intensified campaign for passage of the Shafroth-Palmer Resolution in the
Sixty-Fourth Congress, calling for a referendum in all states upon demand by eight per cent of voters.
Defeat of the proposed equal rights amendment to the national constitution in January of 1915 was not its first, nor
last. Georgia and a few other states, mainly in the South and East, opposed passage of such legislation; the Susan B.
Anthony right-to-vote bill, proposed to Congress on June 4, 1919, was defeated in the Georgia Senate by a vote of 39
to 10 as late as July of that year.
“This ends the action for the suffrage issue in Georgia at least for this year,” the Rome Tribune-Herald said with
apparent relief, “when the matter will be brought up again next year to the legislature . . .”
The United States Congress passed a comprehensive bill, however, ratifying it to legality on August 26, 1920. Gist
of the bill was: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be abridged by the United States or by any
State on account of sex.”
THAT MOMENTOUS victory is celebrated today by members of NOW (National Organization for Women) as
successors to those resolute older champions of women’s rights.
The Rome chapter of NOW was organized in December of 1972 by Judy Tabor, a Roman who had attended
meetings in Atlanta. Some 20 Rome people, two of them men, attended that first meeting, along with Judy Lightfoot,
then Southern Regional Director of the organization and currently chairman of the national board of directors; Martha
Gaines, Georgia State coordinator, and Linda Farris, then president of the Atlanta NOW group and today a member of
the national board of directors.
Directing itself toward all matters discriminatory to women, Rome’s NOW chapter works primarily toward
ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment approved by Congress in March of 1972. A total of 38 states
(three-fourths majority) is required for ratification; 30 have already voted for ratification, and Georgia is expected to
vote on the issue during its 1974 session.
“In working for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment,” says NOW Secretary Sheila Shaw, a teacher in
the Floyd County School System, “we feel that we are following in the footsteps of our foremothers, the suffragists . .
. who worked not only for the vote but for complete legal equality for women. The ERA was introduced into Congress
in 1923, but that 49-year struggle for ratification is not such a long time when you compare it with the 72 years (dating
from the Women’s Rights Convention of 1848) needed to achieve suffrage.”
ACCEPTANCE OF the Equal Rights Amendment by Congress, and its eventual ratification by the necessary 38
states, would have been hailed with great satisfaction by the ladies of the old Rome Woman’s Suffrage Association,
whose hope for the future was so concisely stated by its president, Miss Madeline J. S. Wyly, in her Tribune-Herald
article of February 14, 1915:
“Woman suffrage is a world-wide movement, a part of the eternal forward march of the human race toward a
complete democracy.”
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