rtrude Weil, Goldsboro; Mrs. Malcolm Platt, Asheville; corresponding
secretary, Miss Bynum; recording secretary, Miss Liddell; treasurer,
Mrs. David Stern, Greensboro. Mrs. Lila Meade Valentine, president of
the Virginia Equal Suffrage League, was the principal speaker. A
charter was subsequently obtained for the Equal Suffrage League of
North Carolina, Inc., the charter members numbering about 200 men and
women, representing every class and section in the State. The League
became auxiliary to the National Association. At this time, when it
was far from popular to stand for this cause, Judge Walter Clark,
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Gen. Julian S. Carr, Archibald
Henderson, Wade Harris and E. K. Graham acted as Advisory Committee
and gave freely of their time and money to help the new league.

The first annual State convention was held in Charlotte, Nov. 9-10,
1914, Mrs. Henderson presiding. During this first year Mrs. Medill
McCormick, chairman of the Congressional Committee of the National
Association, was of the greatest assistance in many ways. She sent an
organizer, Miss Lavinia Engle, who, with Mrs. Henderson, distributed
literature throughout the State and organized a number of branches.
The State League recorded itself as opposed to "militancy" in any form
and as desiring "to gain the vote by appeal to reason and fair play."
The Charlotte _Observer_ carried a four-page suffrage section
advertising the convention. Keener interest throughout the State,
together with the existence of fourteen leagues, represented the net
result of this first year's work. The officers were re-elected except
that Mrs. Palmer Jerman of Raleigh was made recording secretary and
Miss Mary Shuford of Hickory corresponding secretary. Delegates
appointed to the national convention at Nashville, Tenn., were: Misses
Bynum, Liddell and Mary Henderson.

The second annual convention met at the Battery Park Hotel, Asheville,
Oct. 29, 1915. Mrs. Nellie Nugent Somerville of Mississippi, a
vice-president of the National Association, gave an address. During
the year Mrs. Desha Breckinridge of Kentucky, also a national
vice-president, spoke several times in the State. Mrs. Henderson had
sent a vigorous protest in the name of the league to Miss Alice Paul,
chairman of the Congressional Union, against her coming into North
Carolina to organize branches, saying that its policy was
diametrically opposed to that of the State Suffrage League, whose