al suffrage convention in March.

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.

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[168], 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 themselves everywhere was of the highest
and best. Contrary to all predictions the negro women did not flock to
the polls. They voted but in comparatively few numbers and the records
show that only the better educated were interested. Their vote proved
to be a