rristown, October 21, 22. Miss Sue S.
White was elected secretary, Mrs. Hardy State organizer and the other
officers continued. At the national convention in Washington in
November Miss Wester and Mrs. Ford represented Tennessee on the
"committee of one hundred," which, led by Mrs. Medill McCormick,
chairman of the National Congressional Committee, called upon
President Wilson to enlist his assistance. That year and each
succeeding year letters, telegrams and petitions were sent to the
President and to the Tennessee Representatives in Congress urging
their support of the Federal Amendment. One petition from Chattanooga
bore a thousand signatures.

By 1914 the six largest cities in the State were organized and the
majority of the clubs celebrated National Suffrage Day, May 2, with
parades and open air meetings to the amazement and interest of the
people. The Chattanooga parade, with a brass band, ended at the Court
House where the steps of that building were aglow with yellow bunting.
Mrs. Wesley Martin Stoner of Washington, D. C., was the principal
speaker and Mrs. Ford, the local president, read the following
resolution: "We, citizens of Chattanooga, voice our demand that women
citizens of the United States be accorded the full right of
citizenship." The silence was breathless as the sound of the "ayes"
died away and not a voice was raised to say "no." Other speakers were
Mayor Jesse M. Littleton, L. P. Barnes, Attorney J. J. Lynch, the
Reverends Charles H. Myers, L. R. Robinson and Dr. Daniel E. Bushnell.
The State Federation of Women's Clubs in convention at Pulaski voted
down a suffrage resolution, though the president, Mrs. George W.
Denney, favored it.

From March to May 13 there was a spirited controversy as to whether
the annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association should meet in Chattanooga, which city had invited it, or
in Nashville, which had not. Miss Elliott, who was ill, resigned and
Mrs. McCormack took charge of the State work. Chattanooga won the
convention on the first vote of the State board but after balloting
by the clubs through telegrams for several weeks and much
misunderstanding it met in Nashville the next November. The annual
convention was held in Knoxville October 28-30, when there was a
separation of the State forces, Mrs. Crozier French and her following
leaving the convention, taking three clubs with them and organizing
the "Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association