ience of work
in it for the past two years. The president and new board prosecuted
the work so vigorously that during the year there was a 400 per cent.
increase in organizations. Miss Kate Hunter, president of the
Palestine league, gave her entire summer vacation to field work.

In May, 1916, the State convention met in Dallas, re-elected Mrs.
Cunningham to the presidency and instructed the executive committee to
ask for suffrage planks in State and National Democratic platforms.
The name was changed from Woman Suffrage to Equal Suffrage Association
and the Senatorial district plan of organization was adopted,
following the lines of the Democratic party. When the State Democratic
convention met in San Antonio this month to elect a national
committeeman there were scores of women in the galleries proudly
wearing their suffrage colors but Governor James E. Ferguson and
ex-U. S. Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey, both of unhallowed memory,
united their forces and woman suffrage had not a remote chance.

Texas women went to the National Republican convention in Chicago in
June and a sufficient number of them to form half a block in the
"golden lane" at the National Democratic convention in St. Louis. At
the latter Governor Ferguson brought in the minority report of the
Resolutions Committee against a woman suffrage plank in the platform,
and let it be recorded that there were only three other men on the
committee who would sign it, the remainder signing the majority report
placing the plank in the platform. In August the Democratic convention
met in Houston to nominate State candidates and prepare the State
platform. Mrs. Cunningham, Mrs. Helen Moore and Mrs. J. M. Quinnof
appeared before the platform committee and with all the eloquence at
their command urged it to insert a woman suffrage plank or at least to
endorse the National platform. This committee was entirely in the
hands of the liquor ring and Ferguson was czar of the convention, so
woman suffrage was ignored.

Mrs. Edith Hinkle League, the headquarters secretary, shared the
president's ten, twelve and even fourteen-hour days of labor, so that
Mrs. Cummingham was able to leave the office in charge of her and
volunteer assistants while she helped to fill the pressing need of
field workers and organizers. She had the assistance of Miss Lavinia
Engle, one of the National Association's organizers. Despite the lack
of funds when word came of West Virginia's need of Mrs.