fficers of the league to Tallahassee. Its
president, Mrs. Roselle C. Cooley, said in her report: "The House of
Representatives decided to hear us in a Committee of the Whole, at an
evening session. In this case it meant the whole House, the whole
Senate and the whole town. Seats, aisles, the steps of the Speaker's
rostrum were filled, windows had people sitting in them and in the
hall as far as one could see people were standing on chairs to hear
the first call for the rights of women ever uttered in the Capitol of
Florida. Four women and three men spoke, the vote of the committee was
publicly called at the close of the speaking and the bill passed into
the House of Representatives without recommendation. Weary days and
weeks of waiting, time wasted on petty legislation, members going home
for week-ends and not returning for Monday work kept us still anxious.
At length the bill was called and the vote was 26 ayes to 38 noes.

"As we were leaving for our homes on Saturday evening a Senator said:
'If you will come into the Senate we will show those men how to treat
ladies.' So we went back on Monday and were fortunate in having for
our sponsor Senator Cone of Columbia county, the leader of the
Senate. He took up our bill, placed it on the special calendar and
advised us in our procedure, the bill having come into the Senate with
favorable recommendation from the committee. Again the weary waiting,
the petty legislation, the filibustering of the 'corporation' members
and the whisky men, and at last a motion to postpone indefinitely was
carried by one majority, 15 to 16, the sixteenth man being one who had
been with us from the first until this moment."

The Legislature meets every two years and in 1915 the State
association, which had now sixteen well organized branches, was
sponsor for the bill, or resolution, and a large number of legislators
had promised their support. Hearings were granted by both Houses, but
it was defeated.

In 1917 strenuous efforts were again made in behalf of a State
constitutional amendment. Mrs. William Jennings Bryan, who now had a
winter home in Florida, was among those who addressed the Legislature
in favor of it, and on April 23 the resolution to submit the amendment
passed the Senate by 23 to 7. The struggle was then begun in the House
but the corporate and liquor interests combined with the
non-progressive character of many of the members accomplished its
defeat.

In April, 1919, the