Singleton, its secretary, to request of Mrs. Trout and
Mrs. McGraw that the work be directed by the leaders of the State
Equal Suffrage Association, to which they agreed. They went to
Springfield at the beginning of the session in 1917 and a struggle
followed that lasted over ten weeks.

[Mrs. McGraw prepared a very full account of the work in the
Legislature to have it submit to the voters the question of calling a
convention to prepare a new constitution. Representatives of all the
leading organizations of women assisted at Springfield from time to
time. The resolution had the powerful support of Governor Frank C.
Lowden, Congressman Medill McCormick, Roger C. Sullivan and other
prominent men, but the Citizens' Association in an official bulletin
gave the larger part of the credit to "the tireless and tactful work
of the women's lobby." After Senate and House by more than a
two-thirds majority had voted to submit the question to the voters
the State association organized an Emergency League to establish
centers in each of the 101 counties and an immense educational
campaign was carried on. Over a thousand meetings were held in the
summer and fall preceding the election Nov. 5, 1918, when the proposal
for a convention received a majority of 74,239. The next year
delegates to the convention were elected and it met in Springfield
Jan. 6, 1920. One of its first acts was to adopt an article giving the
complete suffrage to women. Before the constitution was ready to
submit to the voters the women were fully enfranchised by the Federal
Amendment.]

After the victory was gained in the Legislature and just as all plans
were laid for the campaign in the spring of 1917 the United States
entered the war against Germany. Mrs. Trout was appointed a member of
the executive committee of the Woman's Council of National Defense and
all the members of the board immediately engaged in Liberty Loan, Red
Cross and other war work. During this period of strenuous activity
another attack was made on the constitutionality of the suffrage law
by the liquor interests and the case was again brought before the
Supreme Court. The State Board engaged James G. Skinner, an able
lawyer, formerly Assistant Corporation Counsel, and in December the
law was again pronounced constitutional.

The State convention was held in the autumn of 1917 in Danville and
Mrs. Trout was re-elected. The association now had affiliated
societies in every senatorial and