a two-months' campaign for organization. Miss
Gertrude Watkins and Miss Josephine Miller of Little Rock gave their
services for their expenses only and organized sixty committees.[7]

The new Primary law was almost equal to the full suffrage, as where
one party is so largely in the majority the primaries decide the
elections, and it gave a great impetus to the movement throughout the
country, especially in the southern States.

After the Primary bill passed the suffragists re-organized along the
lines of the State Democratic party. Where it had a State Central
Committee they had an Equal Suffrage State Central Committee and so on
through the organization. The object was to teach women how to work
through and with political parties but they were not fully
enfranchised and could not give up their suffrage organization,
therefore they held together on semi-political but non-partisan lines
until such time as they could go into the various parties.

At the close of Mrs. Ellington's administration in August, 1917,
seventy-eight papers in the State were handling news items each week.
Eighty-five organizations had been completed. The Primary bill had
been passed by the Legislature and thousands of women had assessed
themselves and paid their poll tax of one dollar a year preparatory to
voting in the spring elections. Under the law the assessor can put
this tax only on male citizens and the women in asking for the Primary
suffrage voluntarily assumed it, as no one can vote until it is paid.
This was held to be legal by Attorney General John D. Arbuckle.

Mrs. Ellington left Arkansas on August 1 and Mrs. Cotnam was elected
by the State Board to take charge of affairs. On November 28 she was
elected chairman of the State Suffrage Central Committee upon the
receipt of Mrs. Ellington's formal resignation. Mrs. Cotnam appeared
before the State Farmers' Union in August and secured a unanimous
endorsement of woman suffrage and in September at the meeting of its
executive committee she secured a resolution calling on Arkansas
Senators and Representatives to vote for the Federal Amendment. She
went to New York City in September to take part in the State suffrage
campaign. After six weeks she returned to Little Rock, where the great
victory won in New York was celebrated at a luncheon in the Marion
Hotel. Governor Charles H. Brough was a speaker and prophesied a
similar victory in Arkansas.

Dr. Shaw visited Arkansas for the first ti