ally known that Mississippi was
the pioneer State in securing to married women the right to own and
dispose of property. This was done by an Act of the Legislature on
Feb. 15, 1839.

RATIFICATION. Congress submitted the Federal Amendment in June, and
the Ratification Committee was organized in November. It opened its
headquarters in Jackson at the beginning of the legislative session in
January, 1920, after having made a whirlwind campaign. At the initial
meeting of the committee in Clarksburg there had been great enthusiasm
and women gave money as they never had done before. Mrs. B. F.
Saunders was made chairman and among those who worked with her in
Jackson were Mrs. Somerville, Mrs. Trotter, Mrs. Sam Covington, Miss
Blanche Rogers, Mrs. Thompson, Miss Kearney, Mrs. Annie Neely and Mrs.
Cunningham of Texas. The legislators were systematically interviewed,
literature distributed, petitions circulated and the press kept
supplied with arguments and news.

Mrs. Thompson, in charge of the Jackson press, wrote innumerable
articles, and Mrs. Somerville and others contributed to the press
work. Letters, telegrams and petitions from all over the State urging
ratification poured in daily upon both Houses. Delegations of women
came to urge their representatives to vote for ratification. Nine
influential women came from Lauderdale county bringing a petition of
2,100 names of prominent people obtained in a day and a half and
begged their representatives to vote for the amendment but not one of
them did so.

Many of the State's leading newspapers were in favor of ratification.
The _Daily News_ of Jackson, in keeping with its policy for years,
gave editorial support and generously of its space. The _Clarion
Ledger_, also a Jackson daily, boasted of being the only paper in the
State which openly fought ratification. The editor, Colonel Hiram
Henry, a veteran journalist of the State, always bitterly opposed to
any form of woman suffrage, began his attack weeks before the
Legislature met and daily during the session the pages of his paper
reeked with hatred for the cause. The literature of the "antis" was
largely copied and extracts from negro journals published in the North
were reproduced in glaring headlines, extracts so offensive that had
they been used against any cause save that of disfranchised women
would have been suppressed. It was through his influence that Mrs.
Cola Barr Craig, once a resident of Jackson, and Mrs. James