The Democratic Banner, (Mount Vernon), May 15, 1917

LOCAL SUFFRAGISTS ARE URGED TO BE PRESENT

Mississippi Valley Suffrage Conference To Be Held In Columbus This Week At The Hotel Deshler

Suffragists are planning an enthusiastic celebration when the Mississippi Valley conference meets in Columbus May 12-14. It is expected that there will be 20 states represented. The general topic of the conference will be “Victory—How, Why, When, Where?” Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, international and national president of the suffrage movement, will be present and make several addresses. This is the most important suffrage event of the year, lasting three days, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. On Saturday evening there will be a dinner, accommodating 300 guests, at Hotel Deshler. Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, president of the Ohio Woman’s Suffrage association, will be toastmaster. On Sunday afternoon there will be a mass meeting at Memorial hall, which will be addressed by Governor James M. Cox, James M. Reynolds of Cleveland, who managed the presidential suffrage bill, Judge Littleford of Cincinnati, Judge Frank M. Gorman and other distinguished men and women. Monday (all sessions at the Deshler) will be devoted to legislative work, with especial celebration of victories in North Dakota, Indiana, Arkansas and Ohio.All women of Mt. Vernon interested in the cause are urged to go to Columbus and attend some of these meetings.

  

The Mississippi Valley Conference was held in 1913, 1915, 1916, and 1917 (cancelled in 1918) in various cities. It convened members of the Mississippi Valley Suffrage Association, which was a regional part of the National Suffrage Association. 

One of the speakers at the event in Columbus in 1917 was Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, a former teacher who left the classroom to work as a suffragist and peace activist. A talented speaker and political strategist, she was elected president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1900 after Susan B. Anthony retired. In 1902, she founded the International Women Suffrage Alliance. In 1915, she helped to create the Woman’s Peace Party. After traveling the world, she was re-elected president of NAWSA and served from 1915 to 1920. Her “Winning Plan” of a state-by-state suffrage effort led to the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. With female suffrage secured, she founded the League of Women Voters.

 Hotel Deshler, where the conference was held, was opened in 1916; at the time of the conference, it was one of the most extravagant places in the city of Columbus. The mass meeting mentioned in the article at Memorial Hall, where the Columbus’s 1912 suffrage parade and other events were planned.

Mrs. Harriett Taylor Upton joined NAWSA in 1890; the next year, she started Ohio Women in Convention, a group that worked toward gender equality. From 1894 to 1910, she served as NAWSA’s treasurer and urged the group to move its national headquarters to Warren, Ohio where she lived. From 1899 to 1908 and then from 1911 to 1920, Upton served as president of the Ohio Women’s Suffrage Association. Among other achievements, she served on the Republic National Executive Committee as the first woman to do so.

Governor James M. Cox was Ohio’s 46th and 48th governor and was the first governor to serve three full terms. A Democrat (the conservative party at the time), Cox was known to support progressive reform measures. He was chosen in 1920 as the Democratic party’s presidential nominee and later lost. Through his whole career, he was known as a supporter of women’s suffrage in Ohio. His third term as governor ended in 1921 during which he helped give women the right to vote in the 1920 presidential election by signing into law the suffrage bill that James M. Reynolds wrote after it passed both houses of the Legislature.

Judge Frank M. Gorman served as judge on the Ohio Court of Appeals 1st District bench from 1915-1918. Judge Littleford was the president of the Ohio Men’s League for Equal Suffrage.

The 21 states that were members of the Mississippi Valley Conference were: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

The Democratic Banner, founded in 1838, was a progressive newspaper published in Mt. Vernon.