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The State conventions were held in November in Saginaw and Grand Rapids and Mrs. Clark was re-elected president. Following the plan made by the National Association, suffrage schools were held in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Detroit in March, 1917, with Mrs. Halsey W. Wilson, Mrs. T. T. Cotnam and Mrs. Nettie R. Shuler as instructors.

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.

Active work to assure the writing of woman suffrage in the new State constitution culminated at the first annual meeting of the Equal Suffrage Central Committee on April 2, 1918, when a close organization covering the State was perfected. At this meeting Mrs. Cotnam was re-elected chairman; Mrs. C. T. Drennen of Hot Springs first vice-chairman; Mrs.

T. T. Cotnam, State treasurer during these years and chairman of the State Suffrage Central Committee from 1917. The following officers were elected: Chairman, Mrs. Ellington; secretary, Mrs. Gibb, Little Rock. Finance Committee: Chairman, Mrs. Cotnam; Mrs. C. C. Cate, Jonesboro; Mrs. Land, Mrs. William Ells, Texarkana; Mrs. W. H. Connell, Hot Springs. Committee that framed constitution: Mrs.

A resolution signed by Representatives Yearger of Chico county, Dunlap of Phillips and Wilson of Jefferson to allow a representative of the Woman Suffrage Association ten minutes in which to present the reasons for the enfranchisement of women passed and Mrs. Cotnam was introduced, the first woman ever given the privilege of the floor. The vote was 51 in favor, 18 opposed, with 31 absent.

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.

Many suffrage addresses have been made in the State by eminent Kentucky men and women and in later years by outside speakers including Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Senator Helen Ring Robinson, Mrs. T. T. Cotnam, Max Eastman, Walter J. Millard, Mrs. Beatrice Forbes-Robertson; Mrs. Philip Snowden, Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence and Mrs.

Gibson of Little Rock would be one of the speakers and then every man who could arrange to be in town that day accepted his invitation. Among the women who spoke were Mrs. George Pratho, Mrs. Fuller, Mrs. C. E. Rose, Mrs. T. T. Cotnam, Miss Julia Warner, Miss Josephine Miller, Mrs. George E. Cunningham, Mrs. Terry, Mrs. S. S. Wassel, Mrs. E. W. Gibb, Mrs. W. G. Whipple, Mrs. A. Marinana.

The officers elected were, President, Mrs. Ellington; first vice-president, Mrs. Fuller, Magazine; second, Mrs. N. F. Drake, Fayetteville; corresponding secretary, Mrs. P. J. Henry, Hot Springs; recording secretary, Mrs. Cunningham, Little Rock; treasurer, Mrs. Cotnam, Little Rock.

Miss Katharine Devereux Blake, principal of a New York City school, addressed Teachers' Institutes three weeks without charge, the State paying her expenses. Mrs. Jacobs gave a two weeks' speaking tour and paid her own expenses. Other speakers from outside the State were Mrs. Forbes Robertson Hale, Mrs. T. T. Cotnam of Arkansas; Dr. Effie McCollum Jones of Iowa; Mrs.