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VICTOR TALKING MACHINE CO
Camden, NJ

HONCHONCHONCHONCHONCHONCHONCHONCHOUCHO

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TERMS:-Issued monthly, 35 cents a number, $4.00 a year in advance in the United States, Porto Rico. Hawaii, Cuba, Canada, Mexico, and the Philippines. Elsewhere $5.00. Entered at New York Post Office as second-class matter. Entered as second-class matter at the Post-Office Department, Ottawa, Canada. Subscribers may remit to us by post-office or express money orders, or by bank checks, drafts, or registered letters. Money in letters is sent at sender's risk. Renew as early as possible in order to avoid a break in the receipt of the numbers. Bookdealers, Postmasters and Newsdealers receive subscriptions.

THE

REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO., 30 Irving Place, New York
Pacific Coast Office, 320 Van Nuys Bldg., Los Angeles, Calif.

ALBERT SHAW, Pres. CHAS. D. LANIER, Sec. and Treas.

Sept.-1

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The French Premier, Alexandre Millerand, has undoubtedly shown new qualities of courage and power in the face of the greater and lesser European crises of the present summer. About some questions he has not agreed with the British Prime Minister, but he has declared that the differences in no manner affect the solid basis of the Franco-British Entente. This was well expressed by him in an oration last month at the dedication of a monument to the fallen Canadian troops. Regarding Poland, Russia and Bolshevism, Premier Millerand in a notable statement accepted completely the principles laid down in the letter of Secretary Colby to the Italian Ambassador. In view of the serious illness and expected retirement of President Deschanel, the personality of Premier Millerand has acquired additional interest. He has been several times Minister of War and was a Socialist in his earlier convictions. He is about sixty-two years old and has been in active public life for some thirty-six years. After the armistice he was a successful Governor of Alsace-Lorraine.

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Woman Suffrage a Vital Issue

By far the most vital of the political issues of 1920 has been the question of ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This is permanent politics of a profound significance. It has little or nothing to do with the ups and down of political parties, and has no apparent bearing upon the fortunes of one party or the other in the November election. The candidates of both large parties and of all the lesser ones are in favor of the full political enfranchisement of women. The managers of the campaigns have not only supported the suffragists but have done their best to persuade governors and legislatures to ratify the amendment in time to give women a part equal with men in this year's decision at the polls. As our readers are well aware, thirty-five States had ratified the suffrage amendment, while one more was necessary to complete the twothirds as required by the Constitution.

Party Pressure

Republican authorities, led by for the Thirty- Mr. Will Hays, the Chairman sixth State of the National Committee, had tried to persuade Governor Holcomb of Connecticut to call a special ratifying session of the legislature. But Governor Holcomb, like the Governor of Vermont, had remained unshaken in his firm refusal. These two Northeastern Republican States had been the main reliance of the suffragists, insofar as they had counted upon carrying the amendment through the influences of that party. There had been far less hope of success in the Democratic States of the South, for conspicuous reasons. Southern leaders, both men and women, have to a great extent held the view that the women of the negro race were not competent to vote and that as a point of principle looking to the future, suf

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the currents of Southern opinion were blowing very strongly in the opposite direction. North Carolina had resisted great pressure, and groups of North Carolina legislators said to include majorities of both houses had appealed to the legislature of Tennessee to stand out against the dreaded innovation. North Carolina had represented to Tennessee that a vote favorable to the amendment would force universal unrestricted woman suffrage upon other Southern States against their will. Finally, the attention of the opposing leaders in the movements for and against ratification was centered upon the legislature in session at Nashville last month; and when the issue became critical-with the result altogether doubtful-on the eleventh and twelfth of August, the whole nation was watching with intent concern. Nashville, for the moment, had become the political center of the United States. If Tennessee refused to ratify it was wholly probable that the anti-suffrage movement would take fresh courage and that the reaction against suffrage would render it quite impossible to carry any other State in time to make suffrage effective in the pending Presidential contest.

Copyright, 1920, by THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY

227

Tennessee
Shaping
History

Thus it fell to Tennessee to

The Argument

Thus was brought to successful for Slower completion the great political program entered upon against such adverse conditions many years ago by Susan B. Anthony. It should be said on behalf of the Governors of Connecticut and Vermont, and of various other leaders of opinion, that their opposition to having ratification secured under pressure upon State legislatures, called in special session, was far from being merely narrow or stubborn. Officials like Governor Holcomb were not unreasonable in holding the view that constitutional changes of such magnitude justified the most patient and complete deliberation. These men argued that legislatures, before ratifying an amendment which took away from the States and gave to the central Government the control over a question like woman suffrage, ought to have been themselves elected on that distinct issue or else ought to have been directed by a popular referendum upon the subject. An opinion of this kind conscientiously held by such a man as Governor Holcomb is entitled to respect.

record a great historical decision. Action If the Eighteenth (prohibition) amendment had not made its round of the States under the emotional spell of the war conditions, its success in securing not merely the necessary thirty-six State ratifications, but a considerable number besides, would have been, to say the least, quite doubtful. Thus if prohibition had fought its way in more normal times, like these, to the point where its success or failure was turning upon a stubborn contest in a single State, the situation would have been similar to that which woman suffrage was encountering last month south of Mason and Dixon's line. The contest was still pending in North Carolina, with poorer chances than in Tennessee. Governor Cox, on the twelth, had sent a strong message urging Tennessee to act in line with the suffrage plank of the San Francisco platform. Senator McKellar and other leading Democrats of Tennessee were supporting ratification. A vote was reached in the State Senate on August 13 with the surprising result of twenty-five in favor and only four against suffrage. The real struggle was yet to come in the House, where the Speaker was a resolute "anti." With adjournment over Sunday, action was deferred until the 18th, excitement being intense. But the result rather than the fight is important, and the vote went 49 in favor and 47 against.

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Southern
Views Are
Modified

In a contest like the pending struggle between Republicanism and Democracy for control of the national Government, it is natural that both parties should seek to gain credit with the newly enfranchised voters for having been effective in securing the triumph of their

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CHAIRMAN HAYS OF THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE RECEIVING A DELEGATION FROM THE
CONNECTICUT WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION

(The delegation called on Mr. Hays at the National Committee's headquarters in New York, where he told the women that the national organization and Senator Harding were doing everything they could consistently to bring it the ratification)

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