All through the weekend, porters had been cleaning and polishing the statehouse. Floors were mopped. Desks were dusted. Cobwebs were swept away.
On Monday morning, the doors of the capitol swung open for the first time in months. Suffs and Antis bustled through, their arms full of decorations. Both sides wanted to spruce up the halls, brighten the place up with their own colors and roses. Suffs tacked yellow bunting and banners to the walls and railings. Antis lugged boxes of artificial red roses up the grand marble staircase.
The visitor galleries above the chamber floors were packed. Clusters of women filled the doorways. The statehouse had never seen so much excitement. Hordes of women in the capitol? Flowers everywhere? Some men couldn’t believe their eyes. Quite a few seemed to like it just fine.
No matter which way you looked at it, the War of the Roses had begun.
Shortly past noon, Seth Walker pounded his gavel. The house of representatives came to order.
At the exact same time, on the south side of the capitol, Andrew Todd rapped his gavel. The Tennessee Senate came to order, too.
The first order of the day was the Nineteenth Amendment. In a clear, loud voice, a clerk read the suffrage amendment aloud to each chamber: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Next, each clerk also read out a personal statement from Governor Albert Roberts himself.
Both Suffs and Antis held their breath. Neither side had any idea what to expect. To the Suffs’ pleasant surprise, the governor’s words were simple and straightforward. He urged the legislature to ratify the amendment—and to do it fast. “Tennessee occupies a pivotal position on this question,” he reminded the delegates. “Millions of women are looking to the Tennessee legislature to give them a voice.”
This was stronger stuff than the Suffs had expected. Albert Roberts’s support of suffrage sounded urgent, even passionate.
Antis in the audience grimaced. Traitor, they whispered with disgust.
In the senate, Seth Walker leaned back in the leather Speaker’s chair as he listened to the governor’s words. His expression was calm. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. At least, not yet. Few knew that he’d changed his mind on suffrage.
Before long, both chambers of the General Assembly adjourned until the next morning, taking no action on ratification. The Suffs groaned quietly. The legislators were really dragging this process out.
From her Hotel Hermitage window, Carrie could see women and men pouring out of the statehouse. She and Harriet had remained in her hotel suite, out of the public eye. Carrie had a strange feeling in her stomach. It bothered her that the legislators had adjourned so quickly. Were they taking the issue of suffrage seriously at all? They were dangling the vote over women’s noses, like a carrot over a horse. It was humiliating!
And then there were all those mysterious men milling around in the Hermitage lobby. She was told they were nothing more than slimy salesmen, trying to smooth-talk the legislators into smothering ratification. They’d sidle up to a legislator, lie about their names and jobs. They’d casually start pressing the Anti argument—then offer a sweet deal to anyone who came around to it.
On Monday evening, the Suffs breathlessly prepared for the next day’s session. If there was one man whose help they could really use, it was Seth Walker’s. The Suffs’ latest poll numbers were slipping. Hopefully Seth would know just what to do. His insider knowledge of the legislature couldn’t be beat.
Weirdly, the women couldn’t find him anywhere. He wasn’t responding to their calls. He wasn’t in his office. When they finally tracked him down, his eyes were blazing. He kept jerking his head around, as if looking for the nearest exit.
He knew there was no hiding any longer. That’s when he finally revealed himself.
No, he told the Suffs, he would not be sponsoring the ratification resolution at the statehouse. On top of that, he couldn’t support—or vote for—ratification.
With that, he ran off. The Suffs didn’t even have a chance to respond, much less yell at him. Which is exactly what they felt like doing.
The shock of Seth’s betrayal knocked them sideways. Sue White and Betty Gram could hardly believe it. He’d sworn to each of them that he would support the amendment. They had believed him! They’d been played.
In Carrie’s room that night, the NAWSA Suffs met for a strategy meeting. As much as they tried to get down to business, it was impossible for anyone to concentrate. They couldn’t get over that no-good, lying Seth Walker! But it wasn’t just Seth—it was Governor Albert Roberts and James Cox. Both men must have known the Speaker was about to betray them, and neither lifted a finger to stop it! (Cox, in fact, hadn’t known.)
Carrie tried to calm her women. Focus! she said. We can recover from this. The younger women were rattled, but Carrie had experienced this type of betrayal before. She was disgusted, but not exactly surprised.
It was a rough night and a raw morning for the bleary-eyed Suffs. And by breakfast, they were hit with yet another blow. Seth was now announcing that he intended to lead the opposition to the amendment on the house floor. He would “go down the line” to defeat the amendment, using his power as Speaker. And he was determined to bring as many house members with him as he could.
Josephine Pearson smirked when she heard the news. She put down her teacup and toast to devour all the juicy details she could from the morning paper. It made her giggle to imagine Carrie Catt’s reaction to being betrayed.
The Antis could now officially call Seth Walker their friend.
Later that day, Betty Gram was crossing the Hermitage lobby to meet her Woman’s Party friends when she noticed a suited man out of the corner of her eye. She knew that jacket. It was Seth Walker’s.
Betty quickened her pace. She marched right up to him: Was it true that he was going to break his pledge to her and oppose ratification? she demanded. Seth whirled around, startled. The lobby hushed. Men and women craned their necks to see what was going on.
He recovered his wits: “I’d let the old Capitol crumble and fall from the hill before I’d vote for ratification,” he said boastfully. “I’m going to do all I can to influence friends to vote No.”
Betty snorted. “What has brought about the change against the suffrage amendment in the house—the governor or the Louisville and Nashville Railroad?” she demanded loudly. “What kind of a crook are you anyway—a Roberts crook or an L&N crook?”
Onlookers gasped.
“How dare you charge me with such a thing!” Seth bellowed. “That is an insult!”
Betty smiled and batted her lashes. “Why, I am just asking you for information,” she replied with mock girlish innocence.
Seth stormed off, his hands clenched in his pockets.
Betty glared after him. It was a moment of sweet revenge. But it might have been costly.
That afternoon, reporters swarmed Carrie Catt, asking for her reaction to Seth’s betrayal. Carrie tried to keep it breezy. No point in showing the papers how angry she really was.
Our polls are strong, she told them coolly. “I have absolute confidence in the integrity of the legislators of Tennessee and believe that they will stand by their pledges.”
While Carrie faked confidence, Sue and her Woman’s Party comrades were visibly worried. And now Woman’s Party leader Alice Paul was sending them testy telegrams.
What is going on down there? Alice demanded. Do we have a majority? Do you expect success?
Sue caught her breath. It was up to her to hold down the fort while Alice worked in Washington. But what was Sue to do? Admit to Alice—her mentor, her hero—that she’d lost control of the campaign? Explain that support for ratification was mysteriously evaporating—all on her watch?
Sue willed herself to be calm, brave, and focused. She was smart and determined. She knew what she was doing! She just had to remind herself of that fact—and to live up to Alice Paul’s trust in her.
The hottest gossip around Nashville on Tuesday was about Betty Gram’s fiery confrontation with Seth Walker. Betty had insulted the Speaker, Seth’s friends complained, and questioned his integrity. She must apologize, they insisted.
Betty Gram had no intention of apologizing. “We are not going to be thrust aside easily,” she said defiantly. “Some sinister underground influence is at work here. We are entitled to know just who is changing a majority to a minority. If the liquor interests or the Louisville and Nashville railroad are responsible,” Gram threatened, “we will find it out.”
Seth was still shaking with rage after his spat with Betty Gram. That woman had tried to humiliate him! And in front of all those people, too. He knew he’d better come up with some sort of excuse for his new stance against the suffrage amendment. Fast.
“I have become convinced that it is my duty to my state and to my constituents to oppose this thing,” he explained to a reporter for the Chattanooga Times. “There is no question in my mind that a large majority of the people, both men and women in Tennessee, are against universal suffrage from principles, or are violently opposed to action through a federal amendment.”
But, the papers noticed, Seth didn’t explain the suddenness of his “change of conviction.” Nor did he bother mentioning all his money-making work on the side for the railroad company—the very railroad company that was famously anti-suffrage.