Mr. W. H. Dyer Salisbury Vermont

Oct.19,1919

My dear Mr. Dyer:

Your letter of the fourth was duly received and I would have answered it before this had I not expected to call upon you when I was in Middlebury recently-the scarcity of trains was the reason that I did not do so. There seems to be some misunderstanding in the minds of some of the legislators, just as you express in your letter— from what you say I am forced to think that you consider the Constitution of Vermont supercedes that of the United States of America. If such is the case, may I ask you how you explain the fact that Prohibition which was enacted recently in the United States by an amendment to the Federal Constitution, is already operative in Vermont? The Federal Suffrage Amendment will operate exactly in the same way in every state in the Union as soon as it is ratified by 36 states. The enclosed copy of the Federal Suffrage Amendment may help in clarifying the situation.

As I tried to explain in my previous letter to you which was sent also to all our friends in the legislature(which includes a large majority in both houses), we are getting these signatures in order that when Senator Howland and his legislative committee call upon the Governor, there may present to him the names of a majority in both houses who petition him to call a special session to ratify the suffrage amendment.

This has ceased to be merely a state affair, but as the en¬ closed list of ratifications show you, Vermont has the opportu¬ nity of being among the 36 necessary states-in fact she has the chance of taking that important position —the 36th State. If we do not have a special session, Vermont may be the means of denying the privilege of voting for next President to 18 states—that is, the women of those states. Perhaps you do not realize that 15,000,000 women will vote for next President whether ratification is complete or not. We are anxious to remove the injustice done to the rest of the women, which can be done only by ratification of the Amendment.

You can readily see by the text of the amendment that as soon as it is ratified women will have the same voting privileges as men in every state in the Union. Hoping to receive your signa¬ ture to add to the majority already secured of the best men in the legislature, I am, Very truly yours,