Little more than a year had passed since the US Senate approved, on June 4 1919, the 19th Amendment, which would extend the right to vote to half the nation's citizens. Thirty-five of forty-eight states had already ratified the measure, and only one more state was needed to meet the constitutional requirement that amendments become law when ratified by "the Legislatures of three fourths of the several states..."
The 20th Century "War of the Roses" was raging in Nashville, and reporters from the big cities of New York, Boston, and Chicago were there to cover it. The men in the state legislature wore either a red or yellow rose on their lapel to signify their position: red against, yellow for, giving women the right to vote. And as the red roses outnumbered the yellow 49-47 before the roll call, the outcome appeared almost certain. Appeared certain, that is, until a mother's words were considered.