Be A Good Boy

At 24 years old, he was the youngest member of the Tennessee Legislature on 
August 18, 1920.

Harry Burn stood up to cast his vote.

He wore a red rose, not a yellow rose, in his lapel, signifying that he stood with the men who planned to vote Nay to the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

In one hand was a letter he had received that morning from his mother.

It read:

Dear Son,

 Hurrah and vote for suffrage!

Don't keep them in doubt!

I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter.

I have been watching to see how you stood, 

but have not noticed anything yet.

Don't forget to be a good boy

and help Mrs. Catt put the "rat" in ratification.

Your mother

Harry Burns voted Aye to the ratification of the 19th Amendment,

Tennessee becoming the needed 36th state for the Amendment to become law

and for women of the United States of America to be given the right to vote.

 

Harry said he changed his vote because--

"A good boy always does what his mother asks him to do."  

[Our daughter-in-law stands before the Woman Suffrage Memorial

when we visited it, depicting Lizzie Crozier French of Knoxville,

Anne Dallas Dudley of Nashville,

and Elizabeth Avery Meriwether of Memphis,

leaders of the women's suffrage movement in Tennessee.]