'THE OPPOSITION WAS LEFT DASHED AND HOPELESS'.

• Position: BLAST FROM THE PAST

The Progressive started out as a suffragist magazine, under the guidance of Belle Case La Toilette, wife of founder "Fighting Bob" La Toilette. What follows is a condensed version of an editorial she wrote in Tebruary 1920 for what was then called La Follette's Magazine recapping the fight for women's right to vote, which would finally be adopted into law as the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. The piece is full of hope, as well as analysis and strategy for how to achieve legislative goals.

On May 21, 1919, the U.S. House of Representatives passed by a vote of 304 yeas to eighty-nine nays the joint resolution, declaring that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. On June 4, the United States Senate by a vote of fifty-six yeas to twenty-five nays adopted this same resolution. At last, after many long years of struggle and sacrifice, the necessary two-thirds vote of both branches of the United States Congress had been secured for the amendment!

The throngs of women suffragists as they left the galleries doubtless took long breaths of relief and offered silent prayers of thankfulness. But the victory was not yet complete. There was more work ahead. Before this resolution could become an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it [had to] be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states.

My own thoughts turned at once to the Wisconsin legislature and to certain members, who I knew had always been tried and true friends of the suffrage cause, to whom I decided to send telegrams...