The suffrage battle in Arizona was long and bitterly fought. On February 12, 1920, Arizona governor Thomas Campbell called a special session of the legislature, asking members to consider a resolution to ratify the Susan B. Anthony Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The matter was dispensed with quickly by unanimous vote in both houses, and the next day, the resolution was signed by the governor. Newspaper editorials lauded this “act of justice which has been too long delayed” for the women of the United States, but equal suffrage had been “too long delayed” in Arizona as well. While the state’s male politicians were effusive about the transformations women had encouraged in the eight years since obtaining the ballot, their plaudits rang hollow with the suffragists who had spent years trying to persuade many of those same men to extend the franchise.
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