B. G. CRISP
ATTORNEY AT LAW
MANTEO, N. C.
March 22, 1921.
Miss L. Exum Clement,
Asheville, N. C.
Dear Miss Clement:--
You may be surprised, and possibly disagreeably so, at
receiving a letter from me. In writing, I am merely following an
impulse that may be considered imprudent, but is surely one of
good intention.
I merely wish to express in writing the high admiration
that I, with all other fellow members of the General Assembly of
1921, have for you as a most intelligent and worth Representative,
who has made lasting impression upon all who observed you in that
capacity. Your course was such as to challenge the highest admira-
tion of all who observed it, and I happen to know that some who,
like myself, were bitterly opposed to the ratification of the 19th,
Amendment, were most interested observers.
As to this, however, I will say that while acting as pub-
licity writer for anti-ratificationists, in several of the many
articles I wrote upon the subject, I uniformly stated that the ob-
jection was not so much to women suffrage as to its being adopted
by Federal Amendment. I recall that, in one article, I stated spe-
cifically that I would support women suffrage when convinced that
it is the desire of the majority of the women in this state and for
this state. Even at this time the vast majority of the women in
this section bitterly oppose it and would vote for no candidate ex-
cept myself in the last election. However, this is a settled matter
and, while I still view with apprehension the overturning of the
old Democratic doctrine, "State Rights" by Federal Action, I feel sure
that such women as yourself in politics will tend to the reassurance
of those of us who felt a time honored principle was being violated.
From Raleigh I visited the little grand-babies at Norfolk
and went to Washington, D.C., to visit my own baby girl, who is a
stenographer in the Bureau of Standards. It may interest you to
known that I took the kitten to Norfolk and that it now has a little
mistress who will give it a happy, if not a useful, future. On the
train, it seemed dissatisfied in the basket I had prepared, so I
took it out and it occupied a berth with me in perfect contentment.
About the time passengers were waked for Norfolk, it went through
the care on an exploring trip. Several ladies and children tried to
make friends with it, but after going the length of the car it
came back to me, having treated its would be friends distantly.
With highest regard and best wishes,
B.G. Crisp
