Be a Good Boy

Quick answer: How did Harry Burn's mother help pass the 19th Amendment?

In August 1920 Tennessee became the deciding 36th state. Harry Burn, 24, wore an anti-suffrage red rose and voted twice to table the amendment. But his mother, Febb Burn, had sent a seven-page letter urging him to support ratification. He switched his vote, saying a mother's advice is always safest for a boy.

By the summer of 1920, American women had been asking for the vote for seventy-two years, since Seneca Falls. Thirty-five states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. The thirty-sixth would decide it, and the only legislature left in session was Tennessee's. For weeks both sides worked the Nashville hotel where legislators slept, with argument, money, and whiskey. On August 18 the House counted itself with roses, yellow for, red against. Twice the vote to table tied, forty-eight to forty-eight. The youngest man in the room, twenty-four-year-old Harry Burn of Niota, wore a red rose and had voted with the opposition twice. In his breast pocket was a seven-page letter from his mother, Febb, a widow who ran the family farm and read three or four newspapers a day. Nearly all of it was farm news. Near the bottom she told him to vote for ratification and be a good boy. He did. Eight days later, about twenty-six million women could vote.

Why it matters for leaders: One plain voice of conscience, delivered to the right person at the right time, can move history further than any lobbyist.

Q: What did the roses mean in the Tennessee House?

A: Legislators wore a yellow rose to show support for ratification and a red rose to show opposition.

Q: How many women gained the vote?

A: Something close to twenty-six million American women, once the amendment was certified on August 26, 1920.

Read the full essay on Substack → https://heroespath.substack.com/p/be-a-good-boy

By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation