Anti-Suffrage in Texas
The Petticoat Rule
The Petticoat Rule is the argument that granting women the right to vote would lead to a government run entirely by women. Based on the 1910 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy concerning Madame de Pompadour’s influence on France.
In November 1913, a group of Houston business men dressed in drag as suffragists marched in a mock parade organized by their local men's social club. Some of the men who marched drew their guns and pretended to shoot the women suffragists who stood along their parade route. Opposition for women's equality widely existed but this public statement was extraordinarily threatening.
By 1915, Brownsville social matron Pauline Kleiber Wells had organized the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS) after meeting in New York City at the headquarters of the National Organization Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Wells, married to the powerful South Texas politician Jim Wells, Jr., focused on the expected roles of women at that time: her children, piano, reading, and theatre. Rather than speaking engagements to build grass roots support with Texas citizens, Wells relied on the distribution of flyers throughout Texas.
In 1918, Wells traveled to Austin to lobby Texas Legislators. In her speech, the first by a woman to the Texas Senate, Wells said her goal was to "save the citadel of the Home" arguing that suffrage was "identified with feminism, sex antagonism, socialism, anarchy, and Mormonism.” Wells lobbied hard against suffrage in 1918 but fell short without new Governor William Hobby's support. Hobby supported votes for women, unlike his predecessor, the impeached Texas Governor James E. Ferguson.
With Governor Hobby’s support, the Primary Suffrage Bill passed both the Texas House and Senate and was signed on March 26, 1918. The law went into effect just in time for Texas women to vote in the Texas Primary seventeen days later. In Travis County alone, 5,856 women registered to vote—almost equal to the number of male voters!
In 1919, Wells had 100,000 flyers distributed throughout Texas to lobby against the 19th Amendment, warning voters that most women did not want to vote, that voting would destroy homes, and that socialism and domination by African Americans would be the direct result if voting was approved.
On May 24, the 19th Amendment was defeated by 25,000 votes, forcing the suffragists to take Wells and her anti-suffrage fight seriously. Fortunately, Wells’ success was short-lived as Governor Hobby called the Texas Legislature into Special Session and by June 28th, Texas became the first in the South and ninth in the nation to ratify the 19th Amendment. With this, Wells and her anti-suffrage movement officially ceased.