Burn had originally intended to vote for the amendment. After being pressured by party leaders and receiving misleading telegrams from his constituents telling him his district was overwhelmingly opposed to woman suffrage, he began to side with the Anti-Suffragists. However, a letter from his mother asking him to vote in favor of the amendment helped to change his mind: Febb Ensminger Burn of Niota had written a long letter to her son, which he held in his coat pocket during the voting session on August 18, 1920. The letter contained the following: