The National Association's petition to Congress had been distributed throughout the State for signatures and returned to Washington. In 1910 letters were written to President Taft, to the members of Congress from Georgia and to Governor "Joe" Brown, as requested by Dr. Shaw, national president. Senator Clay and Representatives W. C. Brantley, S. A. Roddenberry and W. C. Adamson were the only ones who could spare time to answer. Atlanta was to have an election for a three-million dollar bond issue on February 15, Susan B. Anthony's birthday, and the Mayor and president of the Chamber of Commerce had appealed to the City Federation of Women's Clubs to "make the men go to the polls to vote for bonds." The suffragists distributed broadcast a poster headed by a cartoon by Louis Gregg representing women of all sorts, armed with brooms, umbrellas, rolling pins, etc., driving the men to the polls. Over 6,000 pages of suffrage literature were distributed in the State, a considerable amount of it to young people engaging in debates or writing essays. Dr. James W. Lee and Dr. Frank M. Siler, Methodist ministers of Atlanta, fearlessly expressed themselves in their pulpits as in favor of the enfranchisement of women, regardless of the fact that Bishop Warren A. Candler was bitterly opposed to it. Dr. Len G. Broughton of the Baptist church and Dr. Dean Ellenwood of the Universalist also declared themselves as favoring equal rights in Church and State for women. Judge John L. Hopkins, one of Georgia's foremost lawyers, who codified the laws, proclaimed himself a believer in equal rights for women in a letter to the _Constitution_. In June when it was again proposed to revise the charter of Atlanta, a committee from the Civic League went before the charter committee and presented a petition asking Municipal suffrage for women. Later at a meeting of the city council the petition was brought up for consideration and was treated with ridicule and contempt. On August 8 the association held its convention in the hall of the Federation of Labor, its true friend. Walter McElreath of Fulton county offered a resolution that the House of Representatives should be tendered for the evening session, but Joe Bill Hall, a noted anti-prohibitionist and anti-suffragist, marshalled the liquor men and they defeated it. In 1912 the State association conformed to the plan of the National and appointed a committee of education, who would offer money prizes for the best essays on woman suffrage by the seniors of the high schools, with Mrs. Helmer chairman and Miss Koch secretary. It worked vigorously for the bill to permit women to practice law. Mrs. Rebecca Latimer Felton became a member and was elected a delegate to the national suffrage convention in Philadelphia. Attorney Leonard J. Grossman joined the association and was made general counsel.