Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Mrs. McLendon represented the State Association at the convention of
the National Association in St. Louis in March, 1919. On May 21 she
and her sister, Mrs. Felton, sat in the House of Representatives in
Washington and had the pleasure of hearing W. D. Upshaw, member from
the fifth congressional district of Georgia, vote for the submission
of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, the only Representative from the
State to do so. On June 4 the new U. S. Senator, William J. Harris of
Georgia, voted for the submission of this amendment, giving one of the
long needed two votes. The official board of the State Association
through Mrs. McLendon mailed to each member of the Legislature a
personal letter with copies of letters from Mrs. J. K. Ottley, the
Democratic Executive Committee woman from Georgia, and the eminent
clergyman, Dr. J. B. Gambrell, urging the members to ratify the
Federal Suffrage Amendment. The annual convention of 1919 was held in
the auditorium of the Hotel Piedmont, Atlanta, on December 5.
A League of Women Voters was organized in Atlanta in March, 1920, out
of the Equal Suffrage Party, but the State association decided that
this action was premature, since there were no women voters in
Georgia, and that the old association, organized in 1890, would never
disband until women could vote on the same terms as men.
On June 1, in response to a petition of fifty representative women of
Atlanta, a hearing in charge of Mrs. McLendon was granted by the
chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, at the request of
Mayor Key. After a number had spoken a motion was made to let the
women vote in the white municipal primary in Atlanta and was carried
with only four negative votes. The Atlanta and the Young People's
Suffrage Associations endorsed the re-election of Mayor Key and worked
for him, and he was returned by a majority of three to one on July 28.
Afterwards several other cities and villages permitted women to vote
in the primaries and on bond issues.
After the Federal Suffrage Amendment was ratified in August 1920, it
was announced that women would not be permitted to register and vote
in the primary on September 8 and the runover primary of October 6 for
the general election because they had not registered for it in April
and May, which they had no right to do. When the Legislature had
assembled June 23, Mrs. McLendon, Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Woodall had
called on Representatives Covington and John Y. Smith and Senators
Elders Dorris and Pittman and begged them to introduce an Enabling Act
to provide for the women to vote in November if the 19th Amendment
should be ratified. They promised faithfully to do this and the
Senators did so, but it was held back. The Representatives never did
introduce it. Mrs. McLendon then appealed to Governor Dorsey, but he
was candidate for U. S. Senator and had no time to attend to it. The
Legislature adjourned and the women were left in the lurch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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