The first evening session was held in the State capitol. Mrs. McLendon, the president, called the meeting to order. The address of welcome for Georgia was made by Mrs. Thomas; for Atlanta, by its president, Mrs. Swift; Miss Gresham responded to both. Mrs. Young, Miss Griffin, Mrs. Maxwell and Mrs. Parks delivered addresses to a large and interested audience.[225]
Legislative Action and Laws: In 1888 the Hon. Augustus Dupont applied to the Legislature for a city charter for the town of Dupont, and sought to secure suffrage to all persons, male or female, owning property in the corporation, but failed.
In 1895 the Atlanta association presented two bills to the Legislature—one to raise the "age of protection" for girls from 10 to 18 years; the other, drawn by Charles A. Reid, a member of the society and an able lawyer, to take the necessary measures for granting equal legal and political rights to women. Neither was reported from the committees.
In 1897 Representative Martin V. Calvin introduced a bill to make a woman eligible to serve on the staff of physicians at the State insane asylum, but it failed to pass.
In 1898 an effort was made to secure a bill providing police matrons in every city of 10,000 or more inhabitants, and one to exempt the property of women from taxation until they should be permitted to vote. Both failed.
Miss Frances A. Griffin appeared for the Georgia W. S. A. at the convention of the State Federation of Labor, held in Augusta in April, 1900, and in response to her address it called on its members to demand a change in the United States Constitution which should secure the legal and political equality of women. A strong suffrage plank was added to the platform of the federation, and Miss Griffin was invited by it to address the Legislature in the interest of the Child Labor Bill, which it had championed so unsuccessfully for a number of years.
One result of the State suffrage convention held in Atlanta in 1899, was that the following petitions were ordered to be circulated and returned for presentation to the legislative committees in the fall of 1900:
1. That the University of Georgia be opened to women.
2. That women be members of the boards of education.
3. That women physicians be placed on the staff of the State insane asylum.
4. That women be made eligible to the office of president of the State Normal and Industrial College for Girls.
5. That the "age of protection" for girls be raised from 10 to 18 years.
6. That girls of eighteen be permitted to enter the textile department of the State Technological School.
Four bills were considered by the Legislature of 1900 in which the women of the State were deeply interested. All failed, and many of them now see that Legislatures, like juries, should be composed of an equal number of men and women to secure exact justice for both.
The Child Labor Bills, introduced by Representative Seaborn Wright and C. C. Houston, to prevent the employment in factories of children under ten and under twelve years of age were defeated by a vote of more than three to one.