On May 3, 1919, a progressive city Democratic Central Committee gave Atlanta women the right to vote in the Municipal primary election to be held September 3. A Central Committee of Women Citizens was at once elected at a mass meeting of women to see that they registered and nearly 4,000 did so, paying one dollar for the privilege.
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.
Then Mrs. McLendon decided to make a test and see if women could not vote in the primary on September 8, as the returned soldiers who did not reach Georgia before May were allowed to vote in all elections without registering. She wired to Senator Fermor Barrett of Stevens county, chairman of the sub-committee of the State Democratic Executive Committee, asking him to call it together and see if it could provide some way. He called it to meet in Atlanta on September 3, and he and H. H. Dean made speeches and voted to try to arrange it, but the other five members voted against it. Mrs. McLendon then went to the chairman of the County Democratic Executive Committee and he refused to take any action, saying, "Our committee is only the agent of the State committee and must obey its mandates." Then she and Mrs. Julia H. Ellington, Mrs. Jane Adkins and Mrs. Nancy Duncan called on the tax collector and asked to be allowed to pay their State and county taxes and to register. They were sent to the chairman of the Registration Committee and he also refused to enroll their names. Then they went to the polls September 8 and were told, "No women voting here."
Mrs. McLendon telegraphed to Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State, who answered: "The matter to which you refer is not within the province of this Department and I am not in a position to give you any advice with regard thereto." She next asked Governor Dorsey to call an extra session of the Legislature to provide some way for the women to vote in the general election, but he said he could not. Then she went to a full meeting of the State Democratic Executive Committee, held September 16, but no chance to be heard was given her. The next day she attended a meeting of the Fulton County Commissioners, who declared their willingness but their inability to do anything. She then called on Attorney General R. A. Denny, who advised her to go to the polls and make the effort, saying: "The 19th Amendment is above the laws of any State." Women in Georgia, however, were not permitted to vote at the Presidential election two months after they had been enfranchised by this amendment.
Legislative Action. The first request for woman suffrage was put before the Legislature in 1895, the last in 1920, and in the interim every session had this subject before it, with petitions signed by thousands of women, but during the quarter of a century it did not give one scrap of suffrage to the women of the State. From 1895 bills for the following measures were kept continuously before it: Age of protection for girls to be raised from 10 years; co-guardianship of children; prevention of employment of children under 10 or 12 years old in factories; women on boards of education; opening of the colleges to women. Year after year these bills were smothered in committees or reported unfavorably or defeated, usually by large majorities. In 1912 a bill was passed enabling women to be notaries public; in 1916 one permitting women to practice law, which the suffragists had worked for since 1899; in 1918 one raising the age of consent to 14. The suffrage association had worked for it twenty-three years and always asked that the age be 18.
In 1912 another association to further the movement for woman suffrage was formed in Atlanta, the Woman Suffrage League, and Mrs. Frances Smith Whiteside, who had been from early days a member of the old association, was elected president. Mrs. Whiteside was for thirty years principal of the Ivy Street school and during the first ten years of the existence of the State Association she was the only teacher who dared avow herself a member, as the very name of suffrage was so odious to the public. Through her family connections and wide acquaintance she was able to exercise a strong personal influence in bringing well-known men and women to a belief in this cause. The league did active work among teachers and business women and converted some of the leading legislators. It inaugurated an educational campaign in the schools and gave business scholarships for the best essays on woman suffrage. In co-operation with the other associations it obtained signatures to petitions for the Municipal franchise. The first street speaking was done under its auspices.