Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/136

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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

Constitution, brought the "woman's rights movement" as prominently before the public as they were permitted to do by the managers of those newspapers. On Nov. 25, 26, 1901, the State convention was held in the Universalist Church of Atlanta. Addresses were made by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National Association; Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Alice Daniels and Mrs. McLendon. The meeting adjourned early in the afternoon to go to the Atlanta Women's Club room, where Mrs. Catt was invited to address that body. The night meeting was held in the hall of the House of Representatives, where Mrs. Catt, Mr. Richardson and the Hon. Robert R. Hemphill of South Carolina addressed a large and appreciative audience. The convention decided to em- ploy a State lecturer and organizer. With but two exceptions State conventions or conferences were held every year, always in Atlanta until 1919, in the Con- gregational and Universalist churches, in the Grand Building; the hall of the Federation of Labor, the Carnegie Library, the Hotel Ansley and the Piedmont Hotel. The membership gradu- ally increased, a series of literary meetings in the winter of 1902 adding fifty names. This year a committee was appointed to revise the charter of Atlanta and the officers of the association appeared before it and asked that it include Municipal suffrage for women. The sub-committee on franchises recommended that instead it provide for women on school, hospital, park and health boards, but the general committee reported adversely. The Atlanta branch protested to Mayor Livingstone Mims against the injustice of not allowing women taxpayers to vote on the proposed $400,000 bond issue. He expressed himself in favor of woman suffrage and promised to bring the matter before the city council, but there was no result. Miss Kate M. Gordon, national corresponding secretary, gave a most convincing address in the Carnegie Library the next year, 1903, on how the taxpaying women of Louisiana won the right to vote on questions of taxation; strong articles were published, but all the women were able to do was to post large placards at the polls, "Taxpaying women should be allowed to vote at this bond election." Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, national