Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/138

124 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE ance. Mrs. McLendon was invited to speak before the convention of the Georgia Agricultural Association, one of the oldest in the State, on Woman's Education and Woman's Rights. A rising vote of thanks was accorded her and the address ordered printed in the minutes. The State Prohibition convention placed a strong woman suffrage plank in its plat- form and the delegates to the national convention were instructed to vote for one if it was offered. Mr. Witham, the Rev. James A. Gordon and Mr. Barker, editor of The Southern Star, worked faithfully for this plank. In 1909, at the request of the National Association, letters were written to Georgia's Senators and Representatives in Con- gress, asking them to vote for a Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment. Polite but non-committal replies were received from Senators Clay and Bacon and Representatives Griggs and Lewis. The other eight evidently did not consider disfranchised women worthy of an answer. The city council of Atlanta de- cided that its charter was forty years behind the times and again a committee of forty-nine men was appointed to draw up a new one. The Civic League, an Atlanta auxiliary to the State Suffrage Association, set to work to have this new charter recognize the rights of the women taxpayers. It was discovered that the women paid taxes on more than $13,000,000 worth of real and personal property in the city. Several hundred personal letters were written to leading taxpaying women asking their opinion of the league's movement; only favorable replies were received and many friends of the cause developed among the influential women. Strong articles were published in the city papers and widely copied throughout the State, but the charter entirely ignored the claims of women. Many letters were written to Republican and Democratic delegates asking them to vote for a suffrage plank in their platforms. The annual convention was not held in Macon, as intended, because there was so much sentiment against it in that city. This year women in the Metho- dist Church South became active to secure laity rights, which had been granted to women members in the North, East and West after they had worked years for it, but the bishops in the South were bitterly opposed to it. Mrs. Mary Harris Armor,