f 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