Cleveland. On June 6a city charter was submitted to the voters and adopted including woman suffrage. A suit was brought to test its constitutionality and it was argued in the Supreme Court, one of the lawyers being a woman, Miss Florence E. Allen.[1] By agreement between the court and election officials women voted at the regular municipal election in November. The court upheld its validity April 3, 1917, and the constitutionality of Municipal woman suffrage in charter cities was established.
In the fall of 1917 the women of Lakewood, a city adjoining Cleveland on the west, gave municipal suffrage to its women by charter after a vigorous campaign. Columbus undertook to put this in its charter and a bitter campaign took place. It was the house to house canvass and the courageous work of the Columbus women and State suffrage officers which brought the victory when it was voted on at the election in August, 1917. Sandusky was not successful.
A partial poll of the Legislature on the subject of Presidential suffrage for women in 1915 had shown that it would be futile to attempt it but after endorsements of woman suffrage by the national party conventions in 1916 it was determined to try.
The Legislature of 1917 was Democratic and Representative James A. Reynolds (Cleveland) met the State suffrage workers upon their arrival in Columbus for the opening of the session and informed them that he was going to sponsor their bill. On January 16 Representative Pratt, Republican, of Ashtabula and Mr. Reynolds, Democrat, each introduced a measure for Presidential suffrage. By agreement the Reynolds bill was chosen and he fought the battle for it against great odds. He was the one anti-prohibitionist who worked for it, considering it his duty and his privilege, and, because of his standing and because his party was in power, he was the only one perhaps who could have carried it through. He stood by the suffragists until Tennessee had ratified and the contest was over.
On Jan. 30, 1917, the bill to give women a vote for Presidential electors was reported favorably from the House Committee on Elections, and on February 1 it passed the House by 72 ayes,
- ↑ Miss Allen was counsel in all court cases of the Ohio suffragists from 1916 to 1920. In 1920 she was elected Judge in the Common Pleas Court of Cuyahoga county (Cleveland), the first woman in the United States to fill such an office.
