Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/275

 called Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States." The other authorized and requested the Governor to call on the national government, in behalf of the State of Maryland, to "have the so-called Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act declared null and void." The reason for his opposition to woman suffrage was clearly apparent.

On March 30 by a vote of 20 ayes, 7 noes, the Senate passed a joint resolution introduced by George Arnold Frick authorizing and directing the Attorney General of Maryland to bring suit or suits to prevent the Secretary of State of the United States from proclaiming the Federal Amendment prior to the holding of a referendum thereon in certain States, and to test the validity, should the same be ratified by the elected Legislatures of three-fourths of the States. This also passed in the House. The opponents thought that now they had spiked every gun but in September it was discovered that the vote on ratification had been pigeonholed instead of being sent by the Governor to the Secretary of State in Washington. Immediately there was hustling to bring it again before the two Houses and on September 22 it was rejected in the Senate by a vote of 17 to 8 and in the House by 51 to 42, nearly a month after the Federal Amendment had been proclaimed!

A Men's Anti-Suffrage Association had been formed under the name of the Maryland League for State Defense and a suit was brought by its board of managers. This was called the case of Leser vs. Garnett, Judge Leser and his associate lawyers representing this League, Mr. Garnett representing the Board of Registry of the 7th Precinct of the 11th Ward of Baltimore. On Oct. 12, 1920, Judge Leser challenged the registration there of Cecilia S. Waters (white) and Mary D. Randolph (colored) in order to test the validity of what the "antis" called the "alleged" 19th Amendment. The plea was that it exceeded the amending power of Article V in the Federal Constitution and that it was not legally ratified by 36 States. The States arraigned as having illegally ratified were West Virginia and Missouri. The case came before the court of common pleas, Judge Heuisler presiding. Besides Mr. Marbury the attorneys for the petitioners were Thomas Cadwalader, Senator Frick and Everett P. Wheeler