An international association of the groups of women in various
countries who were working to obtain the suffrage was for many years
the strong desire of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B.
Anthony, two leaders of the movement in the United States. When,
however, in the early eighties the first steps were taken they found
that Great Britain was the only one with organizations for this
purpose. They visited there in 1883-4 and found so much sympathy with
the idea that a committee was appointed to cooperate with one in the
United States in arranging for an International Woman Suffrage
Association.[221] It was decided as a first step to hold an
International Suffrage Convention but after a correspondence which
extended through several years, because of the difficulty of getting
in touch with women in the different countries who were interested, it
was considered advisable to broaden the scope of the undertaking and
call an International Congress of Women engaged in all kinds of work
for the general welfare. This was held in Washington, D. C., in March,
1888, under the auspices of the National Suffrage Association and was
the largest convention of women which had ever taken place up to that
time. It resulted in a permanent International Council of Women, which
in a few years established a Standing Committee on Suffrage and Rights
of Citizenship with Dr. Anna Howard Shaw as chairman. The National
Councils in all countries formed auxiliary committees and made woman
suffrage a part of their program and it had a prominent place at the
National and International Congresses. The woman suffrage leaders in
the United States did not abandon the idea of an affiliation of the
societies which were forming in many lands for the specific purpose of
obtaining the franchise but no further steps toward it were taken.
From the time Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt became officially connected
with the National Association in 1905 a dominant thought with her was
that there should be an international suffrage association. Miss
Anthony resigned the presidency in 1900 and Mrs. Catt became her
successor. She presented her idea to Miss Anthony, who told her of the
early efforts and encouraged her to apply her great organizing ability
to the undertaking, feeling that she was fitted for it above all
others. Mrs. Catt at once began the preliminary work and after two
years of correspondence the officers of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association issued an invitation for an International
Conference to be held in Washington, D. C., at the time of its annual
convention in February, 1902. This conference took place and was
attended by delegates from many countries. A part of their interesting
and valuable addresses before the convention and committees of
Congress will be found in Chapter II of Volume V. The official
proceedings of the conference are condensed from the Minutes as
follows:
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association, called the meeting to order and gave a brief
history of the correspondence conducted with the officers of women's
associations of various kinds concerning an International Woman
Suffrage Conference. She reported that ten countries would be
represented by delegates—England, Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden,
Germany, Russia, Turkey, Chile and the United States. She expressed
regret that unforseen circumstances at the last moment prevented the
attendance of the Canadian delegation but stated that James L. Hughes,
Inspector of Public Schools in Toronto, would attend and report on the
position of women in Canada.
The United States association had appointed four delegates and it had
been hoped that each country would send four but no country had sent
more than one. The meeting was asked to select a chairman and on
motion of Mrs. Fenwick Miller, seconded by Mrs. Drewson, Miss Susan B.
Anthony was unanimously chosen and took the chair. Miss Vida Goldstein
was elected recording secretary.
The following delegates responded to the roll call: Mrs. Florence
Miller, England; Miss Vida Goldstein, Australia; Mrs. Sofja Levovna
Friedland, Russia; Mrs. Gudrun Drewson, Norway; Miss Florence Fensham,
Turkey; Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the Rev. Anna
Howard Shaw, Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, United States. Mrs. Catt
announced that a delegate from Germany, Miss Antonie Stolle; one from
Chile, Miss Carolina Huidobro, and one from Sweden, Mrs. Emmy Evald,
would arrive later. A committee of five was appointed to consider a
plan for international cooperation—Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Avery, Miss
Stolle, Mrs. Drewson, Miss Goldstein. At another session its
recommendations were read and adopted as follows:
1. That it is desirable to form an International Woman Suffrage
Committee for the purpose of acting as a central bureau for the
collection, exchange and dissemination of information concerning the
methods of suffrage work and the general status of women in the
various countries having representation on the committee.
2. That the delegates to the conference be instructed to ask their
respective societies to appoint three representatives to act on such a
committee.
3. That in the event of societies declining to cooperate, the
delegates be authorized to form a separate International Committee in
their respective countries.
4. That the secretary of the International Committee be instructed to
communicate with known suffragists in countries not represented in
this conference and to recommend cooperation with the international
organization....
The delegates were unanimously of the opinion that the above temporary
form of organization would result in most satisfactory international
cooperation. It was held that each nation should be given free
opportunity to aid in the forming of the permanent organization and
that the present needs would be best served by a temporary
International Committee. It was agreed that the next International
Woman Suffrage Conference should be called in Berlin in 1904, in
connection with the Quinquennial Meeting of the International Council
of Women, and that meantime each nation should be asked to consider
this movement and send delegates fully instructed as to the best form
of a permanent international organization.
Miss Anthony was elected permanent chairman; Mrs. Catt, secretary;
Mrs. Fenwick Miller, treasurer. Mrs. Catt moved that as an
International Association was not yet permanently organized, each
country should be asked to contribute something toward the general
working expenses of printing, postage, etc., but the financial
obligation should be left to its own discretion. It was decided that
the plan of organization adopted by the conference be read to the
convention of the National Suffrage Association then in session. To
make the conference still more international in character a
vice-chairman representing Germany was added and the appointment was
left to the German societies. It was arranged that the committee
should hold office till the meeting in Berlin. It was moved by Mrs.
Friedland, seconded by Miss Fensham, that the foreign delegates accord
their warmest thanks to the National American Suffrage Association for
inviting them to the International Conference and for the many
kindnesses shown them.
Mrs. Catt had sent out a list of twenty-eight questions to most of the
countries and she reported that answers had been received from
thirty-two. These questions covered property rights of women,
occupations, wages, education, guardianship of children, divorce,
office holding, suffrage and other legal and civil rights. The full
and comprehensive answers, some of them from Consuls and other
government representatives, were published in the official report of
the conference and formed an invaluable collection of facts and
statistics such as had never before been made. They gave a striking
object lesson in the strong necessity for women to have a voice in the
laws and the governments under which they live.
It had been suggested by Mrs. Catt that this conference should
consider issuing a Declaration of Principles, expressing briefly the
demand for independence and individuality which women are making
today. Mrs. Fenwick Miller warmly supported the suggestion and a
committee of three was appointed to draw it up—Mrs. Avery, Mrs. Evald
and Miss Fensham. As finally submitted, discussed and accepted it
formed the platform of the international organization and was adopted
at each meeting for some years afterwards. It was called a Declaration
of Principles and read as follows:
1. Men and women are born equally free and independent members of
the human race, equally endowed with intelligence and ability and
equally entitled to the free exercise of their individual rights
and liberty.
2. The natural relation of the sexes is that of inter-dependence
and cooperation and the repression of the rights and liberty of
one sex inevitably works injury to the other and hence to the
whole race.
3. In all lands those laws, creeds and customs which have tended
to restrict women to a position of dependence, to discourage
their education, to impede the development of their natural gifts
and to subordinate their individuality have been based upon false
theories and have produced an artificial and unjust relation of
the sexes in modern society.
4. Self-government in the home and the State is the inalienable
right of every normal adult and the refusal of this right to
women has resulted in social, legal and economic injustice to
them and has also intensified the existing economic disturbances
throughout the world.
5. Governments which impose taxes and laws upon their women
citizens without giving them the right of consent or dissent
which is granted to men citizens exercise a tyranny inconsistent
with just government.
6. The ballot is the only legal and permanent means of defending
the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
pronounced inalienable by the American Declaration of
Independence and accepted as inalienable by all civilized
nations. In any representative form of government, therefore,
women should be vested with all the political rights and
privileges of electors.
The International Woman Suffrage Committee, which had been formed at a
conference in Washington, D. C., in February, 1902, and adjourned to
meet in Berlin in June, 1904, was called to order on June 3, in the
Prince Albert Hotel by the chairman, Miss Susan B. Anthony, who was
warmly greeted by the women of all countries. The following report of
this and subsequent meetings is condensed from the Minutes:
The program arranged by the officers was adopted as the order of
business. Dr. jur. Anita Augsburg of the German Suffrage Association
delivered a cordial address of welcome and Miss Anthony, in behalf of
the visiting delegates, responded. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt presented
a gavel from the women of Wyoming, who have enjoyed the right of full
suffrage longer than any other women in the world.
Dr. phil. Käthe Schirmacher of Germany was appointed official
interpreter; Miss Adelheid von Welczeck of Germany was made assistant
secretary and was also appointed on the committee on credentials with
Dr. Aletta Jacobs of Holland and Miss Edith Palliser of England. The
roll call of nations showed delegates from the United States, Great
Britain, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Hungary,
New Zealand and Germany.
Guests and delegates from countries where no organization was
affiliated with the International Committee were given the privileges
of the conference except the vote. The Declaration of Principles was
read and Dr. Schirmacher and Mlle. Camille Vidart of Switzerland were
appointed to translate it into German and French for discussion. Dr.
Augspurg read telegrams of greeting and good will from the French
delegates, who were prevented from attending the conference.
It was agreed that the name of the new association be the
International Woman Suffrage Alliance and a motion by Dr. Anna Howard
Shaw (U. S. A.) that Miss Anthony be declared its first member was
carried amid cheers. It was moved by Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg of
Philadelphia and unanimously carried that Miss Mary S. Anthony be the
second member. It was voted that those delegates at the first
conference in Washington who were not now present be invited to stand
also as charter members of the permanent Alliance. The opportunity was
then given for the affiliation of honorary associates and the
following were accepted: Wilhelmine Sheriff Bain and Isabel Napier,
New Zealand; Miss Anna Hude, Mrs. Charlotte Norrie, Mrs. Johanne
Münter, Copenhagen; Mrs. Friederike von Mekler Traunwies, Austria;
Leopold Katscher, Hungary; Mme. Chaponniere-Chaix, Mlle. Vidart,
Switzerland.
The object of the Alliance was declared to be "to secure the
enfranchisement of the women of all nations and to unite the friends
of woman suffrage throughout the world in organized cooperation and
fraternal helpfulness," and a constitution was adopted. The roll of
nations was called and the delegates from Great Britain, Germany,
Netherlands, Sweden and the United States pledged affiliation. Mrs.
Catt made the pledge for Australia. Delegates from Denmark and Norway
asked for time to present the matter to their associations and a
little later became auxiliaries. All the suffrage associations in
existence that could be called national except that of Canada—eight
altogether—joined the Alliance. Mesdames Minna Cauer, Germany; Agda
Montelius, Sweden; Charlotte Norrie, Denmark; Mrs. Blankenburg, Dr.
Jacobs and Miss Palliser were appointed to consider designs for an
international badge.
Miss Anthony announced that as she had reached the age of 84 she could
not stand as candidate for the presidency and it was unanimously voted
that she be made honorary president. The following officers were
elected: President, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, New York; first
vice-president, Dr. jur. Anita Augspurg, Hamburg; second
vice-president, Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, London; secretary,
Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, Philadelphia; first assistant secretary, Dr.
Käthe Schirmacher, Paris (address temporarily); second, Miss Johanna
A. W. Naber, Amsterdam; treasurer, Miss Rodger Cunliffe, London.
(Later Miss Naber resigned and Miss Martina G. Kramers of Rotterdam
was appointed.)
The Executive Committee of the new Alliance met June 6 at the Palast
Hotel. It was arranged that fifty copies of the Declaration of
Principles, the Constitution and the Minutes be typed in Berlin and
sent to the presidents of the affiliated societies and the honorary
associates. It was decided to postpone application for auxiliaryship
to the International Council of Women for at least two years.
Correspondence with the countries requiring special information was
assigned as follows: "To Mrs. Catt, Australia; to Dr. Augspurg, Norway
and Austria; to Dr. Schirmacher, Italy and France; to Miss Naber,
Switzerland and Belgium. It was decided that the Alliance should meet
every five years for the election of officers, revision of the
constitution, etc., but that during this period executive meetings
and congresses might be held.[222]
The first Executive Meeting and Third Conference of the Alliance was
held at Copenhagen Aug. 7-11, 1906, in the Concert Palais, in response
to a Call from the president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, and secretary,
Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, to the affiliated National Woman Suffrage
Associations, which said:
An especial invitation to send fraternal delegates is extended to
all societies known to be in sympathy with our movement.
Individuals of whatever race, nativity or creed, who believe in
the right of the woman citizen to protect her interests in
society by the ballot, are invited to be present. The
enfranchisement of women is emphatically a world movement. The
unanswerable logic upon which the movement is based and the
opposition which everywhere appears to combat that logic with its
array of traditions and prejudices are the same in all lands. The
evolution of the movement must proceed along the same lines among
all peoples. In union there is strength. Let international
cooperation, organization and work be our watchwords.
Two years of careful preparation, extended correspondence and close
attention to endless details by the president and officers of the
Alliance had brought to Copenhagen a congress of women prepared to
inaugurate a world movement for woman suffrage. Excellent arrangements
had been made by the Danish Association through four committees:
Finance, Miss Eline Hansen; Information, Miss Julie Laurberg; Press,
Miss Sophie Alberti; Entertainment, Mrs. Johanne Münter. The music was
in charge of Miss Bernberg. The entire expenses of the convention,
rent of hall, handsome decorations, silk badges, etc., were met by the
finance committee. The elaborate souvenir programs contained many
views of the city which were made by Miss Laurberg's camera. The
remarkable work of the press before and during the congress was due to
Miss Alberti's judicious and skilful management. The entertainments
under the capable direction of Mrs. Münter included a beautiful dinner
given by a committee of Danish ladies at the famous pleasure resort
Marienlyst; a reception by the directors at Rosenberg Castle; an
afternoon tea by the officers of the widely-known Women's Reading Club
of 3,200 members, of which Miss Alberti, a founder, was the president;
a reception and banquet by the Municipal Council in the magnificent
City Hall and a farewell supper by the Danish Suffrage Association at
Skydebanen, preceded by an interesting program of recitations and
costume dances. There were many private dinners, luncheons and
excursions to the beautiful and historic environs.
Two more national suffrage associations had united with the
Alliance—those of Hungary and Canada. Australia was ready to enter.
France had sent a delegate, Madame Maria Martin, and expected to form
a national association within a year. Professor Teresa Labriola was
present to promise the affiliation of Italy in another year. Six
highly educated, progressive delegates from Russia represented the
Union of Defenders of Woman's Rights, composed of 79 societies and
10,000 members, which applied for auxiliaryship. Fraternal delegates
were present from the International Council of Women and the National
Councils of Norway, Sweden, France, the United States and Australia;
from the International Council of Nurses and from organizations of
women in Finland and Iceland. Telegrams of greeting were received from
societies and individuals in twenty-five different cities of Europe.
About one hundred delegates and alternates from twelve countries were
present.
Several sessions were filled to overflowing with these greetings and
the reports from the various countries of the progress made by women
in the contest for their civil, legal and political rights. As
published in the Minutes, filling 55 pages, these reports formed a
remarkable and significant chapter in the world's history. Mrs. Catt
was in the chair on the first afternoon and a cordial welcome was
extended by the presidents of five Danish organizations of women: Miss
Alberti, Mrs. Louise Hansen, Mrs. Louise Norlund, Mrs. Jutta Bojsen
Moller and Miss Henni Forchhammer for the National Council of Women.
Dr. jur. Anita Augspurg of Germany, the first vice-president,
responded for the Alliance. She was followed by Mrs. Catt, who, in her
president's address, after describing in full the forming of the
Alliance, gave a comprehensive report of the progress toward
organizing suffrage associations in the various countries during the
past two years and the growth and future prospects of the
international movement. She touched a responsive chord in every heart
when she said:
Since we last met our cause has sustained a signal loss in the
death of our honorary president, Susan B. Anthony. She has been
the inspirer of our movement in many lands and we may justly say
that her labors belonged to all the world. She passed in the
ripeness of years and with a life behind her which counted not a
wasted moment nor a selfish thought. When one thinks of her it
must be with the belief that she was born and lived to perform an
especial mission. All who knew her well mourn her and long will
they miss her wise counsel, her hearty cheerfulness and her
splendid optimism. There has been no important national suffrage
meeting in the United States for half a century and no
international meeting of significance at any time in which she
has not been a conspicuous figure. This is the first to meet
without her. We must hope that her spirit will be with us and
inspire our deliberations with the same lofty purpose and noble
energy which governed all her labors.
Mrs. Catt reviewed the movement for woman suffrage, declaring that the
most ambitious should be satisfied with the general progress, and said
in conclusion:
We have been like an army climbing slowly and laboriously up a
steep and rocky mountain. We have looked upward and have seen
uncertain stretches of time and effort between us and the longed
for summit. We have not been discouraged for behind us lay fifty
years of marvelous achievement. We have known that we should
reach that goal but we have also known that there was no way to
do it but to plod on patiently, step by step. Yet suddenly,
almost without warning, we see upon that summit another army. How
came it there? It has neither descended from heaven nor made the
long, hard journey, yet there above us all the women of Finland
stand today. Each wears the royal crown of the sovereignty of the
self-governing citizen. Two years ago these women would not have
been permitted by the law to organize a woman suffrage
association. A year later they did organize a woman suffrage
committee and before it is yet a year old its work is done! The
act giving full suffrage and eligibility to all offices has been
bestowed upon them by the four Chambers of Parliament and the
Czar has approved the measure! Metaphorically a glad shout of joy
has gone up from the whole body of suffragists the world over.
Mrs. Catt presided at every public and every business meeting and hers
was the guiding spirit and the controlling hand. By her ability and
fairness she won the entire confidence of the delegates from twelve
countries and launched successfully this organization which many had
believed impossible because of the differences in language,
temperament and methods.
Throughout the meetings twenty-minute addresses were made by prominent
women of the different countries, some of them reports of the
organized work, others on subjects of special interest to women, among
them The Ideal Woman, Miss Eline Hansen; What Woman Suffrage Is Not,
Dr. Schirmacher; Women Jurors of Norway, Miss Mörck; Woman's Horizon,
Mrs. Flora MacDonald Denison, Canada; The Silent Foe, Dr. Anna Howard
Shaw; What Are Women to Do?, Dr. Jacobs; Our Victory, Miss Annie
Furuhjelm, Finland; Why the Working Woman Needs the Ballot, Mrs.
Andrea Brachmann, Denmark; Why the Women of Australia Asked for and
Received the Suffrage, sent by Miss Vida Goldstein and read by Mrs.
Madge Donohoe.
Others besides the officers and those above mentioned who spoke during
the convention were Cand. phil. Helena Berg, Elizabeth Grundtvig,
Stampe Fedderson, Denmark: Briet Asmundsson, Iceland; Mrs. F. M. Qvam,
Cand. phil. Mathilde Eriksen, Gina Krog and Mrs. L. Keilhau, Norway;
Dr. Ellen Sandelin, Anna Whitlock, Gertrud Adelborg, Huldah Lundin,
Ann Margret Holmgren, Frigga Carlberg, Anna B. Wicksell, and Jenny
Wallerstedt, Sweden; Baroness Gripenberg, Dr. Meikki Friberg, Finland;
Zeniede Mirovitch, Elizabeth Goncharow, Olga Wolkenstein, Anne
Kalmanovitch, Russia; Rosika Schwimmer, Vilma Glücklich, Bertha Engel,
Hungary; Lida Gustave Heymann, Adelheid von Welczeck, Regina Ruben,
Germany; Mrs. Rutgers Hoitsema, Mrs. van Loenen de Bordes,
Netherlands; Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Lady Steel, Dora Montefiore,
Mrs. Broadley Reid, Great Britain; Miss Lucy E. Anthony, United
States; Mrs. Henry Dobson, Australia.
One afternoon session was devoted to memorial services for Miss
Anthony, with the principal address by Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, her
biographer, and beautiful tributes by delegates of seven European
countries and Canada expressing the debt of gratitude which all women
owed to the great pioneer. Mrs. Harper briefly sketched the
subordinate position of women when Miss Anthony began her great work
for their emancipation in 1851; told of her efforts for temperance and
the abolition of slavery; her part in forming the International
Council of Women; her publication of the History of Woman Suffrage and
the many other activities of her long life. She described the advanced
position of women at present and closed by saying:
No one who makes a careful study of the great movement for the
emancipation of woman can fail to recognize in Miss Anthony its
supreme leader. After her death last March more than a thousand
editorials appeared in the principal newspapers of the country
and practically every one of them accorded her this distinction.
She was the only one who gave to this cause her whole life,
consecrating to its service every hour of her time and every
power of her being. Other women did what they could; came into
the work for awhile and dropped out; had the divided interests of
family and social relations; turned their attention to reforms
which promised speedier rewards; surrendered to the forces of
persecution. With Miss Anthony the cause of woman took the place
of husband, children, society; it was her work and her
relaxation, her politics and her religion. "I know only woman and
her disfranchised," was her creed.... May we, her daughters,
receive as a blessed inheritance something of her indomitable
will, splendid courage, limitless patience, perseverance,
optimism, faith!
Dr. Shaw closed the meeting with an eloquent unwritten peroration
which told of her last hours with Miss Anthony as the great soul was
about to take its flight and ended: "The object of her life was to
awaken in women the consciousness of the need of freedom and the
courage to demand it, not as an end but as a means of creating higher
ideals for humanity."
A resolution was adopted rejoicing in the granting of full suffrage
and eligibility to sit in the Parliament to the women of Finland the
preceding May. The delegates from Norway received a message from the
Prime Minister that it was the intention of the Parliament to enlarge
the Municipal franchise which women had possessed since 1901.
Designs for a permanent badge were submitted by several countries and
the majority vote was in favor of the one designed by Mrs.
Pedersen-Dan of Denmark, the figure of a woman holding the scales of
justice with a rising sun in the background and the Latin words Jus
Suffragii. It was decided to publish a monthly paper under the name of
Jus Suffragii and in the English language. Afterwards Miss Martina
G. Kramers was appointed editor and the paper was issued from
Rotterdam. The invitation was accepted to hold an executive meeting
and conference in Amsterdam in 1908, as a new constitution was about
to be made for The Netherlands and there would be a strong effort to
have it include woman suffrage.
Mrs. Catt's closing words to the delegates were to encourage
agitation, education and organization in their countries. "The
enfranchisement of women is as certain to come as the sun is sure to
rise tomorrow," she said. "The time must depend on political
conditions and the energy and intelligence with which our movement is
conducted." Thus ended happily and auspiciously the first Congress of
the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.
The Executive Meeting and Fourth Conference of the International Woman
Suffrage Alliance was held in Amsterdam, June 15-20, 1908, in the
spacious and handsome Concert Hall, in response to the Call of Mrs.
Carrie Chapman Catt, president, and Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery,
secretary. No one who was present can ever forget this meeting in the
most fascinating of countries, with every detail of its six days'
sessions carefully planned and nothing left undone for the comfort and
entertainment of the visitors who had come from most of the countries
of Europe, from Canada, the United States and far-away Australia and
New Zealand. The following account is condensed from the very full
report of the recording secretary, Miss Martina G. Kramers:
The arrangements for the congress were made by a Central Committee, of
which Dr. Aletta Jacobs, president of the Vereeniging voor
Vrouwenkiesrecht, the organization which had invited the Alliance to
Amsterdam, was chairman. Mrs. W. Drucker was chairman of the Finance
Committee, Mrs. Van Buuren Huys, secretary, and Miss Rosa Manus gave
much assistance. The Press Committee, Miss Johanna W. A. Naber,
chairman, did excellent work in conjunction with a committee from the
Amsterdam press association.... That the accounts throughout the world
were so complete is due to this painstaking, able committee's
assistance to the correspondents from far and wide.
The Committee on Local Arrangements, Mrs. van Loenen de Bordes,
chairman, performed well many duties, issued a dainty booklet, bound
in green and gold, which contained the program interspersed with views
of Amsterdam, and provided handsome silk flags to mark the seats of
each delegation, which were presented to the Alliance. A Bureau of
Information was presided over by young women who were able to answer
all questions in many languages. The back of the great stage was
draped with the flags of the twenty nations represented, those of
Norway, Finland and Australia being conspicuously placed in the
center, that especial honor might be done the full suffrage countries.
The front of the stage was a mass of flowers and plants, a magnificent
bust of Queen Wilhelmina occupying a conspicuous place.
The Committee on Reception, chairman, Mrs. Gompertz Jitta, and that on
Entertainments, chairman, Mrs. Schöffer-Bunge, provided many
pleasures. Chief among these was the musical reception on the first
afternoon. A grand welcome song with a military band playing the
accompaniment was sung by four hundred voices; a variety of children's
songs followed and the program was closed by a cantata called Old
Holland's New Time, which had been prepared especially for the
congress. All the music had been composed by Catherine Van Rennes, who
was also the conductor. The congress opened with a large reception
given by the Dutch Women's Suffrage Association at Maison Couturier,
with a greeting by Mrs. Gompertz-Jitta. It had as a unique feature a
little play written by Betsy van der Starp of The Hague. The gods and
goddesses with much feeling discussed the appeal of Woman, who had
asked their help in her effort to secure more rights on Earth.... On
Tuesday afternoon a reception was given by Burgomaster and Mrs. van
Leeuwen at their beautiful home, where refreshments were served in a
shaded garden and the hospitable and democratic freedom was greatly
enjoyed. On the same afternoon the Amsterdam branch of the National
Association took the foreign visitors for a delightful excursion on
the Amstel River. On Wednesday afternoon Dr. Jacobs had a most
enjoyable tea in the Pavilloen van het Vondelpark. Mrs. Gompertz-Jitta
opened her own luxurious home for tea on Friday. A house filled with a
rare art collection, a fine garden and a charming hostess gave an
afternoon long to be remembered. A farewell dinner on Saturday night
was held in the great Concert Hall. A gay assembly, a good dinner, the
national airs of all countries played by a fine band, furnished
abundant enjoyment and aroused enthusiasm to the utmost. The climax
came when a band of young men and women, dressed in the quaint and
picturesque costumes of the Dutch peasantry, to rollicking music
executed several peasant dances on the platform and around the big
room.
The day following at an early hour several car loads of suffragists
set forth for Rotterdam and near the station two steamers took their
cargo of happy people for a trip on the River Maas. They went as far
as Dordrecht, where opportunity was given to see this quaint town.
Luncheon had been served on the steamers and at Rotterdam the guests
proceeded to the Zoological Garden, which many people pronounce the
finest in the world. At 6:30 dinner was served in a large, fine
restaurant, followed by animated speeches until train time. It had
been a rare day, full of interest, for which the Congress was indebted
to the Rotterdam branch of the National Association and to Mrs. van
den Bergh-Willing, who supplied one of the steamers and invited over a
hundred of the delegates as her guests for the day. The next day was
spent under the direction of The Hague branch. An afternoon tea with
music was given at the Palace Hotel, Scheveningen, the famous seaside
resort, and later a dinner was served at the Kurhaus, followed by a
fine concert arranged in honor of the guests. Later came a special
display of fireworks with a closing piece which triumphantly flashed
the words "Jus Suffragii" across the sky.
Mrs. Catt was in the chair at the first afternoon session and Dr.
Jacobs welcomed the conference in an address given in perfect English
during which she said: "When so strong and energetic a body of earnest
women meets to deliberate on this greatest of modern world problems
the impression can not fail to be a powerful one, for the vision must
arise of the beauty and glory of future womanhood, of women who have
obtained proper place and power in the community, which shall enable
them to infuse their love, their moral perceptions, their sense of
justice into the governments of the world. We believe the moment has
now come to show our country the seriousness and extent of our
movement and its determination to gain political equality for women in
every civilized land. With the greatest appreciation we see among our
visitors many high officials, who have not hesitated to answer our
invitation favorably and to give us through their presence a proof of
sympathy with the work we do. We wish to welcome these gentlemen first
of all." Naming one country after another Dr. Jacobs mentioned the
particular achievement of each during the past two years and extended
a special welcome, saying: "May your presence here contribute to
augment the public interest in the movement for women's
enfranchisement in our country."
The address of the international president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
was a masterly effort and should be reproduced in full. In beginning
it she referred to the suggestive coincidence that the opening day of
the Congress commemorated the anniversary of the signing of the
immortal Magna Charta and said: "At no time since the movement for the
enfranchisement of women began have its advocates had so much cause
for self-congratulation as now. The Alliance met in Copenhagen
twenty-two months ago and in the brief time since then the progress of
our cause has been so rapid, the gains so substantial, the assurance
of coming victory so certain that we may imagine the noble and brave
pioneers of woman suffrage, the men and women who were the
torch-bearers of our movement, gathering today in some far-off
celestial sphere and singing together a glad pæan of exultation." Mrs.
Catt referred to the granting of full suffrage and eligibility to
women by Norway in 1907 and continued:
Within the past two years appeals for woman suffrage have been
presented to the Parliaments of eighteen European governments;
the United States Congress and the Legislatures of twenty-nine
States; the Parliaments of Canada and Victoria and the
Legislature of the Philippines—fifty-one independent legislative
bodies. The appeals were made for the first time, I believe, in
twelve of the European countries. In Spain and the Philippines
bills were introduced by friends of the cause quite unknown to
national or international officers. This activity has not been
barren of results and the delegates of six countries come to this
congress vested with larger political rights than they possessed
at the time of the Copenhagen meeting, namely, Norway, Denmark,
Sweden, Iceland, England and Germany. Each of the five
Scandinavian lands has won something. Norwegian women come with
full suffrage rights; Finnish delegates come as representatives
of the only nation which has elected women to seats in its
Parliament; Sweden and Iceland have gained a step in eligibility
and our Icelandic delegate of two years ago is now a member of
the city council of Reykjavik, the capital. The women of Denmark,
next to those of Norway, have made the largest gain, as Municipal
suffrage with liberal qualifications has been bestowed upon them.
English women have secured eligibility to become Mayors and
members of town and county councils. Germany has revised its law
and women are now free to join political associations and to
organize woman suffrage societies. The German association
affiliated with the Alliance is now a federation of State bodies.
In Sweden within two years the membership in the organization has
doubled and the 63 local organizations reported at Copenhagen
have become 127. A petition of 142,128 names has been presented
to Parliament; deputations have waited upon the Government and
been granted hearings.
A thorough analysis was made of the present status of woman suffrage
throughout the world and in summing up the speaker said: "Although
from Occident to Orient, from Lapland to sunny Italy and from Canada
to South Africa the agitation for woman suffrage has known no pause,
yet, after all, the storm center of the movement has been located in
England. In other lands there have been steps in evolution; in England
there has been a revolution. There have been no guns nor powder nor
bloodshed but there have been all other evidences of war.... Yet the
older and more conservative body of workers have been no less
remarkable. With a forbearance we may all do well to imitate, they
quadrupled their own activities. Every class, including ladies of the
nobility, working girls, housewives and professional women, has
engaged in the campaign and not a man, woman or child has been
permitted to plead ignorance concerning the meaning of woman
suffrage."
Mrs. Catt reviewed at length the "militant" movement in Great Britain,
showing how it had awakened interest in votes for women in all
quarters of the globe, and recalled the struggle of the barons in
wresting the Magna Charta from King John. She then passed to the
United States and to the persistent charge that its experiment in
universal male suffrage had been a failure, to which she replied:
"Although the United States has gathered a population which represents
every race; although among its people are the followers of every
religion and the subjects of every form of government; although there
has been the dead weight of a large ignorant vote, yet the little
settlement, which 150 years ago rested upon the eastern shores of the
Atlantic a mere colonial possession, has steadily climbed upward until
today it occupies a proud position of equality among the greatest
governments of the world.... The fact that woman suffrage must come
through a referendum to the votes of all men has postponed it but man
suffrage in the United States is as firmly fixed as the Rock of
Gibraltar...."
In an eloquent peroration Mrs. Catt said: "Within our Alliance we must
try to develop so lofty a spirit of internationalism, a spirit so
clarified from all personalities and ambitions and national
antagonisms that its purity and grandeur will furnish new inspiration
to all workers in our cause. We must strike a note in this meeting so
full of sisterly sympathy, of faith in womanhood, of exultant hope, a
note so impelling, that it will be heard by the women of all lands and
will call them forth to join our world's army."
The business sessions opened with all the officers present; over one
hundred delegates and alternates from the now sixteen auxiliary
countries; delegates sent by their governments and fraternal delegates
from the International Council of Women, ten National Councils, seven
non-affiliated national associations for woman suffrage and eleven
national organizations in sympathy with it. Mrs. Catt introduced Mrs.
Henry Dobson, sent by the Commonwealth of Australia; Miss Gina Krog,
sent by the government of Norway; Dr. Romania Penrose, Mrs. Helen L.
Grenfell and Mrs. Harriet Q. Sheik, appointed by the Governors of
Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, U. S. A.
The following countries had their full quota of six delegates:
Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,
United States, and nearly all had six alternates. Russia had five
delegates; Finland, Switzerland and South Africa two each; Italy,
Bulgaria, Australia and Canada one each. Miss Chrystal Macmillan of
Scotland represented the International Council of Women; Dr. C. V.
Drysdale, the Men's League for Women's Enfranchisement of Great
Britain; Mrs. Marie Lang, the Austrian Committee for Woman Suffrage;
Miss Franciska Plaminkova and Miss Marie Stepankova, the Czechish
Woman Suffrage Committee of Bohemia; Mrs. Alice M. Steele, New
Zealand—the last three countries not yet affiliated. All kinds of
organizations sent fraternal delegates, from the Union of Ethical
Societies in London, whose delegate was Stanton Coit, their leader, to
the Society of Peasant Women in Balmazujvaros, Hungary.
This was doubtless in many respects the most remarkable and important
gathering of women ever assembled up to that time. English, French and
German were adopted as the official languages. The wise and
sympathetic management of Mrs. Catt convinced those of all nations
that impartiality and justice would prevail without exception; a
common bond united them; they learned that in all countries the
obstacles to woman suffrage were the same and that in all women
were oppressed by the inequality of the laws and by their
disenfranchisement, and they understood the influence which could be
exerted through an international movement. There were occasional
misunderstandings on account of the varied parliamentary procedure in
different countries and because of the necessity for interpreting much
that took place but on the whole the delegates were satisfied. They
had intense admiration for the great executive ability of their
president and showed their confidence in her again and again.
Switzerland, Bulgaria and South Africa having announced through their
delegates that their suffrage societies had united in national
associations and desired to become affiliated, they were
enthusiastically accepted. Mrs. Stanton Coit of London, the new
treasurer, paid a tribute to her predecessor, Miss Rodger Cunliffe,
who had died since the last conference. Mrs. Pedersen-Dan reported
that 8,677 badges had been sold. Many interesting discussions took
place during the morning and afternoon sessions of which one of the
most valuable was on the methods of work for the suffrage pursued in
the various countries. These methods included debates in schools and
colleges, distribution of literature, petitions to the Parliament,
circulating libraries, courses of lectures, house-to-house canvassing,
protests against paying taxes, mass meetings to show the need of a
vote in matters of public welfare. In nearly all countries the
suffragists were taking political action, questioning candidates by
letter and in person and in some places working for or against them.
This was especially the case in Great Britain and Miss Frances
Sterling and Miss Isabella O. Ford told of the successful work at
by-elections, of having thousands of postal cards sent to candidates
by their constituents, of appealing to the workingmen. A report of the
speech of Miss Margaret Ashton, a member of the city council of
Manchester, quoted her as saying that, though the president of a large
body of Liberal women, she had decided that it was useless to work
further for her party unless it would enfranchise women. Women had
worked sixty years for this party and now, if they will gain their own
liberty, they must refuse to lift hand or foot for it until it
enfranchises them.
Mrs. Rutgers Hoitsema of the Netherlands told of the efforts made to
have woman suffrage put in its new constitution; of winning six of the
seven members of the Government Commission and of the request of the
Prime Minister for favorable printed arguments. Miss Annie Furuhjelm
said in her report for Finland: "We got our suffrage through a
revolution, so we can not be an example for other lands as to methods.
We can say, however, that we used all methods in our work. In 1904 we
had a great public meeting for woman suffrage. We organized a 'strike'
against the conscription for the Russian Army and we found the mothers
interested in saving their sons. The Social Democrats had woman
suffrage in their platform before 1905 but the leading men of Finland
would not have helped the women to the suffrage if the women had not
shown that they understood the public questions of the day and taken
an active part in resistance to an unlawful régime." She told of the
election of nineteen women to Parliament in 1907. Mrs. Zeneide
Mirovitch said in her touching report: "The women of Russia have not
been able to work as those in other countries do, for their members
are often in danger of imprisonment or death. They have lecturers who
travel about to hold meetings; they publish a review of the work of
their Union; members of it have started clubs which carry on general
work for women's betterment. They have sold very cheaply 10,000
suffrage pamphlets; they have a committee in St. Petersburg which
watches the acts of the Douma and when a law is proposed which
concerns women and yet fails to consider them, this committee reminds
the members of their needs. It protests against the massacres and
outrages when women are assaulted and tortured. Now during the
reaction the Union is not permitted to work in any way."
Mrs. Dora Montefiore of England spoke in favor of "militant" methods.
An invitation to send fraternal delegates had been declined by Mrs.
Emmeline Pankhurst for the Women's Social and Political Union of Great
Britain, who said they had more important work to do. It had been
accepted by Mrs. Despard, president of the Womens' Freedom League, who
came with seven delegates. She explained that its methods consisted
only of trying to enter the House of Commons, holding meetings near
by, heckling Government candidates, refusing to pay taxes, chalking
pavements, etc. Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and Mrs. Billington Greig made
vigorous, convincing speeches and all were enthusiastically received.
The congress adopted a resolution of "protest against the action of
any government which classes the women suffragists imprisoned for
agitation for the vote as common law-breakers instead of political
offenders." It also expressed its "sympathy for the Russian women in
their struggle demanding so much sacrifice and its profound respect
for the women who under great trial do not hesitate to stand for their
rights." A message was received with applause during one session that
"the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church has resolved unanimously
to give a vote to women on the questions that have until now been
submitted only to the men of the congregation."
The evening meetings were largely given up to addresses and at the one
where Woman Suffrage in Practice was considered Mrs. Madge Donohue of
Australia, spoke on An Experiment Justified; Mrs. Steele, New Zealand,
Fifteen Years of Woman Suffrage; Miss Furuhjelm, A True Democracy. At
another evening session Miss Fredrikke Mörck gave the Results of Woman
Suffrage in Norway. In a symposium, Why Should Representative
Governments Enfranchise Women? the speakers were Miss Ashton, Mrs.
Minna Cauer, Germany; Miss Janka Grossman, Hungary; Mrs. Theo. Haver,
Netherlands; Mrs. Louise Keilhau, Norway; Mrs. Frigga Carlberg,
Sweden; Mrs. Olga Golovine, Russia; Mrs. A. Girardet, Switzerland;
Miss Macmillan, Great Britain. Here as at nearly all of the public
meetings Dr. Anna Howard Shaw made the closing speech, for if she was
not on the program the audience called for her. Mrs. Münter gave an
address on the Legal Position of Danish Women; Dr. Elizabeth Altmann
Gottheiner, Germany, Does the Working Woman Need the Ballot? Mrs.
Miriam Brown, Canada, Ideal Womanhood; others were made by Miss Rosika
Schwimmer, Hungary, and Miss Stirling, Great Britain. An afternoon
meeting for young people was addressed by Mrs. Millicent Garrett
Fawcett, chairman; Mrs. Ann M. Holmgren, Sweden; Dr. Anita Augspurg,
Mrs. Mirovitch; Miss Rendell, Great Britain; Miss Schwimmer; Mrs. Ella
S. Stewart, United States.
Much pleasure was expressed at the report of Mrs. Staatsministerinde
Qvam, president of the National Woman Suffrage Association of Norway,
who said in beginning: "Since we met in Copenhagen taxpaying women in
Norway have obtained full suffrage and eligibility to office by a vote
of 96 to 23 in the Parliament. About 300,000 women have become
entitled to vote. It is calculated that 200,000 are yet excluded,
although the tax is very small.... The object of our association is
suffrage for women on the same terms as for men. The men have
universal suffrage. We therefore will continue our work until the
women have gained this same right." Miss Eline Hansen gave an
interesting report of winning the Municipal franchise in Denmark.
Woman Suffrage from a Christian Point of View was presented one
afternoon by Mrs. Beelaerts von Blokland, chairman; Countess Anna von
Hogendorp and Mr. Hugenholtz, all of the Netherlands; Mrs.
Blauenfeldt, Denmark; Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, United States.
An address sent by Lady Frances Balfour was read by Mrs. C. H.
Corbett, Great Britain; one sent by Mrs. Aline Hoffmann, Switzerland,
was read by Miss Johanna W. A. Naber, Netherlands; one sent by Mme.
Mangeret, France, was read by Mrs. Heineken-Daum, Netherlands.
Greetings were given from the National Councils of Women of Germany
and The Netherlands by their presidents, Mrs. Marie Stritt and Miss
Elizabeth Baelde; from Great Britain, France, Belgium, Norway and
Sweden by fraternal delegates, Mrs. Fawcett, Miss Cecile Cahen, Miss
Ida La Fontaine, Miss Thea Holst, Dr. Lydia Wahlstrom; from national
organizations by Mrs. Elna Munck, Denmark; Dr. Phil. Käthe
Schirmacher, Germany; Miss Stepankova, Bohemia; Mrs. Lang, Austria;
Miss K. Honegger represented the newly affiliated national association
of Switzerland and Dr. Pateff and Miss Jenny Bojilowa that of
Bulgaria. Most valuable reports were read from all the affiliated
countries containing accounts of their political conditions and the
status of the movement for woman suffrage, which were printed in the
Minutes, filling over fifty pages.
The Resolutions Committee, Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, Miss Ashton and
Mrs. van Loenen de Bores, reported strong resolutions, which were
fully discussed and adopted. The last one was as follows: "Resolved,
that the plain duty of women at the present hour is to secure the
support and cooperation of all the forces favorable to woman suffrage,
without question as to their political or religious affiliations; to
avoid any entanglement with outside matters; to ask for the franchise
on the same terms as it is now or may be exercised by men, leaving
any required extension to be decided by men and women together when
both have equal voice, vote and power."
The conference accepted with appreciation the cordial invitation of
the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies of Great Britain,
extended through its president, Mrs. Fawcett, to hold its next meeting
in London. At the public session on the last evening Mrs. van Itallie
van Embden, Netherlands, spoke on the subject, Does the Wife, Mother
and Homekeeper Need the Ballot? Mrs. Anna Kalmanovitch, Russia, on The
Final Aim of the Woman Movement;, addresses were made by Mrs. Emilia
Mariana, Italy; Mrs. Mirovitch, Dr. Wahlstrom and Dr. Shaw. Mrs. Catt
gave the final words of farewell and the delegates parted in
friendship to meet again as comrades in a great cause.
The first Quinquennial and the Fifth Conference of the Alliance met in
St. James Hall, London, April 26-May 1, 1909, with the president, Mrs.
Carrie Chapman Catt, in the chair. A cordial address of greeting was
made at the first morning session by Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett,
president of the National Union of Women's suffrage Societies, the
hostess of the guests from many nations. Preceding chapters have given
an idea of the wide scope and the general character of these
international meetings and the names of those who earliest represented
their countries and their associations. Here at the end of the first
five years the list of delegates and alternates filled four and a half
printed pages and seventy-three fraternal delegates were present from
forty-one different organizations; in addition there were speakers on
the program who were not on these lists.
Among the organizations sending fraternal representatives, men and
women of distinction, were International and National Councils of
Women, Actresses', Artists' and Writers' Leagues, Women's Federation
of the British Liberal Party, Conservative and Unionist Women's
Franchise Associations, Men's Suffrage Leagues, Independent Labour
Party, International Women's Socialist Bureau, Ethical Societies,
Women's Trade Unions, Industrial Suffrage Societies, Women's National
Press Association, Women's Agricultural Clubs, Fabian Society,
National Committee against the White Slave Traffic—the list is almost
endless. Naturally all wanted to be heard and how to permit this and
leave any time for the regular proceedings of the convention became a
serious question. The United States, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany,
Netherlands, Norway and Sweden sent their full quota of six delegates
and six alternates. Five were present from Finland, six from Hungary
and five from South Africa. The Government of Norway had sent as its
official delegate Mrs. Staatsministerinde F. M. Qvam, president of the
National Woman Suffrage Association. A National Association had now
been formed in France and its secretary, Madame Jane Misme, brought
its request for affiliation. A similar request was presented by Mlle.
Daugotte, delegate from a new association in Belgium, and both were
unanimously and joyfully welcomed.
At the first evening session the speakers were Mrs. Qvam, Miss Annie
Furuhjelm, Finland; Mrs. Isabel May, New Zealand; Armitage Rigby, Isle
of Man, all testifying to the good effects of woman suffrage in their
respective countries, and Mrs. Catt delivered her president's address,
a thorough review of the work of the Alliance. She said in part:
On a June day in 1904 the delegated representatives of seven
National Woman Suffrage Associations met in a little hall in
Berlin to discuss the practicability of completing a proposed
International Union. At that date there were in all the world
only ten countries in which woman suffrage organizations could be
found. Those of you who were present will well remember the
uncertainty and misgivings which characterized our deliberations.
The doubting delegates questioned whether the times were yet ripe
for this radical step; already over-taxed by the campaigns in
their respective countries they questioned whether the possible
benefits which might arise from international connection might
not be over-balanced by the burden it would impose. There were
delegates also who asked whether it was within the bounds of
possibilities that suffragists could work together in harmony
when they not only would represent differences of race and
character but widely different stages of development of the
movement itself. There were even more serious problems to be
considered. Some of our associations were pledged to universal
suffrage, some to Municipal, some to suffrage based upon a
property or educational qualification. How could such
differences, each defended as it was by intense conviction, be
united in a common platform?... Yet despite all these obstacles,
which at that time seemed to many well nigh insurmountable, our
International Alliance was founded "for better or worse" and I
think I may add "till death do us part."
Five years have passed away, prosperous, successful, triumphant
years; prosperous, for we have known no quarrel or
misunderstanding; successful, for the number of National
Associations in our Alliance has more than doubled; triumphant,
because the gains to our cause within the past five years are
more significant in effect and meaning than all which had come in
the years preceding. Indeed, when we look back over that little
stretch of time and observe the mighty changes which have come
within our movement; when we hear the reports of the awakening of
men and women to the justice of our cause all the way around the
world, I am sure that there is no pessimist among us who does not
realize that at last the tide of woman's enfranchisement is
coming in.
Mrs. Catt described the influence the Alliance had had in these
changes and said: "We have been baptised in that spirit of the 20th
century which the world calls Internationalism; it is a sentiment like
love or religion or patriotism, which is to be experienced rather than
defined in words. Under the influence of this new spirit we realize
that we are not enlisted for the work of our own countries alone but
that before us stretches the task of emancipating the women of the
civilized world...." The brilliant Congress of Women held in Russia in
spite of its reactionary government was described, and the women of
Finland were urged not to be discouraged because the iron rule of
Russia was again threatening their recently gained liberty. The
progress in other European countries was sketched and the address then
dealt unsparingly with the situation in Great Britain, where the women
for years had organized and worked for the candidates of the political
parties, and continued:
If the women of England have time enough to solicit votes for the
men of their party and intelligence enough to train men to vote;
if they do not neglect their homes and families when their
political parties direct them to act as catspaws to pull the
political chestnuts out of the fire and to put them into the
Conservative and Liberal baskets, the world wants to know how
these political parties are going to escape from the logic of the
situation when these same women ask some of the chestnuts for
themselves. Again, this nation was presided over for sixty years
by a woman, and she was accounted worthy to present an annual
Parliamentary Address in which she pointed out the duty of the
members of Parliament. Now the outside world wants to know how
that Parliament can consistently say that other British women are
not even worthy to cast a vote to elect that body. There is still
another reason why the world is watching England. The British
Colonies have enfranchised women; how is the Home Government to
explain the phenomenon of women, enfranchised in Australia, then
disfranchised in England; enfranchised in New Zealand and
disfranchised when they return to the mother country?
She called attention to the forming of the Anti-Suffrage Association
by women in Great Britain and said: "They are sending in a petition to
Parliament. It is well known that people by nature are opposed to new
things; before education people are anti-suffragists. If a petition
opposed to woman suffrage should be presented to the Hottentots, the
Afghanistans, the tribes of Thibet or to the interior of Turkey, every
individual would sign it and the longest petition 'opposed to the
further extension of rights to women' yet known could be secured
there. A petition for suffrage, however, carries a very different
meaning; every name represents a convert, a victory, an education of
the understanding, an answer to an appeal for justice. A woman
suffrage petition is a gain; an anti-suffrage petition merely shows
how much more must be gained. One is positive, the other negative.
Wait a little and you will find that England, and other countries as
well, will perceive the real truth, that the anti-suffrage women are
the most inconsistent products of all the ages."
The flaying did not stop here but Mrs. Catt called attention to the
fact that this convention celebrated the birthday of Mary
Wollstonecraft, referred to the position of women in her time and
said:
There have been women who have crucified their very souls and the
lineal ancestors of the present-day "antis" with withering scorn
and criticism opposed every step. Yet some of those modern
anti-suffragists possess a college degree, an opportunity which
other women won for them in the face of universal ridicule; they
own property which is theirs today as the effect of laws which
other women labored for a quarter of a century to secure; they
stand upon public platforms where free speech for women was won
for them by other women amid the jeers of howling mobs; they use
the right of organization which was established as the result of
many a heartache and many a brave endeavor when the world
condemned it as a threat against all moral order. They accept
with satisfaction every political right which has been accorded
by their Government; they even accept public office. They take
all as their birthright; and yet, endowed with this power of
education, of property, of organization, of free speech, of
partial political rights, they turn upon the last logical effort
in the movement which has given them so much and with supreme
self-satisfaction say: "Thus far shalt thou come and no farther."
It takes no logic to perceive the inconsistency of such a
position....
The changed position of women in the world of labor was sketched; the
old divisions were obliterated; a great army of women were now
competing with men in the open market and there were found not only
women but little children. Everywhere was cruel injustice to women,
barred out from the higher places, working for half the pay of men in
others, and discriminated against even by the labor unions. "They are
utterly at the mercy of selfish employers, of hard economic conditions
and unfair legislation," she said. "The only logical conclusion is to
give votes to working women that they may defend their own wages,
hours and conditions. We have worked to gain the suffrage because the
principle is just. We must work for it now because this great army of
wage-earning women are crying to us for help, immediate help.... You
and I must know no sleep or rest or hesitation so long as a single
civilized land has failed to recognize equal rights for men and women,
in the workshop and the factory, at the ballot box and in the
Parliament, in the home and in the church."
Here as at all meetings of the Alliance one of the most valuable
features was the reports from the various countries, reaching almost
from "the Arctic Circle to the equator," of the progress in the
movement for suffrage, juster laws for women, better industrial
conditions. Printed in fifty-seven pages of the Minutes they formed a
storehouse of information nowhere else to be found. As the struggle of
the "militants" in Great Britain was attracting world-wide attention
to the exclusion of the many years of persistent work by the original
association in educating not only women themselves but also public
opinion to see the necessity for woman suffrage, the report of its
president, Mrs. Fawcett, had a special interest:
The year which has just closed is the most strenuous and active
we have ever known since women's suffrage has been before the
country. The number of societies which combine to form the
National Union has more than doubled. The membership in several
societies has more than doubled and in others has largely
increased; in one important society it has been multiplied by
five. The number of meetings held throughout the year in
connection with the National Union alone has been unprecedented,
an average of at least four a day. The experience gained at
bye-elections confirms the Union in their view that by far the
most effective work can be done by acting strictly on non-party
lines and supporting that candidate whose record and declarations
on the subject of suffrage are the most satisfactory....
At the beginning of last November Mrs. Garrett Anderson, M.D.,
was elected Mayor of Aldeburgh; Miss Dove, M.A., the head
mistress of Wycombe Abbey School, came within two votes of being
chosen Mayor of the borough of High Wycombe. Several women at the
same time were elected as borough councillors, among whom we may
mention our colleague, Miss Margaret Ashton, the president of the
Manchester and North of England Society for Women's Suffrage. A
large Conservative and Unionist Association for women's suffrage
has been formed. Its president is Lady Knightley of Fawsley and
among its vice-presidents are the Duchess of Sutherland, the
Countess of Meath, Viscountess Middleton, Lady Robert Cecil, Miss
Alice Balfour, etc.
In December a weighty and closely reasoned statement of the case
for women's suffrage was presented to the Prime Minister by the
Registered Medical Women of the United Kingdom. The committee
were able to inform Mr. Asquith that out of 553 all but 15
support the extension of the Parliamentary franchise to women.
The case for women's suffrage was argued before the Judicial
Committee of the House of Lords in November last with great
ability by Miss Chrystal Macmillan, M.A., B.Sc. The case was
raised on the plea of women graduates of the Scottish
Universities that they were entitled to vote in the election for
the members of Parliament representing the universities. The word
used in the Scottish University Act was "persons"—all "persons"
having passed such and such degrees and fulfilled such and such
conditions were entitled to vote in such elections. The case had
been heard before two Scottish Courts and adverse decisions had
been given. The House of Lords was appealed to as the highest
Court and it confirmed the decisions of the lower courts that the
word "persons" does not include women when it refers to
privileges granted by the State.
Mrs. Fawcett spoke of the work of the Union year after year for the
suffrage bill in Parliament; of the enrollment during the present year
of over 300 men eminent in literature, science, the arts, law, public
offices, churches, education, commerce, etc.; of its great procession
and the demonstration in Albert Hall. She said of the other
organization, which was yet in its early stages of aggressiveness:
"Opinions greatly differ in suffrage circles as to the effect produced
on the cause by what are known as 'militant' tactics. It is difficult
for one who is completely identified with constitutional methods to
judge aright the total result of unconstitutional forms of agitation.
That the 'militants' have been courageous and self-sacraficing no one
denies. That they have provoked discussion and aroused attention is
equally obvious and from these our cause always stands to gain. On the
other hand many of us feel a profound conviction, which experience
only strengthens, that women are adopting a mistaken course in
appealing to violence. Our business as women asking for justice is not
to rely upon physical force but in the eternal principles of right and
justice. Law abiding methods alienate no one while methods of violence
and disorder create anti-suffragists by the hundreds."
To this convention, as to the one of the preceding year in Amsterdam,
Mrs. Pankhurst refused to send any representatives of the Women's
Social and Political Union. A mass meeting under its auspices was held
in Albert Hall one evening and many of the delegates accepted an
official invitation to attend.
At an afternoon session ten minute addresses were made by Mrs. Betsy
Kjelsberg of Norway on Six Years' Experience in Municipal Work; by
Mrs. Madge Donohoe for Australia, The Latest Victory; by Dr. phil.
Gulli Petrini of Sweden, Suffrage Work on Both Sides of the Polar
Circle; by Mrs. Rutgers-Hoitsema, A Curious Football Game in Holland;
others by Mrs. Zeneide Mirovitch, Russia; Miss Theo. Daugaard,
Denmark; Mlle. Daugotte, Belgium; Mme. Auberlet, France; Mrs. Saul
Solomon, South Africa. The Dutch Men's League for Women Suffrage
was represented by E. J. van Straaten, LL.D. and F. F. W.
Kehrer-Gorinchens; the British by Herbert Jacobs and Dr. C. W.
Drysdale. Mrs. Anna M. Haslam, fraternal delegate from the Irish
Women's Suffrage Association, and her husband, Thomas J., the oldest
delegates, were most cordially received. The Bohemian delegate, Marie
Tumova, could not be present because making a campaign for election to
the Diet.
The delegates had a strenuous time trying to attend the business
meetings, listen to the excellent programs of prominent speakers, go
to the enjoyable social affairs and make the visits and excursions to
the many historical places in and around London which most of them had
always longed to see. The Executive Committee of the National Union,
Mrs. Fawcett, chairman, served as Reception Committee; its treasurer,
Miss Bertha Mason, expended the large fund subscribed for the use of
the convention; the Press Committee managed the newspapers through
Miss Compton Burnett; Mrs. Anstruther, Rutland House, Portland
Gardens, had the exacting but pleasant duties of chairman of the
Hospitality Committee.
A delightful reception on Sunday evening, April 25, at the Lyceum
Club, introduced the pleasures of the week, which ended with a
handsome reception given by the Men's League for Women's Suffrage on
Saturday evening. There was a brilliant official dinner at Prince's
Restaurant and there were teas and concerts and dramatic
entertainments. To most of the delegates the weeks were the richest in
experience ever known, with the specially conducted visits to famous
universities and schools; cathedrals and abbeys; galleries and
palaces; courts and gardens—every spot filled with historic
associations for English speaking people and with intense interest for
those of other countries. For delegates concerned with civic and
social work there was the keenest enjoyment in the specialized and
extensive developments along many lines. The Minutes of the convention
thus describe one of its leading events:
The mass meeting at the Royal Albert Hall under the auspices of
the London Society for Women's Suffrage afforded the delegates a
most impressive display of the earnestness of the British
suffragists. A procession of women engaged in various trades and
professions, carrying the emblems of their work, marched from
Eaton Square to the hall. It was a wonderful inspiration to the
brave bands of pioneers from other lands to see the long
procession march with fluttering flags and swinging lanterns
along the darkening streets, greeted now with sympathy, now with
jeers. As it entered the hall and trade after trade, profession
after profession filed past the platform on which were seated
women of all nations, the enthusiasm reached its height. It
would be impossible to give a list of the groups but especially
notable were the chain makers from Cradley Heath, who toil for
about four shillings per week of sixty hours. The common remark
that the suffrage movement is an amusement for rich women was
once for all disproved as the factory workers and cotton
operatives in their distinctive dress swung into the vast arena.
The group of women doctors in their gorgeous robes were loudly
cheered, as were the nurses and mid-wives who followed, while
teachers of all branches of the profession closed the long line.
There were notable speeches but the real effect of the meeting
lay in the wonderful gathering itself, women of all nations,
classes, creeds and occupations united for a common purpose,
together with men, filling one of the largest halls in Europe.
Mrs. Fawcett, LL.D., presided and the speakers were Ramsey
McDonald, M.P., Mrs. Catt, Dr. Shaw, Miss Frances Sterling and
Mrs. Philip Snowden.
Twice during the convention it came in touch with royalty in an
interesting way. At the official dinner Mrs. Qvam, delegate from the
Norwegian Government and president of the National Suffrage
Association, brought greetings and wishes for the success of the
congress from Queen Maud of Norway, a daughter of King Edward and
Queen Alexandra, to which an appreciative response was sent. At a
morning session the birth of a daughter to the Queen of the
Netherlands was announced and at the request of Dr. Aletta Jacobs,
president of the National Suffrage Association of that country, a
telegram of congratulations from the Alliance was sent.
There was much discussion over the motion that all organizations
auxiliary to the Alliance must have woman suffrage as their sole
object. It was finally decided in the affirmative and a flood of
societies of every description was excluded. The number of delegates
permitted to each country was increased from six to twelve, with
twelve alternates. A resolution was adopted urging the National
Suffrage Association of each nation to prepare a comprehensive
statement of the laws which place women at a disadvantage in regard to
property, earnings, marriage, divorce, guardianship of children,
education, industrial conditions and political rights, and to explain,
when demanding their immediate enfranchisement from their respective
Parliaments, that they consider these injustices can be effectively
removed only through joint political action by men and women. This
was introduced at the request of Lady McLaren, who had prepared such a
charter for Great Britain. Many beautiful designs for a flag and
banner had been submitted and it was found that the one selected was
the work of Miss Branting of Sweden. The international hymn chosen
from a number which were submitted was written by Mrs. Theodora Flower
Mills.
As this was the quinquennial meeting officers were elected. Mrs. Catt
was unanimously re-elected and the following received large
majorities: Mrs. Fawcett, first, and Miss Furuhjelm, second
vice-presidents; Miss Martina Kramers, Netherlands; Mrs. Anna
Lindemann, Germany; Miss Signe Bergman, Sweden, first, second and
third secretaries; Mrs. Stanton Coit, treasurer. As the time of
holding the regular session of the Alliance was changed from five to
four years they were elected to hold office until 1913. Mrs. Catt
welcomed the new officers and warmly thanked the retiring officers for
their valuable services. The invitation to hold the congress of 1911
in Stockholm, if the political conditions were favorable, was accepted
with pleasure.
The Resolutions presented by the committee—Miss Frances Sterling,
Great Britain; Mrs. E. R. Mirrlees, South Africa; Mrs. Ida Husted
Harper, United States—and adopted, summarized the gains of the past
few years in Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Bohemia,
Cape Colony and the Transvaal and said: "This Congress, remembering
the lessons of history, urges the National Societies not to be
betrayed into postponing their claim for the enfranchisement of women
for any other object, whether it be the further extension of the
suffrage to men or the success of some political party." At the last
meeting of the delegates Mrs. Catt thanked them for their hearty
cooperation with their president; she urged them to demand the
suffrage upon the broadest basis, namely, that the government may rest
equally on the will of both men and women, and said the Alliance would
wield great influence if they remained united and they would secure
the enfranchisement of the women of the world for all future
generations. A public meeting in St. James Hall was held on the last
evening with Mrs. Catt in the chair and addresses of the highest order
were made by Miss Margaret Ashton, Men and Women; the Rev. Ivory
Cripps, the Nation's Need of Women; Miss Rosika Schwimmer, The
Hungarian Outlook; H. Y. Stanger, M.P., The Prospect of Franchise
Reform; Dr. Käthe Schirmacher, Woman Suffrage.
On the Sunday afternoon preceding the convention the Rev. Anna Howard
Shaw preached for a Men's Meeting at Whitefield's, Tottenham Court
Road, the most of the large and interested audience hearing for the
first time a sermon by a woman. On the Sunday following the convention
she preached in the morning for the West London Ethical Society in the
Kensington Town Hall and in the evening at the King's Weigh House
Chapel, Duke Street, Grosvenor Square. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon
the Rev. Canon Scott Holland gave a sermon in St. Paul's Cathedral,
the national church, on the Religious Aspect of Women's Suffrage, with
two hundred seats reserved for the delegates, and they felt a deep
thrill of rejoicing at hearing within those ancient walls a strong
plea for the enfranchisement of women. They were invited to attend the
next evening a symposium by the Shakespeare League at King's College
on What Shakespeare Thought of Women.
The Sixth Conference and Congress of the International Woman Suffrage
Alliance took place in the banquet hall of the Grand Hotel, Stockholm,
June 12-17, 1911. The coming of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of
the Alliance, had been widely heralded. She had been received in
Copenhagen with national honors by cabinet ministers and foreign
legations; the American flag run up for her wherever she went and the
Danish colors dipped and there was almost a public ovation. In
Christiania she was met with a greeting from a former Prime Minister
and an official address of welcome from the Government and was
received by King Haakon. At Stockholm she was met by deputations with
flowers and speeches. Dinners, receptions and concerts followed. The
American and Swedish flags waved together. The whole city knew that
something important was going to happen. In the midst of it all the
woman suffrage bill came up for discussion in both Houses of the
Parliament. The international president was escorted to the Lower
House by a body of women that crowded the galleries. After a stormy
debate the bill to enfranchise the women of Sweden received a majority
vote. In the midst of the applause Mrs. Catt was hurried to the Upper
Chamber, the stronghold of caste and conservatism. Her presence and
that of the flower of Swedish womanhood did not save the bill from the
usual defeat.
The congress opened with representatives from twenty-four affiliated
National Associations and two Committees, those of Austria and
Bohemia. The government of Norway sent as its official delegate Dr.
Kristine Bonnevie. The list of delegates filled seven printed pages,
the United States, the Netherlands and Sweden having the full quota of
twelve delegates and twelve alternates, Germany lacking only three of
the latter, while Great Britain, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland and
Hungary had twelve or more. Six were present from Russia; Bulgaria,
Servia, Switzerland, South Africa, Iceland and Canada had
representatives. Of fraternal delegates from other organizations there
was no end—about seventy men and women—among them members of five
Men's Leagues for Woman Suffrage—in the United States, Great Britain,
Netherlands, Hungary and Sweden. In addition to the spoken words
letters and telegrams of greeting were read from societies and
individuals in twelve different countries. The distinguished guests of
the occasion were Dr. Selma Lagerlöf of Sweden, who had recently
received the Nobel Literature Prize, and Miss Helena Westermarck of
Finland, the eminent writer and publicist. Among prominent speakers
were Mayor Carl Lindhagen and Ernest Beckman, M. P., the Rev. K. H. G.
von Scheele, Bishop of Visby, and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Fries. The
ushers and pages were women students of the universities.
On the Sunday afternoon preceding the convention the precedent of all
past ages was broken when Dr. Anna Howard Shaw preached in the ancient
State Church of Gusta Vasa. When the Swedish women asked for the use
of the church they were told that this could be granted only to a
minister of the same denomination but they learned that when a
minister from another country was visiting Sweden the pastor of the
church might invite him to occupy his pulpit at his discretion. The
pastor said he would run the risk, knowing that he might incur the
displeasure of the Bishop, and Dr. Shaw, therefore, felt a double
responsibility. She could not enter the pulpit, however, but spoke
from a platform in front of it. It was a never to be forgotten scene.
The grand old church was crowded to the last inch of space, although
admission was by ticket. Facing the chancel were the thirty famous
women singers of Göteborg, their cantor a woman, and the noted woman
organist and composer, Elfrida Andrée, who composed the music for the
occasion. In the center of all was the little black-robed minister. It
was said by many to be the most wonderful sermon of her life and after
the service was over the pastor, with tears rolling down his cheeks,
went up to her with hands outstretched and taking both of hers said:
"I am the happiest man in Sweden." Sunday evening a reception was
given at the Restaurant Rosenbad to the officers, presidents of
national auxiliaries and Swedish Committee of Arrangements by its
chairman, Mrs. Bertha Nordenson. At six o'clock excursions of many
delegates had started to enjoy the long evening when the sun did not
set till nearly midnight.
The official report of the first executive session Monday morning
said: "Miss Janet Richards, delegate from the U. S. A., with an
admirable speech, presented to the Alliance from the State which had
recently given full suffrage to women a gavel bearing the inscription:
"To the International W. S. A. from the Washington Equal Suffrage
Association." It was announced that National Suffrage Associations had
been formed in Iceland and Servia and they were gladly accepted as
auxiliaries, bringing the number up to twenty-six. The municipality
had contributed 3,000 crowns to the congress, which proved to be the
largest ever held in Stockholm. Season tickets had been sold to 1,200
persons and other hundreds bought tickets to the various meetings.
During the entire week the flags of the nations represented at the
congress floated from the flagstaffs that lined the quay in front of
the Grand Hotel facing the royal palace, as far as the eye could
reach. All the time Mrs. Catt was in the city the American flag was
run up for her as a public guest wherever she went and the Swedish
colors dipped a salute.
The Congress was formally opened in the afternoon of June 12 with
addresses of welcome from Miss Anna Whitlock, acting president of the
National Suffrage Association of Sweden, and the Hon. Ernest Beckman,
M. P., president of the National Swedish Liberal Association, and
response from the Alliance was made by Miss Chrystal Macmillan of
Great Britain, proxy for Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, its first
vice-president. Miss Anna Kleman, president of the Stockholm suffrage
society, then presented the beautiful white satin, gold embroidered
Alliance banner, which was carried by six university students in white
dresses with sashes of the Swedish colors. Mrs. Catt announced that
the Alliance flag was now flying over the Grand Hotel where they were
assembled. The banner was the gift of Miss Lotten von Kroemer, a
pioneer suffragist of Sweden, and the flag of the resident Atlantic,
Gulf and Pacific Tea Co., U. S. A. A suffrage song written by K. G.
Ossian-Nillson and the music composed by Hugo Alfven for the occasion
was sung by the Women's Choir of Göteborg, after which an official
delegate of the Government extended its greeting while the audience
rose and the flags of the nations waved from the galleries. Mrs. Catt
received an ovation as she came to the front of the platform to make
her address. It filled twenty-three pages of the printed minutes and
was a complete resumé of the early position of women, the vast changes
that had been wrought and the great work which the Alliance was doing.
Only a few quotations are possible:
In the recent debate on the bill in the Swedish Parliament a
university professor said in a tone of eloquent finality: "The
woman suffrage movement has reached and passed its climax; the
suffrage wave is now rapidly receding." With patronizing air,
more droll than he could know, the gentleman added: "We have
permitted this movement to come thus far but we shall allow it to
go no farther." Thus another fly resting upon the proverbial
wheel of progress commanded it to turn no more. This man engages
our attention because he is a representative of a type to be
found in all our lands; wise men on the wrong side of a great
question, modern Joshuas who command the sun to stand still and
believe that it will obey.
Long centuries before the birth of Darwin an old-time Hindoo
wrote: "I stand on a river's bank. I know not whence the waters
come or whither they go. So deep and silent is its current that I
know not whether it flows north or south; all is mystery to me;
but when I climb yon summit the river becomes a silver thread
weaving its length in and out among the hills and over the
plains. I see it all from its source in yonder mountain to its
outlet in yonder sea. There is no more mystery." So these
university professors buried in school books, these near-sighted
politicians, fail to note the meaning of passing events. To them
the woman movement is an inexplicable mystery, but to us standing
upon the summit of international union, where we may observe
every manifestation of this movement in all parts of the world,
there is no mystery. From its sources ages ago, amid the protests
which we know barbaric women must have made against the cruel
wrongs done their sex, we clearly trace its course through the
centuries, moving slowly but majestically onward, gathering
momentum with each century, each generation, until just before us
lies the golden sea of woman's full liberty.
Mrs. Catt traced the progress of the ages until it culminated in the
demand for political rights for women, told of the beginning of the
Alliance and said: "Today, seven years later, our Alliance counts 26
auxiliary national associations. Are these evidences of a wave rapidly
receding? It would be more in accordance with facts should we adopt
the proud boast of the British Empire and say that the sun now never
sets upon woman suffrage activities. The subscribing membership in the
world has increased seven times in the past seven years and it has
doubled since the London congress two years ago. Even in Great
Britain, where the opposition declared at that time very confidently
that the campaign had reached its climax, the National Union, our
auxiliary, has tripled its individual membership, tripled its
auxiliary societies and doubled its funds since then, and twelve
independent suffrage societies have been organized. The membership and
campaign funds have likewise tripled in the United States and every
president of an auxiliary national society has reported increase in
numbers, funds and activity.... No human power, no university
professor, no Parliament, no government, can stay the coming of woman
suffrage. It is a step in the evolution of society and the eternal
verities are behind it.... Of the 24 nations represented in this
congress the women of 15 have more political rights than they had
seven years ago."
Mrs. Catt paid high tribute to the Scandinavian people and eulogized
Fredrika Bremer, Sweden's great pioneer. In speaking of the progress
in this country she said: "Municipal suffrage has now been extended
to married women and eligibility to office to all women. Organizations
exist in 170 towns, some of them north of the Arctic Circle; there is
a paying membership of 12,000 and 1,550 meetings have been held in the
last two years. Two political parties espouse the cause. Women may
vote for town and county councils, which elect the Upper House of
Parliament, and thirty-seven are serving on these councils." She
referred eloquently to the honored Selma Lagerlöf and to Dr. Lydia
Wahlstrom, the recent president of the National Suffrage Association,
who had been crowned with a laurel wreath for her wisdom by the
University of Upsala. She told of a questionnaire she had sent to the
presidents of the national suffrage associations in all countries
asking what were the indications that the woman suffrage movement was
growing and said: "Such volumes of evidence of progress were received
that it is quite impossible to give an idea of its far reaching
character....[223]
At the official reception given by the National Suffrage Association
of Sweden in the evening the guests were welcomed by Mrs. Ann Margret
Holmgren and their appreciative responses were made by Mrs. Margaret
Hodge, Australia; Miss Gabriella Danzerova, Bohemia; Mrs. Daisy Minor,
Austria; Miss Helen Clay-Petersen, Denmark; Miss Annie Furuhjelm,
Finland; Madam DeWitt Schlumberger, France; Dr. jur. Anita Augspurg,
Germany; Mrs. Olga Ungar, Hungary; Mrs. Philip Snowden, Great Britain.
These were followed by a cantata beautifully rendered by the Göteborg
choir, words and music by women.
During the convention Lieutenant Colonel W. A. E. Mansfeldt of Holland
made the report for its Men's League for Woman Suffrage; Dr. C. V.
Drysdale for Great Britain; Jean du Breuil for France; Dr. Alexander
Patai for Hungary; Frederick Nathan for the United States, and the
founding of an International Men's League was announced with Colonel
Mansfeldt secretary.
The reports of the work of the different branches and their
discussion, bringing before the Alliance the experience and opinions
of women from all parts of the world, were perhaps the most valuable
feature of the conference. The most animated and vital of these
discussions was the one of a political nature, divided into three
parts: 1. What political work have the women of the enfranchised
countries done, what is their relation to the different parties and
how do these treat them? Have they any advice to offer? led by Miss
Hodge, Mrs. Louise Keilhau, Norway; Dr. Tekla Hultin, M. P., Finland.
2. How can woman's political influence be brought to bear most
effectively on Parliaments and governments? Led by Mrs. Snowden; Mrs.
Anna B. Wicksell, Sweden; Dr. Käthe Schirmacher, Germany; Miss
Richards. 3. What should be the relation of the suffrage movement to
political parties in the unenfranchised countries? Led by Miss Eline
Hansen, Denmark; Miss Rosika Schwimmer, Hungary; Madame Pichon,
France; Mrs. Zeneide Mirovitch, Russia. There was a wide divergence of
opinion but at last a resolution was unanimously adopted that "woman
suffrage societies do their best work when organized in a non-partisan
manner." In order to remove persistent misunderstanding a statement
presented by Mrs. Catt was adopted explaining the wording of the
resolution demanding "the franchise for women on the same terms as it
is or may be exercised by men." It declared that the Alliance had on
no occasion taken a position for or against any special form of
suffrage but that the affiliated societies were left entirely free to
determine for themselves which form they would demand. The Alliance
did not express an opinion as to what should be the qualifications for
enfranchisement, its sole object being to establish the principle that
sex should not be a disqualification.
No more eminent group of women speakers ever appeared before an
audience than those who spoke in the Royal Opera House of Stockholm on
the second evening of the convention. Mrs. Catt presided and addresses
were made by Miss Westermarck, Dr. Augspurg, Mrs. Snowden, Miss
Schwimmer, Dr. Shaw and Sweden's best beloved Selma Lagerlöf. The last
named moved the audience to tears during her address on Home and State
by her impassioned plea for the enfranchisement of women. It was said
by delegates from the various countries who had attended many of these
international gatherings that this meeting surpassed all others.
Another which differed from all that had gone before was the great
gathering in Skansen, the magnificent park, where at 7 o'clock, from
two platforms, noted speakers from ten countries addressed an audience
of thousands. A dinner followed in the park house, Högenloft, with
fine music, and then in the open air the visitors saw the famous
national dances and processions by the young people in the picturesque
costumes of the country.
Although the official languages of the Alliance were French, German
and English a crowded meeting was held one evening in the People's
House with the speeches in the northern tongues, understood by all the
Scandinavian people. It was opened by Mayor Lindhagen, an ardent
advocate of woman suffrage. At another session the Woman Question in
the Russian Parliament was considered by the noted woman leader, Dr.
Shiskin-Yavein; the Suffrage Outlook in Bohemia by Miss Maria Tumova,
recent candidate for Parliament; the Future of South African Women by
Miss Nina Boyle. A special meeting was held one afternoon in the hall
of the Young Women's Christian Association. Mrs. Marie Stritt,
Germany; Mme. Maria Verone, France, and Miss Macmillan were appointed
to compile a pamphlet of information about woman suffrage in all lands
to be used for propaganda work.
A delegate from the United States, Professor Mary Gray Peck,
officially connected with its national suffrage headquarters, gave the
following description in a letter to the press:
The ball room of the Grand Hotel where the meetings were held is
a palatial apartment, its walls richly gilded and adorned with
long mirrors between the windows, while from the ceiling hang
great crystal chandeliers, which were always lighted while the
congress was in session. The platform for officers and
distinguished guests was placed between gilded pillars at one end
of the hall, draped and canopied with the national colors of
Sweden, blue and yellow, and the international suffrage colors,
yellow and white. Then there is the memory of other places where
the delegates assembled, the ancient State Church, with its
reminder of St. Paul's in London; the splendid Academy of Music,
with the heraldic banners of the nations suspended around the
gallery; the Royal Opera House with its tiers of balconies and
the rising of the curtain to show the beautiful stage picture of
the speakers and the arch of flowers beneath which they spoke;
the Moorish court in the Royal Hotel, where the reception was
held, with the delightful Birgitta cantata, recalling the heroic
in Swedish womanhood; the open air meeting at Skansen with the
native songs and dances; the farewell in the garden at
Saltsjöbaden, given by the Stockholm society; the peasant singing
and the wonderful ride back to the city by late northern twilight
and moonlight together.
The closing speech of the congress made by the international
president at the close of the dinner at Saltsjöbaden was
something indescribable. She stood on a balcony facing the sunset
sky and blue sea, with pine trees forming an amphitheater in the
background. It was like a triumphant recessional, with
benediction for the past and challenge for the future, and when
the speaker descended from the balcony and went down to the boat
landing followed by the singing of the peasants, the crowd
divided, leaving a wide path, and stood gazing after her as
though she were too imperial to be followed by anything but
music.
On the Sunday following the congress an excursion was arranged on
beautiful Lake Malaren to the ancient Castle of Gripsholm, where
evening dinner was served. The city council and the State railways
financially assisted the Entertainment Committee. At all of the
Alliance congresses the social entertainments were a marked feature.
The hospitality was boundless and each country had its historic places
and beautiful resorts which differed so much from those of all others
as to give them an indescribable charm and interest. Following is part
of the report of this one by Mrs. Anna Lindemann, secretary of the
Alliance:[224]
The official entertainments were most appropriately opened by the
truly international greeting which Mrs. Holmgren, one of the
founders of the Swedish suffrage movement, addressed to the
guests at the reception in the Grand Hotel Royal. Her words which
gave a hearty welcome to the French and German-speaking guests
and to our Swedish sisters in their several languages; the
beautiful cantata written by Sigrid Leijonhufvud, the music
composed by Alfrida Andree specially for this occasion, and last
but not least the presence of the woman all of us had long known
and loved before we saw her, Selma Lagerlöf, made us feel at home
in Sweden at once. This feeling deepened as time went on and
Wednesday evening at Skansen a new note was added. All we saw of
Swedish nature and Swedish life in that beautiful open air
museum, the national dances, the characteristic art of Sven
Scholander and his daughter Lisa, gave us a deeper understanding
of the people whose guests we were and showed us some of the
roots from which it draws its strength. Another aspect also, the
refined culture of modern Sweden, was the dominant note of the
dinner at Hasselbacken with the heartfelt speech of the venerable
Bishop Scheele of Visby.
On a background of lovely scenery this week will stand out in our
memory as one long summer day with a long, long evening full of
silver light.... During the carriage drive generously provided by
Miss Lotten von Kraemer our hearts were gladdened by the many
expressions of sympathy we met on our way, from the dear old
women, who waved their handkerchiefs and their aprons, down to
small girls by the side of their mothers.... Especially the day
at Upsala, by invitation of its suffrage society, will not be
forgotten. The warm-hearted reception, the gay flags all through
the town, at once lifted up the spirit of the whole gathering,
which found a charming expression in the improvised festive
procession from the botanical garden to the cathedral. The
presence and eloquence of the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw gave an added
dignity to this as to many others of our social gatherings.
Schools, hospitals, museums, exhibitions of all kinds of women's
art and women's work, were visited.... [The many private
invitations were referred to.] The thirty-six delegates, who
accepted Mrs. Caroline Benedick-Bruce's invitation to the Island
of Visby, have told us that words failed to describe this
beautiful day.
Looking back on the time that lies behind us, we, the women who
have come here from all over the world, thank our Swedish sisters
for the inspiration their kindness and their loving reception
have been to us. We thank Sweden for the splendid women it has
produced. We have seen the many elements that have worked
together to attain this result; we have learned to admire and
respect Swedish history, Swedish culture, Swedish art; and as,
besides the many other things this congress has done for us, it
has most specially taught us to love the Swedish women, we can
express no better wish for our future conventions than that every
new country which receives us may in the same way widen our
hearts by a new love.
The International Woman Suffrage Alliance held its Seventh Conference
and Congress in Budapest June 15-21, 1913. As had been the case with
all that had preceded, the place of meeting had been chosen with
reference to the situation in regard to woman suffrage where the
prospect for it seemed favorable and it was desired to influence
public sentiment by showing that the movement for it was world-wide.
When it had been announced at the congress in Stockholm that the next
one would be held in the capital of Hungary it had seemed very far
away and that country was not associated with representative
government. It proved to be, however, one of the largest and most
important of the conventions and its efforts were widespread, as the
delegates stopped en route for mass meetings and public banquets in
Berlin, Dresden, Prague and Vienna. Twenty-two countries were
represented by 240 delegates and alternates. The full quota of 24 were
present from Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain, the United
States and Hungary; Finland sent 15; Denmark and Norway 11 each;
Switzerland 9: Italy 8; Russia 5; Belgium and Austria, 4 each; from
South Africa came 4, from Iceland, 2; from Canada, 3; from Bohemia
one.
It was indeed a cosmopolitan assemblage. The government of Australia
had an official delegate, Mrs. Frederick Spencer, and that of Norway
two, the president of the National Suffrage Association, Mrs. F. M.
Qvam, and the president of the National Council of Women, Miss Gina
Krog. The Governors of California, Oregon and Washington had appointed
representatives. Written or telegraphed greetings were received from
nineteen countries, encircling the globe. The question of fraternal
delegates reached its climax, as 163 were present from twelve
countries, all wishing to offer their greetings and a large number
intending to advocate the particular object of their organizations. A
resolution was finally adopted that no credentials should be accepted
until the society presenting them should be approved by the National
Suffrage Association of its country and no fraternal delegate should
speak except by invitation of the president of the Alliance and with
the consent of the congress. This checked a torrent of oratory and
allowed the convention to carry out its program. The Chinese Woman
Suffrage Society was admitted, for which Mrs. Catt had sowed the seeds
at the time of her visit to that country, and the beautifully
embroidered banner they had sent was presented to the Alliance by Dr.
Aletta Jacobs, president of the Netherlands Association, who had
accompanied her. She said in part:
It is difficult to speak to an audience which certainly does not
know the Chinese women in their own land, an audience of which
only a few have had the privilege to hear from the lips of those
feet-bound women what an important part they have taken in the
revolution of their country and in the political reform which has
resulted from it; to make you clearly understand the spirit of
these Chinese women when they offered this banner to Mrs. Catt,
as president of the Alliance, in gratitude for what it is doing
for the uplifting of womanhood, and when they expressed their
hope that it would take the Chinese women under its care. You
have not been, as Mrs. Catt and I have, in the south of the
country, where we saw Chinese women sitting in Parliament but
from whom the vote is now taken away. You have not heard, as we
did, in many towns, the Chinese women speak in crowded meetings
to a mixed, enthusiastic audience with an eloquence none of us
can surpass. You can not imagine how hard is the struggle for
liberty which they have to make. In every town we found
intelligent women with the same love for freedom as inspires us,
who hunger after righteousness just as we do and who devote not
only all their money but their entire life to the struggle for
the improvement of the position of the women of their country.
Many of the Chinese women have already been decapitated for the
truth they have told while fighting their battle for freedom and
all the leaders of the woman movement know that their life is
uncertain and that any day the men may find a reason to silence
them when their eloquence and enthusiasm make too many converts.
In translating the words which they embroidered upon this bright
red satin you will learn what is going on in the minds of the new
Chinese women: "The Mutual Helping Society to the International
Alliance. Helping each other, all of one mind." In the name of
these Chinese women I ask you to accept this banner in the same
loyal spirit in which it is offered and to welcome the Chinese
suffragists into our Alliance.
A handsome banner was presented by the delegation from Galicia. The
president of the Belgian Association reported that Roman Catholic,
Conservative, Socialist and Progressive women had united in a
non-partisan federation to work only for woman suffrage. South Africa,
Roumania and Portugal associations were received in full membership
and also a committee from Galicia, where women were not allowed to
form an association. Greetings came by cable from the women of Persia.
No tribute can do justice to the genius of Rosika Schwimmer in
arranging for this remarkable convention, the first of the kind ever
held in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Both the government and the
municipality made liberal contributions, which the citizens
supplemented with more than enough to pay the entire expenses of the
congress, that was conducted on a liberal scale. A sale of 2,800
season tickets was made. Through the assistance of capable committees
every effort possible was made for the comfort and pleasure of the
delegates, who were cared for from the moment they arrived at the
station. English speaking university students and others of education
helped to overcome the extreme difficulties of the language. So many
delightful expeditions into the wonderful country had been provided
through the courtesy of the railroads and navigation company that it
required a strong sense of duty for the delegates to attend to the
business of the convention. A reception given Saturday evening by the
National Suffrage Association at the Gerbaud Pavilion enabled
officers, delegates and members of the committees to begin
acquaintance and friendship.
According to the custom of the country the convention was opened on
Sunday afternoon. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw had conducted religious
services in the morning at the Protestant church in Buda, assisted by
the Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, by courtesy of its minister, the Rev.
Benno Haypal. At four o'clock a large and cordial audience assembled
in the grand Academy of Music for the official welcome, which began
with an overture by the orchestra of the National theater, composed
for the occasion by Dr. Aladar Renyi. A special ode written by Emil
Abranyi was beautifully recited in Hungarian by Maria Jaszai and in
English by Erzsi Paulay, both actresses from the National Theater.
Greetings were given by Countess Teleki, chairman of the Committee of
Arrangements, and Miss Vilma Glücklich, president of the National
Suffrage Association. The official welcome of the Government was
extended by His Excellency Dr. Bela de Jankovics, Minister of
Education, in an eloquent speech, and that of the city by Dr. Stephen
de Barczy, the Burgomaster, who was very imposing in the robes and
insignia of his high office. The response for the Alliance was made by
its secretary, Dr. Anna Lindemann, in German and French. Dr.
Alexander Geisswein, a prominent member of Parliament, made a strong
address in favor of woman suffrage. These ceremonies were followed by
the president's address of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, a summing up of
the world situation in regard to woman suffrage, during which she
said:
When the organization of the Alliance was completed in 1904, it
was decided that national woman suffrage associations only should
be admitted to membership and a nation was defined as a country
which possesses the independent right to enfranchise its women.
At that time eight such nations had woman suffrage associations.
Now, nine years later, with the exception of the Spanish American
Republics, there are in the entire world only seven without an
organized woman suffrage movement. Only three of these are in
Europe—Greece, Spain, and the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. The
remaining four are not well established self-governing nations,
and Japan, which is more autocratic than democratic. We shall
admit to membership the Chinese Woman Suffrage Association and
the standard of the Alliance will then be set upon five
continents. Twenty-five nations will be counted in its
membership. Organized suffrage groups also exist on many islands
of the seas. Like Alexander the Great, we shall soon be looking
for other worlds to conquer! The North Star and the Southern
Cross alike cast their benignant rays upon woman suffrage
activities. Last winter when perpetual darkness shrouded the land
of the Midnight Sun, women wrapped in furs, above the Polar
Circle, might have been seen gliding over snow-covered roads in
sledges drawn by reindeer on their way to suffrage meetings, from
whence petitions went to the Parliament at Stockholm. At the same
moment other women, in the midsummer of the southern hemisphere,
protected by fans and umbrellas and riding in "rickshas," were
doing the same thing under the fierce rays of a tropical sun;
while petitions poured into the Parliament asking suffrage for
the women of the Union of South Africa from every State and city
of that vast country.
Since our last Congress not one sign has appeared the entire
world around to indicate reaction. Not a backward step has been
taken. On the contrary a thousand revelations give certain,
unchallenged promise that victory for our great cause lies just
ahead.... During the past winter woman suffrage bills have been
considered by seventeen national Parliaments, four Parliaments of
countries without full national rights and in the legislative
bodies of twenty-nine States.... The largest gains for the past
two years have been in the United States. Five western States and
the Territory of Alaska have followed the example of the four
former equal suffrage States and have enfranchised their women.
Now 2,000,000 women are entitled to vote at all elections and are
eligible to all offices, including that of President.... If
France, Germany, Great Britain, Austria and Hungary could be set
down in the middle of this territory, there would be enough left
uncovered to equal the kingdom of Italy in size.
Mrs. Catt spoke of the trip of Dr. Jacobs and herself around the world
and said: "We held public meetings in many of the towns and cities of
four continents, of four large islands and on the ships of three
oceans and had representatives of all the great races and
nationalities in our audiences. We are now in touch with the most
advanced development of the woman's movement in Egypt, Palestine,
India, Burmah, China, Japan, Java and the Philippine and Hawaiian
Islands, and also in Turkey and Persia, which we did not visit."
In telling of the momentous changes taking place in the East she said:
"Behind the purdah in India, in the harems of Mohammedanism, behind
veils and barred doors and closed sedan chairs there has been
rebellion in the hearts of women all down the centuries.... We spoke
with many women all over the East who had never heard of a 'woman's
movement,' yet isolated and alone they had thought out the entire
program of woman's emancipation, not excluding the vote...." She
reviewed at length the position of women in Persia, in India and in
Asia, the influence of the various religions and the signs of
progress, paying a tribute to Mrs. Annie Besant, to the teachings of
theosophy and especially to those of the Bahais. The terrible
conditions for wage-earning women, the child labor and the nearly
unrestricted white slave traffic in the far East were feelingly
described and the address, which had been heard with almost breathless
interest, concluded:
The women of the western world are escaping from the thraldom of
the centuries.... Their liberation is certain; a little more
effort, a little more enlightenment and it will come. Out of the
richness of our own freedom must we give aid to these sisters of
ours in Asia. When I review the slow, tragic struggle upward of
the women of the West I am overwhelmed with the awfulness of the
task these Eastern women have assumed. They must follow the
vision in their souls as we have done and as other women before
us have done. My heart yearns to give them aid and comfort. I
would that we could strengthen them for the coming struggle. I
would that we could put a protecting arm around these heroic
women and save them from the cruel blows they are certain to
receive. Alas! we can only help them to help themselves. Every
Western victory will give them encouragement and inspiration,
for our victories are their victories and their defeats are our
defeats. For every woman of every tribe and nation, every race
and continent, now under the heel of oppression we must demand
deliverance.
On the Sunday evening after the opening of the convention the Royal
Opera, a State institution, gave a special gala performance of
Mozart's Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, with Cupid's Tricks, by the full
ballet. This was complimentary to the visitors, as the regular season
had closed, and the magnificent spectacle and splendid music were
highly appreciated by the large audience, by none more than by a group
of peasant women, who sat in one of the galleries with shawls over
their heads, having walked fifty miles to attend the congress.
Provision was made for their return home by train.
The formal organization for business took place Monday morning in the
Redoute, a large, handsome convention hall, but hardly were the
preliminaries over and luncheon finished when a long row of gaily
decorated carriages was ready for a three hour drive around the
beautiful city and its environs. At 7:30 the municipality gave an open
air fête on Fisher Bastion, that noble piece of architecture which is
the pride of Budapest. A writer describing the procession of officers
and delegates, headed by Mrs. Catt, passing up the steps to receive
the greetings of the city's high officials, said: "The entrance up the
wide steps, between lines of attendants in picturesque uniforms, with
the soft sunset glow and the lights coming out one by one in the city
and on the river below, was like passing from real life into a land of
enchantment." After the reception all assembled in the Court of Honor,
where sparkling five-minute speeches were made by representatives from
a dozen countries.
It was soon evident that the business of the convention would have to
be confined to the morning hours, as the afternoons and evenings had
to be given over to public speech making and social functions. There
was long discussion in several sessions on establishing international
headquarters and a press bureau, enlarging the monthly paper, Jus
Suffragii, and changing the place of its publication. After most of
the delegates had expressed opinions the whole matter was left to the
board of officers. Miss Martina Kramers, Netherlands, declined to
stand for re-election to the office of recording secretary and the
editorship of the paper and a standing vote of thanks was given "for
her seven years' hard work, with the hope that her name will never be
forgotten in the International Suffrage Alliance and that she will
always be appreciated as the founder of Jus Suffragii.[225] Miss
Chrystal Macmillan, Mrs. Marie Stritt and Mme. Marie Verone reported
that the book Woman Suffrage in Practice, which they had been
requested at the Stockholm meeting to prepare, was finished and the
English edition ready for this convention; the French and German
editions would be published in a few weeks.
The treasurer, Mrs. Stanton Coit, made a detailed and acceptable
report and said that, with new headquarters, a paid secretary, an
enlarged newspaper and many publications, 2,000 pounds would be
necessary for the next two years. Pledges were made for 2,510 pounds
($12,350)[226].
Mrs. Catt having served as president nine years earnestly desired to
retire in favor of a woman from another country but at a meeting of
the presidents of all the auxiliaries she was unanimously and strongly
urged to reconsider her wish. She reluctantly did so and was elected
by acclamation. The delegates decided that the ten persons receiving
the highest number of votes should constitute the officers of the
Alliance and the board itself should apportion their special offices.
Mrs. Fawcett, Mrs. Coit, Miss Furuhjelm, Miss Bergman and Mrs.
Lindemann were re-elected. The five new officers selected were Mrs.
DeWitt Schlumberger, France; Miss Schwimmer, Hungary; Miss Macmillan,
Great Britain; Mrs. Stritt, Germany; Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick,
United States.
The persistent requests that the Board should and should not endorse
the "militant" movement in Great Britain, which had assumed serious
proportions, caused it to recommend the following resolution which
was adopted without dissent: "Resolved: That as the International
Woman Suffrage Alliance stands pledged by its constitution to strict
neutrality on all questions concerning national policy or tactics, its
rules forbid any expression favoring or condemning 'militant' methods.
Be it further resolved: That since riot, revolution and disorder have
never been construed into an argument against man suffrage, we protest
against the practice of the opponents of woman suffrage to interpret
'militancy' employed by the minority in one country as an excuse for
withholding the vote from the women of the world." At another time
Mrs. Cobden Sanderson of Great Britain, speaking as a fraternal
delegate, eulogized the self-sacrifice of the "militants" as the
principal factor in the movement, and Mrs. Catt, speaking from the
chair, said that she would like to answer the assertion that it was
only the "militant" women who were the martyrs. To the women who had
made such protests had come the glory, whereas there were thousands
who had given their lives to the cause whose names had never been
heard. All down the centuries there had been heroines and martyrs and
many of them had stood alone. She believed the movement owed a great
debt to the "militant" women of Great Britain but they were only a
part of it.
Mrs. Catt introduced and urged a resolution "to send from this
congress a request to the Governments of all countries here
represented to institute an international inquiry into the cause and
extent of commercialized vice, and to ask the woman suffrage
organizations in each country to petition their own Government to
institute a national inquiry and to include women in the Commission."
The resolution was unanimously adopted. Mrs. Catt was appointed to
represent the Alliance at the approaching International White Slave
Traffic Congress in London. A very able address, showing a thorough
study of the question, was made by Mrs. Fawcett, who presided at the
meeting held to discuss What Women Voters Have Done towards the
Solution of this Problem.
The usual important reports of the progress in all the affiliated
countries were presented and ordered published in the Minutes, where
they filled over sixty pages. Miss Schwimmer in reporting for Hungary
said:
At the time of the founding of the International Woman Suffrage
Alliance there was nothing even approaching a feminist movement
in Hungary, yet the recent Reform Bill which has just passed the
two Houses includes a long and thorough explanation of the
usefulness and need of woman suffrage and apologies on the part
of the Government for not being able (owing to the present
precarious political situation) to grant it. The marked
inclination of the Government in favor of woman suffrage and the
discussion which took place in the House afterwards, together
with the fact that an amendment to include woman suffrage
received more votes than any other moved, has given the whole
question such an importance that it is no longer a matter of
discussion as to whether our claims are justified or not, but
only when shall they be granted?
The work accomplished by us since the Stockholm Congress has been
in the main, as before, educational; propaganda by meetings,
lectures at all seasons and in all places; the distribution of an
immense quantity of leaflets and other printed matter and
lectures by famous foreign suffragists. The most valuable and
effective part of our work was that we took advantage of the
meetings arranged by the coalition opposition parties, which
include the Social Democratic and the Bourgeois-Radicals. They
held hundreds in all parts of Hungary, many attended by six or
eight thousand people, and in one in Budapest gathered an
audience of 15,000. We tried to get a speaker of ours on every
program. In spite of the militant opposition of the Social
Democratic party and Radical leaders, we succeeded nearly every
time in getting the floor, where we presented amendments to their
resolutions, which, when the chairman was honest enough to put
them to be voted on, were always enthusiastically carried....
About sixty societies for various purposes have declared their
position by taking part officially in several of our public
demonstrations.
A list was given of distinguished men who had become converted to
woman suffrage. Men took a more prominent part in this convention than
in any which had preceded, due principally to the very active
Hungarian Men's League for Woman Suffrage, which included a number
well known in political and intellectual life. The International
Alliance of Men's Leagues conducted an afternoon session in the Pester
Lloyd hall with the Hon. Georg de Lukacs of Hungary, its president, in
the chair. What can Men Do to Help the Movement for Woman Suffrage?
was discussed by Dr. C. V. Drysdale, Great Britain; Major C. V.
Mansfeldt, Netherlands, and Dr. Andre de Maday, Hungary. On Thursday
evening this International League held a mass meeting in the Academy
of Music with rousing speeches for woman suffrage by Hermann Bahr,
Austria; M. Du Breuil de St. Germain, France; Major Mansfeldt; Keir
Hardie, Great Britain; Senator Mechelin, Finland; Dr. Vazsonyi, M. P.,
Hungary; Professor Wicksell, Sweden; Professor Gustav Szaszy-Schwartz,
Hungary.
A crowded mass meeting addressed by women took place one evening in
the Academy of Music, with Mrs. Catt presiding. Mrs. Stritt, president
of the National Suffrage Association of Germany, spoke on Woman
Suffrage and Eugenics; Mme. Maria Verone, a well known lawyer of
Paris, made her impassioned address in French, and Dr. Gulli Petrini
of Sweden spoke in French on Woman Suffrage and Democracy; Miss
Schwimmer inspired the audience with Hungarian oratory; Miss Jane
Addams of the United States gave a forceful address on Why the Modern
Woman Needs the Ballot, and Dr. Shaw closed the meeting with an
eloquent interpretation of the demand of women for the vote. One
afternoon from 4 to 6 o'clock was devoted to a Young People's Meeting,
addressed by delegates from eight countries. A forenoon was given to
the discussion of the always vital question, What Relation Should
Suffrage Organizations Bear toward Political Parties, led by Mrs. Anna
B. Wicksell, Sweden, and Miss Courtney, Great Britain. A large
audience heard one evening the Benefits of Woman Suffrage related by
those who had been sent as official delegates from Governments that
had given the vote to women, Mrs. Qvam, Miss Krog and Mrs. Spencer,
and in supplementary speeches by Mrs. Jenny Forselius, member of
Parliament from Finland; Miss A. Maude Royden, Great Britain; Mrs.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, United States, whose topic was New Mothers
of a New World. A resumé of all these addresses was made in Hungarian
by Vilma Glücklich. During the convention much of the interpreting in
English, French and German was done by Mrs. Maud Nathan of the United
States, who also made an address in the three languages.
On the last day it seemed almost as if the men had taken possession of
the congress, for they had secured the convention hall for the
afternoon meeting, but the women did not like to discourage such
exceptional interest. Woman Suffrage and Men's Economic, Ethical and
Political Interest in it was discussed by Professor Emanuel Beke,
Hungary; Dr. Emil von Hoffmansthal, Austria; Frederick Nathan and
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, United States. Vigorous speeches were made by
Malcolm Mitchell, Great Britain; Leo Gassman, Germany; the Rev. Benno
Haypal, and Alexander Patay, Hungary. The hall was restored to the
women at 5 o'clock for their final program under the general topic,
How may women still bound by ancient custom, tradition and prejudice
be awakened to a realization that these new times demand new duties
and responsibilities? How to Reach the Home Woman, Mrs. Gisela Urban,
Austria; Mrs. Irma V. Szirmay, Mrs. von Fürth, Hungary; How to Reach
the Church Woman, Mme. Jane Brigode, Belgium, Mme. Girardet-Vielle,
Switzerland; How to Reach the Society Woman, Miss Royden, Mme.
Schlumberger; How to Reach the Woman of Higher Education, Mrs. Crystal
Eastman Benedict, United States; How to Reach the Wage-earning Woman,
Miss Isabella O. Ford, Mrs. Clinny Dryer, Great Britain; How to Reach
the Woman Social Worker, Miss Addams.
At the last business session the convention placed on record its
appreciation of the unsurpassed hospitality shown by the Hungarians.
The delegates from this country expressed the pleasure it had been to
welcome the women of all nations and the inspiration that had been
received. The president, Mrs. Catt, asked them to part with the
intention of coming to the next conference, each with a victory in her
own country to celebrate.
There were many luncheons, teas and dinners in beautiful private
homes. The social entertainment which will be longest remembered was
the evening trip down the Danube with supper and music on board, a
happy, congenial party with three hours of the exquisite scenery along
the shores. Usually suffrage conventions closed in a burst of oratory
at a grand mass meeting but not so in this pleasure loving Hungarian
city. The last evening was given over to a banquet which taxed the
capacity of the big convention hall. There were toasts and speeches
and patriotic songs, and the presentation of the international pin,
set with jewels, by the ladies of Budapest to Miss Schwimmer. She said
in a clever acceptance that the women had done what the men never had
succeeded in doing; it was the desire of all Hungarians to make this
city the resort of the world and the women of the world had been the
first to come. "These ambassadors," she said, "who came, to quote the
words of Mazzini, 'in the name of God and humanity,' will report to
their countries the friendly reception they have met and will surely
help the cause of international good feeling."
Several countries competed for the honor of the conference of the
Alliance in 1915 and its regular convention in 1917. Mrs. May Wright
Sewall, honorary president of the International Council of Women,
presented an official invitation from the managers of the Panama
Pacific Exposition to be held in San Francisco in 1915, endorsed by
the California Suffrage Association; the executive committee of the
National Suffrage Association of Germany extended an urgent request
for the conference and that of France for the congress. The answer was
referred to the board, and it later accepted the invitations to Berlin
and Paris. This had been the largest meeting of the Alliance. Never
had the prospects seemed so favorable for accomplishing its objects;
never had the fraternity among the women of the different nations
seemed so close. When they parted with affectionate farewells and the
bright hope of meeting two years hence in Berlin they little dreamed
that it would be seven long years before they came together again;
that during this time the world would be devastated by the most
terrible war in history and that the task must be once more commenced
of developing among the women of the nations the spirit of confidence,
friendship and cooperation.
On call of its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt of the United
States of America, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was
summoned to its Eighth congress June 6-12, 1920, in Geneva,
Switzerland, seven instead of the usual two years after the last one.
The reason for the long interim was given in the opening sentences of
the president's address on the first day: "It is seven years since
last we met. In memory we live again those happy days of friendly
camaraderie in Budapest. All the faces were cheerful. On every side
one heard joyous laughter among the delegates and visitors. Every
heart was filled with buoyant hopes and every soul was armored with
dauntless courage. We had seen our numbers grow greater and our
movement stronger in many lands and here and there the final triumph
had already come.... Alas, those smiling, shining days seem now to
have been an experience in some other incarnation, for the years which
lie between are war-scarred and tortured and in 1920 there is not a
human being in the world to whom life is quite the same as in 1913....
So we do not come smiling to Geneva as to Budapest."
On Sunday morning, June 6, for the first time in the history of Geneva
a woman spoke in the National Church, the Cathedral of St. Peter, and
standing in the pulpit of Calvin Miss A. Maude Royden of Great Britain
preached in French and English to an audience that filled the ancient
edifice to the doors. That morning at 9 o'clock Father Hall, sent by
the Catholic ecclesiastical authorities from England for the purpose,
delivered a sermon to the congress at a special mass in Notre
Dame.[227] In the afternoon a reception was given by Mlle. Emilie
Gourd, president of the Swiss National Suffrage Association, in the
lovely garden, Beau Sejour. At a public meeting in the evening at
Plainpalais, M. J. Mussard, president of the Canton of Geneva; Mme.
Chaponnière Chaix, president of the Swiss National Council of Women,
and Mlle. Gourd gave addresses of welcome, to which responses were
made by Miss Annie Furuhjelm, Finland; Mme. De Witt Schlumberger,
France, and Mrs. Anna Lindemann, Germany, officers of the Alliance.
Mrs. Catt then delivered her president's address. She described the
physical, mental and moral chaos resulting from the war, the immense
problems now to be solved, and said: "For the suffragists of the world
a few facts stand forth with great clarity. The first is that war, the
undoubted original cause of the age-old subjection of women the world
around; war, the combined enemy of their emancipation, has brought to
the women of many lands their political freedom!"
Mrs. Catt showed how the suffrage had come in some countries where no
effort had been made for it, while in others where women had worked
the hardest they were still disfranchised, and she gave a scathing
review of the situation in the United States, where it had been so
long withheld. She paid eloquent tributes to Susan B. Anthony, a
founder of the Alliance, and to Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, who had helped
to found it and had attended every congress but had died the preceding
year. She pointed out to the enfranchised delegates the great
responsibility that had been placed in their hands and through it the
vast power they would have in re-creating the world and said: "I
believe had the vote been granted to women twenty-five years ago,
their national influence would have so leavened world politics that
there would have been no world war." Among the many objects for the
Alliance to accomplish she named the following: (1) Stimulate the
spread of democracy and through it avoid another world war; (2)
Discourage revolution by demonstrating that change may be brought
about through peaceful political methods; (3) Encourage education and
enlightenment throughout the world; (4) Keep the faith in
self-government alive when it fails to meet expectations. Methods for
achieving these results were suggested and it was impressed on the
younger women that this would be their task, as the older ones had
practically finished their work. This address of surpassing eloquence
closed with these words:
God's order will come again to the world's stricken, unhappy,
much-suffering people. It will come because the divine law of
evolution never ceases to operate and the destiny of the race
leads eternally on without pause. So much sacrifice and sorrow as
the war has cost the world can not have been endured in vain....
As I view world politics the only possible hope for the
happiness, prosperity and permanent peace of the world lies in
the thorough democratization of all governments. There can be no
democratization which excludes women and no safe or sound
democracy which is not based upon an educated, intelligent
electorate. Nor is it enough to establish democracy in individual
nations—it must be extended to world politics. The old
militarism must go and with it the old diplomacy, with its secret
treaties, distrust and intrigues. No League of Nations can
abolish war unless every government in the world is based on
democracy.
In our home countries we should urge support of every movement
for the extension of popular education, foster every agency which
helps men and women to think for themselves, promote every
endeavor to maintain honest elections, judicially conducted
campaigns and high ideals in parties and parliaments, for
democracy succeeds when and where independence and intelligence
are greatest.
A few of the delegates wished to disband the Alliance; a few others
desired to change the character of its objects, but by an overwhelming
majority it was voted to continue it along the original lines,
although broadened, until the women of all countries were
enfranchised. The Congress was held in the Maison Communale de
Plainpalais, the large town hall in a suburb of Geneva, and here one
evening its municipality gave a reception to the members. The shady
gardens and sunny terrace were the scene of many social
gatherings.[228] The congress opened with a roll call of the suffrage
victories and the responses showed the almost unbelievable record that
twenty countries had enfranchised their women during the years of the
war! The Official Report was edited by Miss Chrystal Macmillan,
recording secretary of the International Alliance, and the
Introduction was a graphic review, which said in part:
"Despite the difficulties of travel and the fact that only three
months' notice had been given the gathering at Geneva was more widely
representative than any previous meeting. Women were present from
thirty-six countries. Of the twenty-six affiliated with the Alliance
at the time of the last meeting, in 1913, the auxiliaries of nineteen
showed their continued vitality by sending fully accredited delegates
to Geneva. Representatives were also present from the former
auxiliaries in Austria and Germany, who were accorded full membership
rights. The Russian national president, a fugitive from her country,
was unable to come but sent her greetings. The Belgian society
abstained from taking part and from the Polish and Portuguese
auxiliaries no answer was received.
"Four countries, Greece, Spain, Argentina and Uruguay, sent delegates
from newly formed National Suffrage Societies, which were accepted in
the Alliance. In addition there were present women from Armenia, the
Crimea, Lettonia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, New Zealand, Poland, Turkey
and Ukrainia. For the first time women from India and Japan came to
tell of the beginnings of the organized movement among the women of
the East. It was only the difficulties of travel which prevented the
delegates who had started on their journeys from China, Egypt and
Palestine from arriving in time for the congress. For the first time
more than half the voting delegates represented countries in which
women had the full suffrage. The consequent increased political
importance of the congress was recognized by the governments of the
world, of which eighteen in Europe appointed official representatives,
and the United States of America and Uruguay of South America. The
Secretariat of the League of Nations also sent a representative....
"The outstanding feature of the first business session was the
announcement of particulars by representatives of the many nations
which had given the political and suffrage and eligibility to women
between 1913 and 1920—Austria, British East Africa, Canada, Crimea,
Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, Esthonia, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary,
Iceland, Lettonia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Poland,
Rhodesia, Russia, Sweden, Ukrainia and six more of the United States.
It was announced that women sit as members of Parliament in the
majority of these countries, while large numbers are members of
municipal councils. In the United States of America the Federal
Suffrage Amendment had passed both Houses of Congress and had been
ratified by thirty-five of the necessary thirty-six States. Serbia,
Belgium and Roumania had granted Municipal suffrage to women and the
Zionists of Palestine and the Commune of Fiume had given to them full
equal suffrage and eligibility.... It was decided to arrange at the
next congress a session at which only enfranchised women should
speak.... The Catholic Woman Suffrage Society of Great Britain was
accepted as a member of the Alliance....
"Each of the three evening meetings, besides that of Sunday, which
were all crowded and enthusiastic, was characteristic of a different
aspect of the present development of the suffrage movement. On Monday,
a special feature was the speeches of five women members of
Parliament—Helen Ring Robinson (State Senate), Colorado; Elna Münch,
Denmark; Annie Furuhjelm, Finland; Lady Astor, Great Britain; Tekla
Kauffman, Wurtemberg. In all, nine women members of Parliament
attended the Congress. The others, who spoke at later meetings, were
Frau Burian and Adelheid Popp of Austria; Mme. Petkavetchaite of
Lithuania and Adele Schrieber-Krieger, whose election to the German
Reichstag was announced during the Congress. On Wednesday at the great
meeting in the Hall of the Reformation, three-minute speeches were
given by representatives of each of the enfranchised countries in the
Alliance. Yet another new aspect was illustrated by the meeting of
Thursday, addressed by women from India and China. The speeches showed
how similar are the difficulties of the women of both the East and the
West and how much new ground has still to be broken before the object
of the Alliance is achieved."
The forenoons were devoted to business meetings relating to the future
work of the Alliance and they were in session simultaneously in
different rooms in the great building—Women and Party Politics, Legal
Status of Women, Civil Equality, Economic Value of Domestic Work of
Wives and Mothers, Equal Pay for Equal Work, Single Moral Standard,
Protection of Childhood—questions affecting the welfare of all
society in all lands, pressing for solution and in all practically the
same. The afternoons were given largely to the reports from many
countries.[229] The Woman's Leader, organ of the National Union of
Societies for Equal Citizenship of Great Britain, in its account of
the Congress said:
The effect of these reports was intensely dramatic, mingled, as
it inevitably was, with the memories of the strange and bitter
conditions under which the change had come. In some of the
countries that had been at war enfranchisement came in the midst
of revolution, riot and disaster; in others it came fresh and new
with the beginning of their independent national life and almost
as a matter of course. "Our men and women struggled together for
our national freedom," said delegate after delegate from the new
States of Europe, "and so when any of us were enfranchised we
both were." The report on the election of women to national or
municipal bodies was deeply interesting and in many respects
surprising. Germany easily surpassed other countries in this
respect, having had 39 women members in the last National
Assembly, 155 in the Parliaments of the Federated States and
4,000 on local and municipal bodies. In Denmark the record of
success that followed the election of women was astonishing. "We
have done," said the spokeswoman, "what we set out to do; we have
introduced equal pay and equal marriage laws; our equality is a
fact."
Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the Alliance, welcomed
each new representative in the name of all the countries, and,
although the victories had been won in times of stress and war,
the rejoicing was without rivalry, for in the Congress from the
first day until the last no sign or mark of ill-feeling or enmity
was to be found. Not that the delegates forgot or disregarded the
recent existence of the war; no one who saw them would suppose
for a moment that they were meeting in any blind or sentimental
paradise of fools. Their differences and their nations'
differences were plain in their minds and they neither forgot nor
wished to forget the ruined areas, the starving children and the
suffering peoples of the world. They met differing perhaps
profoundly in their national sentiment, their memories and their
judgments but determined to agree where agreement was to be
found; to understand where understanding could be arrived at and
to cooperate with the very best of their will and their
intelligence in assuring the future stability of the world.
An important report was that of the Headquarters Committee, consisting
of Mrs. Catt, Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, first vice-president of
the Alliance, Mrs. Adela Stanton Coit, treasurer, and Miss Macmillan.
Mrs. Coit was chairman the first two years and Mrs. Fawcett the rest
of the time. After the Congress at Budapest in 1913 the official
monthly paper Jus Suffragii was removed from Rotterdam to London and
the international headquarters established there. For the next seven
years the three members of the committee resident in London held
regular meetings, seventy altogether, consulting Mrs. Catt by letter
or cable when necessary. Miss Mary Sheepshanks was editor and
headquarters secretary. "She occupied that post with great acceptance
till 1919," said the report, "when it was with much regret that her
resignation was accepted. Mrs. Elizabeth Abbott was appointed to the
place, where in connection with the preparations for the present
Congress her organizing capacity has been of special value." Miss
Rosika Schwimmer of Hungary was appointed press secretary to furnish
the news to the international press but her work had hardly begun
when the war broke out and she resigned the position to take up work
for peace.
The report told of the meeting of the international officers and a
number of the national presidents which took place in London in July,
1914, to make arrangements for the Congress in Berlin the next year.
Among the many social receptions given were one in the House of
Commons and one at the home of former Prime Minister Balfour. Mrs.
Catt had just started on her homeward voyage when the war began. The
officers in London at once issued a Manifesto in the name of the
Alliance and presented it to the British Foreign Office and the
Ambassadors and Ministers in London, which after pointing out the
helplessness of women in this supreme hour said: "We women of
twenty-six countries, having banded ourselves together in the
International Woman Suffrage Alliance with the object of obtaining the
political means of sharing with men the power which shapes the fate of
nations, appeal to you to leave untried no method of conciliation or
arbitration for arranging international differences which may help to
avert deluging half the civilized world in blood." They decided to
cooperate with the British branch of the Alliance in a public meeting,
which was held August 3 with Mrs. Fawcett in the chair, and a
resolution similar to the above was adopted. In the next issue of the
International News, when war had been declared, Mrs. Fawcett in her
official capacity wrote:
We are faced by the disruption, the animosity, the
misunderstanding caused by war but notwithstanding the cruel
strain we must firmly resolve to hold our International Alliance
together. We must believe all through that good is stronger than
evil, that justice and mercy are stronger than hatred and
destruction, just as life is stronger than death. We women who
have worked together for a great cause have hopes and ideals in
common; these are indestructible links binding us together. We
have to show that what unites us is stronger than what separates
us. Between many of us there is also the further link of personal
friendship cemented by many years of work together. We must hold
on through all difficulties to these things which are good in
themselves and must therefore be a strong help to us all through
these days of trial.
"In this spirit the Headquarters Committee has endeavored to carry out
its task," said its report, "and it has so far succeeded that it is
in a position today to lay down its work without any society having
been lost to the Alliance and with a considerable group of countries
never before associated with it now seeking affiliation." The great
difficulty of getting the paper into the various countries was
described but it was accomplished; the paper never missed an issue; it
remained absolutely neutral and the number of subscribers largely
increased. It was the one medium through which the women of the
warring nations came in touch during the four and a half years of the
conflict. All through the war it had news of some kind from the
various countries showing that their women were still engaged in
organized work for many useful purposes. It was evident that in
practically all of them they were demanding that women should have a
voice in the government.
The headquarters cooperated with other international organizations in
forming the International Woman's Relief Committee and the work was
conducted in its rooms. More than a thousand foreign girls were sent
or taken to their countries and hundreds of British, French and
Belgian women brought from Germany and Belgium to London. The work
among Belgian refugees would require many pages to describe.
Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Catt were preparing to send a deputation from
the Alliance to the Peace Conference to ask for a declaration for
woman suffrage when the National Woman Suffrage Association of France,
through its president, Mme. DeWitt Schlumberger, took the initiative
and called for the national associations of the allied countries to
send representatives to Paris to bring pressure on it. They were
cordially received by the members of the Conference and a
pronouncement in favor of the political equality of women and
eligibility to the secretariat was placed in the constitution of the
League of Nations, which attracted the attention of the world.
When the plan of holding the Congress of the Alliance at Berlin in
1915 had to be given up Holland sent an urgent invitation for that
year but its acceptance was not considered feasible. The Swedish
Auxiliary wanted it held at the time and place of the Peace Conference
but this was found to be inadvisable. The majority of the officers and
auxiliaries in the various countries wished to have a congress the
next spring after the Armistice but there proved to be insurmountable
obstacles. Toward the end of 1919 an invitation was accepted from the
suffrage societies in Spain to come to Madrid in 1920. Preparations
were under way when local opposition developed which made it necessary
to abandon the plan. Switzerland had already invited the congress and
it gladly went to Geneva.
In the report of Mrs. Coit, the treasurer, she said:
You will remember that at Budapest in 1913 a sum of about 2,000
pounds was raised, mostly by promises of yearly donations for the
period of two years. This sum was to finance headquarters and the
paper till we met in Berlin in 1915. In August, 1914, not even
all the first instalments had been received, and from then on,
owing to war conditions, it became impossible for some of our
biggest donors to redeem their pledges. By the beginning of 1917
we found ourselves with an empty exchequer and facing the
possibility of closing down our work. It was then that help came
from our auxiliary in the United States. Mrs. Catt, with the help
of her many devoted friends, raised a sum of $4,333, which was
placed at our disposal and has enabled the Alliance to keep
going. When speaking of the United States' help I wish to make
special mention of the splendid work for the Alliance by Miss
Clara M. Hyde, private secretary for Mrs. Catt. To her incessant
interest and energy it is due that the number of honorary
associates in the U. S. A. now is at least three times as high as
in any other country; also she has quite trebled the number of
subscribers to the International News in the States. Her
devoted work is an example of what can be done by a single
national auxiliary to further the development of the Alliance,
and I recommend her example for universal imitation.
The United States Auxiliary continued to add to the above sum and from
May, 1916, to May, 1920, it sent in membership dues, subscriptions to
the paper and donations $9,337. Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, president of
the Pennsylvania Suffrage Association, was responsible for collecting
over $5,000 of this amount.
The money for the Congress in Geneva, about $3,500, was raised by a
British committee of which Miss Rosamond Smith was chairman and Mrs.
Pethick Lawrence treasurer. To this fund the United States, which had
not suffered from the war to the extent of European countries, was a
large contributor. At the close of the congress there were no funds on
hand for the coming year and the delegates from all countries were
feeling the effects of the war financially. At this critical moment
Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick of the United States, corresponding
secretary of the Alliance, made a contribution of $5,000, and a little
later the Leslie Commission added $4,000. This with individual
subscriptions raised the amount of about $15,000 and guaranteed the
expenses for resuming and continuing the work of the Alliance.
From the organization of the Alliance in Berlin in 1904 Mrs. Catt had
been the president and at no election had there been another
candidate. Her strong desire to relinquish the office was overruled at
Budapest. She went to Geneva with the positive determination not to
accept it again but she faced an equally determined body of delegates.
Not only was she supported by all from the Allied Countries, as they
were known during the war, but she was equally acceptable to those
from the Central Countries. She was literally compelled to retain the
office.
Nominations for the other officers were made by ballot and submitted
to the convention and the ten receiving the highest number of votes
constituted the board. They were as follows: Mme. DeWitt Schlumberger
(France), Miss Chrystal Macmillan (Great Britain), Mrs. Anna B.
Wicksell (Sweden), Mrs. Corbett Ashby (Great Britain), Dr. Margherita
Ancona (Italy), Mrs. Anna Lindemann (Germany), Miss Eleanor Rathbone
(Great Britain), Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick (U. S. A.), Mme.
Girardet-Vielle (Switzerland), Mrs. Adele Schreiber-Krieger (Germany).
Most of them were officers of the National Association in their own
countries. Miss Rathbone was also a member of the city council of
Liverpool.
Among the twenty-two sent as Government delegates were Viscountess
Astor, member of the British House of Commons; Mrs. Marie Stritt, city
councillor of Dresden, and Mrs. Josephus Daniels, wife of the
Secretary of the Navy, U. S. A. Invited members were present from nine
countries, including ten from India, one from Japan and the wife of
the Tartar president of the Parliament of Crimea. There were fraternal
delegates from six international associations; from associations in
nearly every country in Europe (fourteen in Great Britain) and from
South Africa, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay. Greetings were sent
from associations in many countries including China.
A number of the resolutions adopted have been foreshadowed in this
report of the proceedings. Others were for the equal status of women
with men on legislative and administrative bodies; full personal and
civil rights for married women, including the right to their earnings
and property; equal guardianship of their children by mothers; that
the children of widows without provisions shall have the right to
maintenance by the State paid to the mothers; that children born out
of wedlock shall have the same right to maintenance and education from
the father as legitimate children, and the mother the right of
maintenance while incapacitated. Resolutions called for the same
opportunities for women as for men for all kinds of education and
training and for entering professions, industries, civil service
positions and performing administrative and judicial functions, and
demanded that there shall be equal pay for equal work; that the right
to work of women, married or unmarried, shall be recognized and that
no special regulations shall be imposed contrary to the wishes of the
women themselves. A higher moral standard for both men and women was
called for and various resolutions were adopted against traffic in
women, regulations of vice differentiating against women and State
regulation of prostitution.
The Congress took a firm position on the League of Nations and its
recognition of women in the following resolution: "The women of
thirty-one nations assembled in congress at Geneva, convinced that in
a strong Society of Nations based on the principles of right and
justice lies the only hope of assuring the future peace of the world,
call upon the women of the whole world to direct their will, their
intelligence and their influence towards the development and the
consolidation of the Society of Nations on such a basis, and to assist
it in every possible way in its work of securing peace and good will
throughout the world."
A resolution was adopted that a conference of representative women be
summoned annually by the League of Nations for the purpose of
considering questions relating to the welfare and status of women; the
conference to be held at the seat of the League, if possible, and the
expenses paid by the League. The Board instructed Mrs. Ashby Corbett
to arrange a deputation to the League of Nations to present
resolutions and to ask for the calling of the conference as soon as
possible.[230]
On the last day of the Congress from 5 to 7 o'clock the State Council
of the Canton and the Municipal Council of Geneva gave an official
reception and tea to the delegates and visitors. The resolutions of
thanks for the assistance and courtesies received from committees and
individuals filled two printed pages. The Woman's Leader thus closed
its account: "The immense hospitality of Geneva and of the Swiss
Consulate, the superb weather and the beautiful excursions by land and
lake were above all praise.... Taking the Conference as a whole, with
its concrete work and its general spirit, it is clear that it marks a
new step forward. A new force has come into the politics of almost all
the world. It is a force inspired at present with good will, a
humanitarian and an internationalizing force, drawing together the
thoughtful and disinterested women of all countries. It is a force
that the world has need of and no Government should be so blind as to
ignore it."
