“ Catt convinced those of all nations that impartiality and justice would til 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Behind the purdah in India, in the harems of Mo- hammedanism, 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We must strike a note in this meeting so full of sisterly sympathy, of faith in woman- hood, 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. ”

“ Every- where was cruel injustice to women, barred out from the higher places, working for half the pay of men in others, and discrim- inated 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. ”

“ That since riot, revolution and disorder have never been construed into an argument against man suffrage, we protest against the practice he opponents of woman suffrage to interpret ' militancy' employed by the minority in one country as an excuse for with- holding the vote from the women of the world. ”

“ We women of twenty-six countries, having banded ourselves together in the International Woman Suffrage Alliance with the object of obtaining the polit- ical 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. ”

“ 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 prom of sympathy with the work we do. We wish to welcome these gentlemen first of all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ With a forbearance we may all do well to imitate, they quadrupled their own activities. Every class, in- cluding 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 con- cerning 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. ”

“ No human power, no university professor, no Parliament, no govern- ment, 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. ”

“ Catt was adopted explaining the urding 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 enfranchise- ment, its sole object being to establish the principle that sex should not be a disqualification. ”

“ 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 : Yhen the organization of the Alliance was completed in 1904, it decided that national woman suffrage associations only should he 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. ”

“ Catt reviewed the movement for woman suffrage, declar- ing 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. ”

“ 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 INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE 833 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 women of thirty-one nations assembled in congress at Geneva, convinced that in a strong Society of Nations based on the prin- ciples 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. ”

“ 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 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 qualifica- tions has been bestowed upon them. English women have secured eligibility to become Mayors and members of town and county councils. ”

“ Catt was in the chair at the first afternoon session and Dr. Jacobs welcomed the conference in an address given in per- fect 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. ”

“ 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 de- termination 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They accept with 832 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE 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 prop- erty, 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." ”

“ 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 regime." She told of the elec- tion 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. ”

“ 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 THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE 853 will give them encouragement and inspiration, for our victories are their victories and their defeats are our defeats. ”

“ 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 Finnic had given to them full equal suffrage and eligibility. ”

“ 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 a complete resume of the early position of women, the vasl 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." ”

“ 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 Commis- sion 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. ”