Rudolf Cronau

“ Especially at the time of the clever Mme. de Pompadour women were everywhere the power, without which no movement could be carried through successfully. "These women," said the famous philosophical historian Montesquieu, "form a kind of republic, whose members, always active, aid and serve one another. It is a new state within the state; and whoever observes the action of those in power, if he does not know the women who govern them, is like a man who sees the action of a machine but does not know its secret springs." ”

“ We too protest against the perpetuation of a hate which was always foreign to women's hearts. Our French sisters! It is with joy that we grasp your extended hand. We will stand and march together, in common effort for the good of mankind. On the ruins of a materialist world, founded by force and violence, on misunderstanding and hate, we women will, through death and sorrow, clear the road to the new humanity. As mothers of the coming generations, we, women of all nations, want love and understanding and peace. ”

“ Myriads want peace; they never wanted war. In each country this is true; constant proofs reach us from Germany and France, as well as various parts of England. The press of each nation asserts that the people are unanimous for war. It is not so, but those who have the means of speaking, and who swim with their governmental streams, can speak the loudest and alone are heard. Many dare not, many cannot speak. Others make a truce and save thousands of human lives and receive the blessings of thousands of wives and mothers. ”

“ It is because I know the brunt of this war, too, is falling and must fall, heaviest upon the weak and young, that I appeal now on their behalf, not merely to those who love peace, but to the great body of women who love children. Little children, more sensitive to exposure, to extremes of heat and cold, to tainted food, to starvation, and to the stench, the poisonous stench of war, quickly fade, quickly die. ”

“ No people has ever recognized the charm of women with greater enthusiasm than the Greeks. To them the fair sex was the embodiment of cheerful life, of the joy of being. To this conception we owe many of the most excellent works of art, among them several unsurpassed statues of Venus, the goddess of beauty and love. ”

“ Although the representatives knew that it would produce a long and terrific war against the most powerful and most inconsiderate government of the world, they solemnly agreed to choose liberty or death. Liberty to make their own laws and to elect their own officials, liberty of religion, liberty of speech and press, liberty of trade and commerce, liberty for man, woman and child. ”

“ When, therefore, under the pressure of business competition the machine is speeded up and the girl operating it is speeded up to its pace, we have finally a situation in which the machine destroys the worker." The rapidly increasing misery among such exhausted women workers aroused public attention and led to the formation of a number of woman's organizations with the purpose to investigate abuses among such women workers, to teach them the value of trade unions, to agitate equal pay for equal work, to shorten the number of working hours, and to abolish child labor and prison work. ”

“ While the wife is welcomed with such gifts, she too presents her husband with a piece of armor. All these things are held sacred as a mysterious symbol of matrimony. Lest the wife should think that she is shut out from heroic aspirations and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the ceremony which inaugurates marriage that now she is her husband's partner in his toil as well as in all danger, and destined to share with him in peace and in war alike. ”

“ It led also to the inclination to regard hunting and warfare as the only occupations worthy of men, and to relegate all domestic work to the women, since such labor would be degrading to the warrior.
But the despised work of the weaker sex has proven of far greater value to the progress of the human race than all heroic acts ever accomplished by fighting men. To woman's ingenuity we owe our comfortable homes. Women kept the warming hearth-fire burning, prepared the meals, watched faithfully over the children and made the clothes that gave protection against rain and cold. ”

“ Appalling as is this massacre of the manhood of Europe, that is not the worst. As long as men adopt barbaric methods of settling disputes they must abide by the consequences; but for those innocent victims, the non-combatants women, babes, old and sick—I crave your help. Their names and numbers will never be known. They are multiplying in Poland and Galicia, in Belgium and France, in East Prussia and Holland, and elsewhere. Ponder this vast host, voiceless, suffering, dying, crouching beside their blackened ruins or fleeing from the devastated areas both east and west. ”

“ For the spread of a new religion such as Christianity, the Roman world was wonderfully ripe. As it had been the politics of Rome not to interfere with the religions of the peoples subdued by her armies, there had been added to the already overcrowded pantheon of Rome many of the principal deities of the conquered nations. But there existed also a longing for some religion, which would have more individuality and personal power in it then were supplied by the thoughts of a supreme spiritual fate, or by the mere materialistic conception of the genius of Rome. ”

“ We will not longer endure without protest that added burden of maimed and invalid men and poverty-stricken widows and orphans which war places upon us.
"As women, we have builded by the patient drudgery of the past the basic foundation of the home and of peaceful industry. We will not longer accept without a protest, that must be heard and heeded by men, that hoary evil which in an hour destroys the social structure that centuries of toil have reared.
"As women, we are called upon to start each generation onward toward a better humanity. ”

“ According to conservative estimates, of the 38,000,000 wage earners of the United States, in every year 30,000 to 35,000 are killed by industrial accidents. In addition, there are approximately 2,000,000 non-fatal accidents.
Imagine a plain strewn with 35,000 corpses and two million men and women crying out under the pain of severe lacerations, burns, cuts, bruises, dislocations and fractures! Imagine the horrible sight of so many human beings with limbs torn into shreds, with faces having empty eye-holes, with breasts heaving from the effect of poisonous gases! ”

“ That she will assume this obligation, fully aware of its significance, cannot be doubted; we need only recall the noble spirit, enthusiasm, intelligence and perseverance which have distinguished all the leaders in the great movement for woman's emancipation.
Woman's mission in the future will be many-sided. Paramount among all questions, that demand her utmost consideration, is the prevention of future wars. And it may be said right here that mankind, through the efforts of women, will most probably find the final realization of hopes cherished for centuries by all right-minded people. ”

“ As the inhabitants rush out in terror, those who resist capture are killed, and those who have escaped the blessing of immediate death are fettered and marched off.
Imagine long columns of such unfortunate and often severely wounded men, women and children chained together and driven by ruthless brutes through pathless jungles and arid deserts, to far away markets. No matter how hot the sun burns down, they must move on. Woe to those who break down! They are left where they have dropped, to perish of hunger and thirst, or to be torn by wild beasts. ”

“ This International Congress of Women expresses its deep regret that the terms of peace proposed at Versailles should so seriously violate the principles upon which alone a just and lasting peace can be secured, and which the Democracies of the world had come to accept. By guaranteeing the fruits of the secret treaties to the conquerors the terms tacitly sanction secret diplomacy. They deny the principle of self-determination, recognize the right of the victors to the spoils of war, and create all over Europe discords and animosities, which can lead only to future wars. ”

“ The great devotion, shown to the mother by her son as well as by his wife, and which makes her the most respected member of the whole family, is an education in humility and self-control, the results of which fill one with admiration. As the life of the Mohammedan woman, of which her husband forms the center, is one of repose and seclusion, so she retains a child-like disposition of sentiment which is indeed touching. Unlike as it is with us, she is reared in full knowledge of the natural destination of woman. ”

“ The only possible excuse for such incredible waste of human lives is that neither the employers nor the law-makers of those bygone days realized that the physical and mental abilities of the large laboring classes belong to the resources of a nation just as truly as do the water-power, the soil, the mineral deposits, the forests, and other natural means. Moreover, nobody was aware of the fact that it is one of the supreme duties of a wise government to guard these resources, so fundamentally necessary to the prosperity of a nation, from unscrupulous exploitation and possible destruction. ”

“ The noble spirit, that had brought these women together, found expression first in the following address of the French delegates to the German women:
To-day for the first time our hands which have sought each other in the night can be joined. We are a single humanity, we women. Our work, our joys, our children, are the same. French and Germans! The soldiers which have been killed between are for both of us alike victims. It is our brothers and our sisters who have suffered. We do not want vengeance. We hate all war. We push from us both the pride of victory and the rancor of defeat. ”

“ The early Hebrews or Israelites, being of the same Semitic stock as the Babylonians, but preferring a pastoral life, observed similar habits in their relations to women. Matrimony to them was not a necessity based on mutual love and respect, but a divine order, binding especially the man. While it was his obligation to maintain the human race, especially the Jewish stock, woman was merely the medium to reach this end by her beauty and charm and by giving birth to children. ”

“ We grieve for the many brave young men, who have lost their lives in barbaric fratricide before even attaining their full manhood; we mourn with the poor mothers bereft of their sons; with thousands and thousands of young widows and fatherless children; we will not endure in this Twentieth Century civilization, that governments shall longer tolerate brute force as the only method of solving their international disputes. The culture of centuries' standing and the progress of science must no longer be recklessly employed to perfect the implements of modern warfare. ”

“ Undaunted by such persecutions the gallant women once more raised their voices when it became evident that the so-called Peace Congress of the allied delegates at Versailles, instead of giving quick relief to the starving millions, and instead of promoting good will and better understanding among the different nations, was degenerating into an orgy of autocracy, merciless extortion and land-grabbing, repudiating all the high-sounding phrases of humanity, democracy, self-government, political and economic liberty, with which the war had been carried on. ”

“ We refer to the White Slave Trade. As few people have any definite idea of its extent and terrors, some authentic facts are here given, which, at the same time, demonstrate men's indifference as well as the urgent need of woman's interference for its suppression.
As everybody knows, the traffic in young girls for purposes of prostitution is as old as humanity. It has flourished in all ages and in all countries. But it was during the 19th Century that it found its systematic organization and its most extensive development. ”

“ And the men, brutal, conceited, looking upon woman as a piece of property, created for man's pleasure or for his service, have been the men that opposed suffrage. Another class opposed to woman suffrage is the most dangerous class of all. That is the class that would keep in ignorance women, and men, too, if it could. Those that prey upon the ignorance and superstition of women are anxious that women shall know as little as possible. They do not want the women to vote, for voting means thinking, and thinking means freedom. ”

“ To enumerate what women have contributed to culture as founders and patronesses of infant homes, foundling and orphan asylums, industrial schools and homes for boys and girls, of refuges for unfortunate women, invalids and the aged, of hospitals for destitute children and for people afflicted with tuberculosis, cancer, and incurable diseases, is a task impossible for the limited space of this book. Besides, all information is fragmentary and far too insufficient to give a true idea of the vast sums and immense amount of time, labor, and effort, devoted by women to these works of charity. ”

“ Warmly espousing the cause of reform in many directions and making herself the champion of truth and human rights at any cost, she visited prisons and charitable institutions and talked freely with the female inmates. It was on the common ground of womanhood that she approached these degraded of her own sex, true to her unalterable faith in awakening whatever divine spark might be there. ”

“ The wonderful spirit displayed by many millions of women during the World War gave foundation to the hope that universal suffrage would be an inevitable result of the war, and that the lawmakers of all the belligerent countries would no longer deny this crowning privilege to those mothers, wives, and sisters, who had worked so nobly, suffered so keenly, and endured so patiently through the long years of this cruel catastrophe. ”