Volume VI Part 75 (1/2)
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. Kathe Schirmacher, Germany; Miss Stepankova, Bohemia; Mrs. Lang, Austria; Miss K. Honegger represented the newly affiliated national a.s.sociation 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 friends.h.i.+p to meet again as comrades in a great cause.
FIRST QUINQUENNIAL OF THE ALLIANCE.
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 a.s.sociations. 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 a.s.sociations, 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 a.s.sociation, 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 a.s.sociation. A National a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sociations were pledged to universal suffrage, some to Munic.i.p.al, 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 pa.s.sed away, prosperous, successful, triumphant years; prosperous, for we have known no quarrel or misunderstanding; successful, for the number of National a.s.sociations 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 emanc.i.p.ating 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 a.s.sociation by women in Great Britain and said: ”They are sending in a pet.i.tion to Parliament. It is well known that people by nature are opposed to new things; before education people are anti-suffragists. If a pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion 'opposed to the further extension of rights to women' yet known could be secured there. A pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion is a gain; an anti-suffrage pet.i.tion 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 a.s.sociation 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 members.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociation for women's suffrage has been formed. Its president is Lady Knightley of Fawsley and among its vice-presidents are the d.u.c.h.ess 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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.sed such and such degrees and fulfilled such and such conditions were ent.i.tled 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 const.i.tutional methods to judge aright the total result of unconst.i.tutional forms of agitation.