Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/879

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THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE
863

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 sesion was the announcement of particulars by representatives of the many nations which had given the political and suffrage and elibility 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.... t 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,