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 law-makers 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. In a large number of countries this expectation has been
verified. To name them in chronological order, we begin with neutral
=Denmark=, which in 1915 granted to her women full parliamentary
suffrage and eligibility. Nine women were elected to Parliament.
=Iceland= extended to her women the same rights, and one woman was sent
to Parliament.
The next country was =England=, for many years the storm center of the
suffrage movement. While in all other lands had been steps in evolution,
England was the scene of a revolution. Not one with guns, and powder and
bloodshed, but nevertheless with all other evidences of war. As Mrs.
Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the International Woman Suffrage
Alliance, graphically described, “there were brave generals and well
trained armies, and many a well-fought battle; there have been tactics
and strategies, sorties, sieges, and even prisoners of war, many of whom
had to be released as they went on a hunger-strike. But in time, by the
restless activity of the leaders, every class, including women of the
nobility, working girls, housewives and professional women, became
engaged in the campaign, and not a man, woman or child in England was
permitted to plead ignorance concerning the meaning of woman suffrage.
Together, men and women suffragists carried their appeal into the byways
and most hidden corners of the kingdom. They employed more original
methods, enlisted a larger number of women workers, and grasped the
situation in a bolder fashion than had been done elsewhere. In other
countries persuasion had been the chief, if not the only, weapon relied
upon; in England it was persuasion plus political methods.
“First, the world expressed disgust at the alleged unfeminine conduct of
English suffragists. Editorial writers in many lands scourged the
suffrage workers of their respective countries over the shoulders of
these lively English militants. But time passed; comment ceased; and the
world, which had ridiculed, watched the contest in silence, but with
never an eye closed. It assumed the attitude of the referee who realizes
he is watching a cleverly played game, with the chances hanging in the
balance. Then came a laugh. The dispatches flashed the news to the
remotest corners of the globe that English Cabinet Ministers were
“protected” in the street by bodyguards; the houses of Cabinet Ministers
were “protected” by relays of police, and even the great Houses of
Parliament were “protected” by a powerful cordon of police. Protected!
and from what? The embarrassing attack of unarmed women! In other lands
police have protected emperors, czars, kings and presidents from the
assaults of hidden foes, whose aim has been to kill. That there has been
such need is tragic; and when, in contrast, the vision was presented of
the Premier of England hiding behind locked doors, skulking along side
streets, and guarded everywhere by officers, lest an encounter with a
feminine interrogation point should put him to rout, it proved too much
for the ordinary sense of humor.
“Again, the dispatches presented another view. Behold, they said, the
magnificent and world-renowned House of Parliament surrounded by police,
and every woman approaching that sacred precinct, halted, examined, and
perhaps arrested! Behold all this elaborate precaution to save members
of Parliament from inopportune tidings that women would have votes; yet,
despite it all, the forbidden message is delivered, for over the Houses
floats conspicuously and defiantly a huge “Votes for Women” kite.
Perhaps England did not know the big world laughed then; but the world
did laugh, and more, from that moment it conceded the victory to the
suffragists. The only question remaining unanswered, was: ‘How will the
Government surrender, and at the same time preserve its dignity and
consistency?’”
Surrender came when in January, 1917, the Lower House of Commons adopted
a resolution favoring a bill making women eligible as members of
Parliament.
The bill was discussed again in October, 1918, and a vote of 274 to 25
on October 24th gave women the right to sit as members of Parliament.
Voting in the general elections on December 14th, 1918, for the first
time, the British women enjoyed at last the victory for which they
bravely fought. While they did not succeed to elect one of their women
candidates for a seat in the Parliament, the election was nevertheless
one of the most notable in years. Nearly in all districts the women
voters made a satisfactory showing as compared to that of men. In
=Ireland= one woman, Countess =Georgina Markievicz=, an Irish by birth
and the leading female figure in the Sinn Fein movement, was elected to
the House of Commons, the first woman ever sent to this body.
=Canada= likewise granted full suffrage to women. A bill passed the
third reading on May 3d and received Royal Assent May 23d, 1918.
In =Nova Scotia= a bill was passed April 26th, 1919.
In =South Africa= Parliament accepted a Woman Suffrage Bill on April
1st, 1919, by 44 votes to 42.
When the revolution came in =Russia=, equal suffrage for women was
accepted by the men of all parties without opposition. It has had, as
Catherine Breshkovsky, the “Grandmother of the Russian Revolution,”
explained, “a profound effect upon the minds of the peasant women. They
used to be often beaten by their husbands. Now the idea of freedom and
equal rights has taken firmer root among them. Instead of submitting to
beatings from her husband the sturdy peasant woman defends herself, and
sometimes she even beats him, especially if he is drunk. The fact that
during the war the women have had to do every kind of work has also
contributed to this sense of independence.”
When in November, 1918, the =German Republic= was declared, paragraph 31
of the Constitution provided that the representatives of the people be
elected by all men as well as women over twenty years, and that women
are eligible for all Federal and State Legislatures and municipal
bodies. Under this regulation on January 19th, 1919, 36 women were
elected to the Federal Parliament, and 22 to State Legislatures. Among
the women elected to the Parliament were several of the most prominent
leaders of the suffrage movement in Germany: =Dr. Gertrud Bäumer=, =Dr.
Käthe Schirmacher=, and =Dr. Alice Salomon=.
In =Austria= the downfall of the monarchy nullified the law which
forbade women to take part in political societies. The 12th of November,
1918, brought to the women universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage
and eligibility with the announcement of the republic. Seven women were
elected, among them the well-known suffragist =Adelheid Popp=, who was
also elected to the Vienna Municipal Council.
The Government of the =Hungarian Republic= likewise adopted a suffrage
law which gives the vote to all men of 21 and to women of 24 if they can
read and write. While this is not equality of the sexes yet, the
government gave at the same time evidence of its profound respect for
the abilities of women by taking one of the most important steps in the
history of woman’s progress. It appointed =Miss Rose Bédy Schwimmer=,
highly respected for her activity and literary works on suffrage and
peace, as ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to
Switzerland. But the conservative members of the Federal Council of that
country refused to accept a woman ambassador, and so Miss Bédy Schwimmer
found it advisable to tender her resignation, a month after having
accepted her difficult task.
The new republic =Czecho-Slovakia= as well as the newly reconstituted
state of =Poland= at once conceded full political citizenship to their
women. In Czecho-Slovakia eight, and in Poland five women were elected
to the Parliaments.
In =Sweden= full suffrage was accorded to women May 28th, 1919, when a
bill was passed by large majorities in both houses of the National
Parliament, according to which every subject, man or woman, who has
attained his or her twenty-third year, is qualified to vote.
In =France= the “Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes” sent on
January 24th, 1919, a proclamation to the Parliament demanding that
French women be given the franchise. The proclamation pointed to the
fact that the right to vote had been recognized in enemy and allied
countries and that therefore France should not be backward. But in spite
of this on April 4th two women suffrage amendments to the Electoral
Reform Bill were killed in the Chamber of Deputies. The provision making
women eligible for election to the Chamber was defeated, 302 votes to
187. The vote against transmission of the right to vote to the next of
kin of heads of families, without distinction of sex, was defeated 335
to 134. But on May 20th the Chamber of Deputies adopted a bill granting
women the right to vote in all elections for members of the Communal and
Departmental Assemblies. The vote was 377 to 97. The measure then went
to the Senate.
=Switzerland=, with the European spread of woman suffrage all around,
may be expected to soon respond to the wave of democratic sentiment. On
January 22, 1919, the delegates of the Swiss Union of Women’s Clubs
adopted a resolution to request the Federal Council to order a radical
revision of the Constitution, and grant to women equal political rights
with men. On March 17th, the Grand Council of the Canton of Neuchâtel
declared for the principle of Woman Suffrage, and likewise instructed
the Government to prepare a suffrage bill. If passed this bill will
probably be decided by referendum.
The =Belgian= Chamber of Deputies, by unanimous vote, adopted on April
11th, 1919, an Electoral Reform Bill, under the terms of which the right
to vote is limited to widows who have not remarried, to the mothers of
soldiers killed in battle and to the mothers of civilians shot by the
enemy.
In =Holland= the first Chamber of the Dutch Parliament adopted on July
12th, 1919, a motion to introduce woman suffrage by a vote of 34 to 5.
In the United States of America the Western States have, as pointed out
in a former chapter, never hesitated to acknowledge the rights of women
to vote. But the Southern and Eastern States had remained reluctant in
granting this privilege. And so the suffragists were compelled to
conquer these regions step by step. The women of New York won full
suffrage in 1917, those of South Dakota, Michigan and Oklahoma in 1918.
Presidential suffrage was secured in 1917 in North Dakota, Nebraska, and
Rhode Island, and in 1919 in Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin,
Missouri and Maine.
For many years efforts had also been made by the friends of Woman
Suffrage to induce Congress to act on the so-called “Susan Anthony
Amendments to the Constitution,” reading as follows:
“Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of
sex.
“Section 2. The Congress shall have power by appropriate legislation to
enforce the provisions of this article.”
In 1914 the Senate again voted these amendments down by 11 votes. Again,
in September, 1918, it was rejected by two votes, and again in February,
1919, by one vote. The House voted upon the resolution three times,
rejecting it in 1915 by 78 votes, passing it in 1918 by a margin of one
vote, and again, on May 21st, 1919, by a vote of 304 to 89. The fight
ended on June 4, 1919, when the Senate adopted the resolution by a vote
of 56 to 25.
“The credit of having won this victory,” so the “New York American” said
in an editorial, “belongs chiefly to the resourceful women of the land
who have, for generations, been pushing this issue to the front in spite
of stupid opposition and almost as stupid indifference.
“Liberal-minded men, a few in the early days, many more recently, have
helped. But, primarily, it is a woman’s victory, and no man will
begrudge the acknowledment. Equal partners in the economic and social
life of the nation, American women will now be equal sharers in its
political life and in the responsibilities which this will involve.
“The joy of triumph will be of brief duration. The period of
responsibility will be long and trying. But the women of America will
certainly meet it equally with the men, and if they do that the men will
have no just basis of complaint. Political rule by men has been full of
blunders. Women, too, will blunder, but they will not be likely to make
the same kind of blunders that men make. The blunders that men make will
tend to be corrected by the superior insight and intuition of women; and
probably in time the blunders to which women will be prone will have
counteraction by the men. So instead of the blundering being increased
by the widened circle of electoral responsibility it is more likely to
be lessened, for the cure for the ills of democracy is always more
democracy.
“Anyhow, the change is here. It is world-wide. It comes as a resultant
of increased freedom and it presages more freedom.”