# The Case for Women's Suffrage/The International Movement for Women's Suffrage

THE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT FOR WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE
BY EDITH PALLISER
TO the National American Women's Suffrage Association belongs the honour of having initiated the International Movement for Women's Suffrage, which has for its object, "To secure the enfranchisement of women of all nations, and to unite the friends of Women's Suffrage throughout the world in organised co-operation and fraternal helpfulness."
The first step in organised effort to obtain the suffrage for women was also taken by the women of America, and that agitation dated from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention which was held in London in 1840.
In considering the many predisposing causes which led very gradually up to the demand by women for their political enfranchisement, it is interesting to note that it was from a passionate desire for a reform of the unsatisfactory and in many cases degrading social and political conditions of their country, together with a chivalrous pity for the weak and ​friendless, that women first learnt to realise the special need of the franchise for themselves.
This is true not only of American and English women but of women in all countries. We have had recent examples in the women of Russia and Finland who have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into the work for political freedom, sharing with men in all the dangers and suffering equally with them in the attempt to obtain liberty for their country. The Women's Suffrage Movement was not, as has been asserted, the outcome of an agitation by a few women of ill-balanced minds, inspired by an unreasonable hatred of men. The root and mainspring of the demand was the desire to release the slave, to succour the wounded, to bring light to the prisoners, and to combat immorality.
It was, perhaps, fitting that the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 should have been the starting-point of the work for women's enfranchisement. At all events it was the action of the men, who by an overwhelming vote refused to the women delegates from the Anti-Slavery Societies in America the right to sit and deliberate in that assembly, that gave the impetus to the Women's Suffrage agitation in America. This refusal to allow their fellow-workers recognition must have aroused in the minds of English women working at that time for social reforms serious reflections on the position women occupied in regard to the State. Among these were Mary Carpenter, who may indeed be taken as a type of the woman who, in beginning her work for the benefit of others, had no thought of the need of the franchise for her ​sex, but who was slowly brought to realise that legislation would not be established on its true basis until women had the same power of voting as men.
The first meeting called to consider the formation of an International Women's Suffrage Alliance was held at Washington, D.C., in February, 1902. At this conference six National Women's Suffrage Associations were represented, viz., Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, and the United States of America. Delegates were also present from countries where no National Suffrage Associations existed at that time—Australia, Chili, and Russia. A temporary International Committee was formed. This committee met in Berlin in 1904, when the International Women's Suffrage Alliance was established. At this meeting seven countries were represented—Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States of America. Visitors also attended from Austria, Hungary, New Zealand, and Switzerland. The third Conference was held in Copenhagen, when delegates from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Russia, and Sweden were present. Besides these many fraternal delegates attended representing Councils of women of different nations—the National Council or Frenchwomen, the Finnish Women's Association, and the Georgian Women's League of Equal Rights. The chief feature of interest in this Convention was the presence of Alexandra Gripenberg, representing the newly-enfranchised women of Finland, and of Mdlle. Mirovitch, the representative of the Russian ​Union of Defenders of Women's Rights. There can be no doubt that the work of the International Alliance will in time prove a great help and stimulus to the cause of women's enfranchisement in every land.
The policy to be pursued in every country must of necessity vary with its political conditions, but the arguments against Women's Suffrage that have to be combated and the prejudices encountered are precisely the same. Those countries which already possess the franchise can furnish facts to prove that the prophecies of evil results following on the enfranchisement of women have been falsified. Inaccurate statements circulated by opponents in the press can be readily met and corrected by the organisations keeping each other in close touch with the actual facts of the progress of the movement. The position of the movement in different European countries offers some features of general interest. Finland has been granted the franchise by the sanction of the Czar, the representative of autocratic government, and the first European monarch to recognise the claims of his women-subjects. The countries where the cause of women has made the least progress are the republics of France and Switzerland. In Italy, where the agitation has only been started in recent years, the appeal of women has already been carried to the practical stage. In the new world the English colonies have granted full political rights to women, while America, which was the first to formulate the claim of self-government for all, still denies political rights to its women.
​These facts may perhaps be taken to prove the truth of Mr. Leckey's words that "the success of a movement depends much less upon the force of its arguments or upon the ability of its advocates than the predisposition of Society to receive it."