Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-09

gard to religion, color, race or previous
condition of servitude. I'VE women of the
United States" it says, sincerely believ-
ing that the best good of our homes and
nation will be advanced by our own greater
unity of thought sympathy and purpose,
and that an organized movement of women
will best conserve the highest good of the
family and the state, do hereby unite our
selves in a federation of workers COM
mitted to the overthrow of all forms of
ignorance and injustice and to the applca-
ton of the golden rule to society, custom
and law"
The National Council of Women was or
gained in Washington in 1888, and Susan
B. Anthony, pioneer in many of the move
mentS in the interest of women, is of
the founders of the society. In the spring
of 1888 Miss Anthony and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton We're visiting in England and
France, and while there they conceived the
idea of a great international council of
women to be composed of organizations all
over the world, gathered under one const
tuition, meeting together to discuss all mat
tiers pertaining TO them, to their homes, and
to the world in general, so far as the world
affected their homes or they the world.
Was Favorably Received.
On the eve of their departure from Eng
land, at a reception given them in Liver
pool, the subject was presented and most
favorabIy received. resolution was
adopted, declaring that this meeting rec
ognizes that in union is strength, and that
the time has come when women all over the
world should unite in the just demand for
their political enfranchisement"
Committees We're appointed to work up
the sentiment in England, Ireland. Scot
land, France and the United States and
Susan B. Anthony and e iZabeth Cady
Stanton came back home to get busy with
their new idea. After discussing the mat
ter fully, it was decided to celebrate the
fourth decade of the woman suffrage move
ment in the United States by calling in
ternatiOna} council.
The first organized demand for equal edu-
cational, industrial, professional and polit-
ical rights for women was made in a
vention held at Seneca Falls, N. Y. in
1S4S The National Woman's Suffrage AS
ISOLATION, at its convention held in Wash
ington in January 1887, made arrange
ments for this international council OF
women. and in June of that year issued the
call, which was signed by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, national president, and Susan 3.
Anthony, national senior vice president of
the Suffrage AsSocia ton. The call de-
clared that an Interchange of opinions on
the great questions then agitating the world
would arouse women to new thought, in
1ensify love of liberty and give them real
iZing sense of the power of combination.
That the Suffra gistS hoped to make this in
ternauonal council a stepping stone to
achievement of franchise fer women was
shown in another paragraph of the call.
I'm an international council women may
hope to devise some new and more effective
which they long and SO earnestly sought
Such a council will impress the important
lessons that the position of women any
where affects their post on everywhere.
Much is said of universal broth arhood but,
for veal or for woe, more subtle and more
binding is universal ssterhood."
Invitations Generally Accepted.
The response to tie invitation for this
international council surprised even the
founders, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton. who were early Joined in the
call by Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery and Mrs.
May Wright Sewall They invited seventy
seven national organizations of women to
join them, and fifty-three of these respond
ed with funds and membership Only twen-
ty-four declined to enter the international
union, and several of those organiza tons
came in afterward. Under the nine gen.
eral topics of education. philanthropy. tenn
perance. industries, professions. legal con-
ditions, political conditions, moral educa-
ton and organization itself, the essential
prerequisite of the most effective work in all
these lines. these fifty-three organizations
of women met and discussed their differen.
propaganda, took harmonious counsel to-
gether and sounded their united purpose
throughout the whole civilized world.
Said Miss Anthony: 1T was the harvest
Of forty years spent in sowing seed; the
hour was ripe for 1t. An earlier effort