The Washington herald., 1920-07-27
Delegates to International
Woman Suffrage Alliance
Praise America.
OTHERS SOCIALISTIC
British Wives Seek Mothers
Pension Whether Needed
Or Not.
CPubIie Ledger seryieeJ


American women at the world
suffrage meeting of the Information
al Woman Suffrage Alliance went
shopping during discussion OF prob
lens vital to European women.
Small wonder.
A poignant impression CLEANED
from the congress is the compare
tive prosperity and happiness of the
United States today. Or one might
better say. the. conditions i'm Amer
lea are such, as compared with
what one heard of other countries,
that for another generation at least
greater happiness and prosperity
for a greater number of people are
possible in America than in any of
the other of the -thirty-five coun-
tries represented at the congress.
Social and Economic.
These conditions are social. and
economic. The women of other ma
tions were all worried about the
numberless thousands of women
forced to earn their own Jiveu-
hood: they were worried about the
numberIess thousands OF widows
and orphaned children. Owing
largely to the war. there is not food
enough or work enough to go
around, there are not enough men.
These two narrowing shortcom-
ings colored the vision of the WON
en- of France, England, Germany and
all the old and new nations Of pnt.
rope. Small wonder that the wom-
en-, fresh from America, could hard
ly understand the kind of prob
lens facing the women of Europe.
1t was also plainly to be dis
Cerned at the Geneva congress that
European women are trying to solve
these social and economic problems
by a method inimiCable, almost in
American. They are treading along
the path of state socialism.
launched by Germany before the
war. something of Prussianism or
bolshcvism, in its attempts toward
greater human happiness. That il
to say, a state paternalism.
Want Mothers Pensioned.
Particularly the British women
were proposing that the state should
pension motherhood. They included
not only widows, but /an mothers
Their idea was that even a minimum
wage for the working man, or
working woman. was unfair. unless
that minimum wage were regulated
according to size of families. There
fore simpler, said they, to pay fam
lilies, to pay the mother directly. in
accordance with the number Of chill
dren in the family.
The theory was to get at a more
even division of a nations wealth.
so that each child therein might
grow UP with equal opportunities.
and that the mother, in the eyes OF
the state, should be directly respon-
sible for the children. 1
This idea of state paternalisn
seemed contrary to the American
theory. which seems to be aiming
at letting the individual work out
his or her own salvation. The aim Of
American democracy is to create in
dividuals who can cope with their
own problems in their own indi-
vidual way. arriving themselves at
their own best good and thus at
the good Of society as a whole.
Economic and social conditions in
America make the working out of
such a theory possible. The indivi-
dual is better able to take care OF
himself or herself in the United
States than anywhere else. There
was therefore, at the Geneva con-
gress, a distinct cleavage between
European theories tending toward
socialism as against American in
dividualism.
Drop Provisions.
SO great was the divergence Of
opinion on the recognition by the
state Of the value of motherhood
that the clause Recognition by the
state of the value to society of
motherhood and adequate economic
provision in this respect" had to
be omitted from the woman's inter-
national program as adopted.
There was also such a variety of
opinion that the clause "a child born
out of wedlock should have tns
same right to maintenance and edu-
cation from the father during the
period of dependency as a iesiu-
mate child was also left out of the
program. Here again was a prob
lem affecting American women in
far less degree than the women of
other nations
However, in spite of the different
conditions and points of view in
various parts of the world, the
women assembled at Geneva read
lily agreed on the following COM
mon program (after dropping out
the two provisions above referred
to which had come out of commit
tee with the rest of the platform):
First, That suffrage be granted
to women and that their equal
status with men upon legislative
and administrative bodies, both ma
tional and international, be recoC-
nized.
Married Woman's Rights.
Second, That women, equally with