The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-06-07
AMERICAN WOMAN
 IS SPEAKER AT ]. GENEVA MEETING
Tells Suffragists American Women Feel They Have
 Been Betrayed

Geneva, Switzerland, June f-At the opening here today of the Con gross of the International women Suffrage Alliance, Mrs. Carrie Chap man Catt president of the American Woman Suffrage Association, address- ed the congress on the progress or the movement throughout the WoTlo- MITE Catt said in part:
 @F>or the suffragists of the world a few facts stand forth with great clarity, The first and greatest Is that the political liberation of women was tossed up out of the war chaos like an isolated mountain when the world was in the making. War, the un- doubted original cause of the humilf- atipg, age-old subjection of women the world around, war, the combined enemy of their emancipation, war has rendered to the women of many lands their political freedom! Strange, be- wiIdering fact!
 '-The Latin and Oriental countries still hold out but that will not be for long. Rumania, the first Latin country to extend the vote to women, has already led the way, the others will follow. I believe no country in Europe except Turkey now is without a woman suffrage association Wom-
  Yet while all these old barriers are swept aside In many lands and men and women enfranchised, the task is not vet completed in the countries where women have labored hardest and where the principal of democracy has longest been unchallenged-
 There must be millions of women in Europe who never hoped for poll tical liberty and who are now dazed by it's sudden coming. The women or Norway, Denmark and Iceland have long been enfranchised, but Germany has outstripped all other nations in the recognition of the principle of equality, with 137 women serving on city councils and 37 as members of the National Parliament. The Pres1- dent of the German National Suffrage Association comes to this Congress as a member of the City Council of Dresden.
 "It is not for me to interpret the sentiments of the women of other lands but with authority I may say that there are millions of suffragists in the United States who have been fairly stupified with astonishment at these almost unaccountable events. As all the world knows the United States of America has been dedicated from the first to the principle of self gov ernment No other nation has made the same announcements.
 "No other country has repudiated its Constitution. principles and his tory in it's denial of votes to its wom- en and that is why the extension of suffrage to the women of all Europe has so humi1iated the women of the United States. Women of the United States are not less glad that women of other lands have won the vote but they feel that they have been be- trayed by their own nation.
 "It was in the United States that the first woman suffrage convention was held and the first organized wor1- an suffrage movement in the world begun That was 72 years ago. Had men been reasonable or logical, they would at once have responded to the appeal of 1S4S with the consistent an swer. Since we are a government of the people, and women are people, they must be included in all govern mental functions But men are neither reasonable nor logical; men are exceedingly emotional and sen timental. The race is too near it's cave davs to be otherwise.
 ''So liberal has the United States heen in the matter of man suffrage that f5 of the AS states once allowed men to vote who were not yet citf- zens and several still do; and seem to see nothing inconsistent in permit ting an illiterate -taxpaying alien to vote while denying that privilege to American-bo intelligent taxpaying women.
 "It has been familiar sight or election days when question of wom on suffrage has been pending to see refined ladies. college graduates and women of importance, standing 100 feet from the polling place making their appeal to voters. while men un- able to speak English, the langua ge of the ballot, unable to read in any language, uncouth and untrained marched past them to cast votes against their enfranchisement
 'Tncredible, you say. It is; astound- ing and unbelievable. It staggers and dumbfounds one. Should you ask why is it, I answer, there are 'ex- cuses but no defense The great bare, bald fact is there. For 70 years in a land wherein no man ever made a sacrifice for a vote, women have given their all to gain it, and theii country has not yet procla led their task completed.
 ''Is it not clear that the time has passed for women to work for ths enfranchisement of women alone w ny Shoulu HOl the lnteTnallOnd Woman Suffrage Alliance give way to an International Suffrage Alliance sending forth it's propaganda for the enfranchisement of men as well as women? And why should not mer and women of democratic vision unite in this comon aim? Most countrie. have had en's leagues to aid woman suffrage; why not united mems ant women's leagues to aid the enfran chisement of both men and women or either?'
 PRESENTS SHIELD