WOMAN’S ACTIVITY DURING THE WORLD WAR.
When in August, 1914, the most dreadful disaster that ever befell humanity burst upon the European nations, women at first stood paralyzed with fear and terror, foreseeing the tremendous burden and sacrifices they would have to bear. But after every hope for a peaceful solution had vanished and nothing remained but to face the inevitable, they rallied and prepared to weather the coming hurricane.
The manner in which they met it during the long and terrible years of 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918 was perhaps the greatest revelation the world has ever experienced. Never before have members of the “weaker sex” braved such a catastrophe more heroically and made such supreme sacrifices. In fact, woman’s activity during the World War has been a grand manifestation, which stands out in glorious colors from a black background of man’s hatred, revengefulness, slander, calumniation, treason, avarice, atrocities, and murder.
When the vast armies were mobilized it became necessary to close the innumerable gaps caused by the sudden drafting and departure of so many million men. To refill the positions they had occupied, was the most urgent necessity, as otherwise the whole machinery of national life would become disorganized, and that at the most critical time.
At once immense numbers of women and girls responded to the call. They went into the tramway and railway service to act as ticket sellers and punchers, as conductors, brakemen and motormen. They replaced the letter carriers and chauffeurs; they climbed the lofty seats formerly occupied by cab-drivers and postilions. Mounting motor-cycles they delivered telegrams and performed other urgent errands. They formed street-cleaning and fire-brigades and took care of the sanitation and protection of the cities. In the offices and stores they assumed the duties of the bookkeeper and floor-walker; in the schools they substituted for male teachers who had followed the call of the war trumpet. They repaired telegraph-wires and installed telephones; they became blacksmiths and repaired the roofs of houses. They cleaned windows and chimneys, delivered newspapers and carried the coal from the wagon into the bins and bunkers. They acted as “ice-men” and collected the garbage and ashes. They tilled the fields and vegetable gardens, and brought in the crops and the harvests. They thrashed the wheat and served in the mills as well as in the bakeries. They furnished clothes, and made and mended shoes. They finished the public roads and other works that had been left uncompleted. They built houses and tore down others. In Berlin the excavation for a new underground railway, badly needed, was done by women, and half of the gangs that worked on the railroad tracks were made up of girls.
WOMEN FILLING SHELLS IN A BRITISH AMMUNITION FACTORY.
In England as well as in France and Germany thousands of women could be seen in the ship-yards working side by side with men on the scaffolds, at bolting and riveting, forging and casting, as if they had always done this work. In fact, women did everything that heretofore had been regarded as “man’s work.”
But they did much more. Hundreds of thousands of women entered the gun- and ammunition factories in order that the armies might not lack ample means for the defense of the country.
WOMEN IN A SHELL FACTORY.
Donning overalls, oil-cloth caps and gas masks they became engaged in the hazardous manufacture of high explosives, of filling and packing the deadly gas-shells and other projectiles. At the same time millions of busy hands prepared the bandages and other necessities for the treatment of the wounded. Whole brigades of Red Cross nurses were formed and went to the battlefields and hospitals, to attend those who in the grim conflict might lose their limbs, their eye-sight, or become sufferers from the effect of poisonous gases.
All too soon long trains and hospital-ships brought in such unfortunates, at first a few hundred, then in ever increasing numbers, by the thousands and by tens of thousands. Within a few months most of the countries engaged in the dreadful struggle were turned into immense hospitals, filled with moaning and suffering. What noble and indefatigable women did here to alleviate this misery and distress, can never be fully told and will never be forgotten. Whoever was witness of the self-control and perseverance shown year after year by many Red Cross nurses will always think of them with reverence.
There is not a single Army Medical Corps of the many nations engaged in the World War, which does not freely admit, that the immense amount of work could not have been done without the help of women. In a tribute to the Red Cross Major-General Merritte W. Ireland, Surgeon-General U. S. Army, said:
“Probably the greatest single service rendered by the Red Cross home forces was the supply of trained nurses it furnished our hospitals. The Army Medical Corps trains a few nurses, but could never hope to turn out the large number provided through Miss Delano’s department. If we needed a thousand nurses for a given work, we telegraphed the War Department. The War Department notified Miss Delano. And the nurses arrived on schedule.
“An especially notable service rendered by Red Cross nurses occurred during the early American campaign when our men were brigaded with French divisions. When wounded, they were, of course, taken to French hospitals. Unable to answer questions or tell their needs, they were in a very unhappy plight. Scores of Red Cross nurses speaking both French and English were immediately sent to these hospitals—and the problem was solved.
“The work of the Red Cross was often the theme of discussions at American General Headquarters at Chaumont. I remember that it was enlarged upon there in a conversation between General Pershing, Mr. H. P. Davison, the Chairman of the War Council of the American Red Cross, and myself. We were speaking of the value of the service rendered by the millions of our women and how they helped keep the influence of home about the boys at the front. And General Pershing said: “The women of the United States deserve a large share of the credit for the success of the American forces.”
“Our Army officers have often admired not only the spirit but the efficiency of the American Red Cross organization. It provided an inexhaustible store of supplies; it possessed a remarkable facility for adapting itself to any emergency, however unexpected; and its personnel always evinced the finest readiness for co-operation. The millions of surgical dressings, knitted articles, refugee garments, and other supplies it contributed—for these things alone it would have deserved the Army’s unstinted praise. All the splints used in all our hospitals in France, both of the Army and of the Red Cross, came from the Red Cross. It furnished more than a quarter of a billion surgical dressings. It sent over enough sweaters for every man in our overseas forces to possess one.”
Similar tributes have been freely extended to the nurses of all other Red Cross branches, which co-operated with the Medical Corps of the various powers engaged in the terrible war.
A GOOD SAMARITAN.
While performing their merciful work, many women had to bear the depressing anxiety caused by husbands, sons, or brothers, fighting in the trenches or on the ocean; or for those unfortunates who as prisoners had fallen into the hands of the enemy.
The women of the Central powers had to face many additional problems of the most perplexing nature. As the soil of Germany and Austria does not yield enough to support the whole population, and as all imports of foodstuffs were cut off by hostile fleets, provisions became more scarce and more expensive from day to day. There was not sufficient milk to keep the millions of babies alive; and not enough food to save adults from slow starvation. To stretch the scant supplies the most careful and rigid methods of administration had to be invented and applied. Public kitchens were established to reduce the cost of living to the lowest point possible. In Berlin twenty-three committees of the National Women’s Service with several thousand voluntary workers were running such charitable kitchens, from which tens of thousands regularly received their daily meals. The same organizations later on supervised the system of bread-, milk-, grocery- and butter-cards, when the increasing shortage of food forced the governments to the severest restrictions.
Among the many German relief organizations those of the Red Cross took the leading place. Originally divided into five main sections under the general control of a central committee and designed to combat of sickness and destitution in the civil population, it now was increased to twenty-three divisions. Their welfare work assumed such importance during the progress of the war that it had to be subdivided into three groups, the first of which became engaged in fighting tuberculosis and contagious diseases, the second in the protection of infancy and motherhood, the third in family welfare work in the narrower meaning of the term. In all these branches the organization of the Red Cross provided the framework within which the numerous national, state and local social activities of the country grouped themselves naturally in accordance with their separate functions.
The activity of the organizations during the years 1917, 1918, and 1919, the dreadful years of general distress and starvation, forms one of the most pathetic chapters in woman’s history. Not only the food, but the cotton, wool, leather, rubber, fat, oil, soap, and hundreds of other necessities gave out completely. People were compelled to live on substitutes. And as these became too scarce or too expensive, they lived on substitutes for these substitutes. Imagine the heartrending pain mothers were bearing when at the end of 1918 and in 1919 large numbers of mayors of German cities and numerous professors of medicine were compelled to send urgent appeals for help to all medical faculties of the world, stating that since the signing of the truce 800,000 people in Germany had died from starvation. “Many millions of human beings,” one of the appeals reads, “are living on only half or even less than half the quantity of food necessary to sustain life. Utterly exhausted they have lost all power of resistance and succumb to any kind of sickness that may befall them. The worst sufferers are the children and those mothers, who fast for the sake of their children. There are too the neurasthenics of all kinds, the numbers of which have, for four years, increased immensely. Furthermore, there are the overworked, and those who have become sick through the unheard-of monotony of food and from the absolute absence of every stimulant. Their existence becomes more unbearable from day to day. While the physicians of Germany are profoundly impressed with the terrible ravages caused by hunger, they have absolutely no means of combating them.”
While during these dreadful times millions of women devoted themselves to the noble work of healing the terrible wounds and sufferings, other groups eagerly tried to bring about a cessation of hostilities. Immediately after the first declaration of war, the “International Woman Suffrage Alliance” directed an urgent appeal to the British Foreign Office as well as to all Foreign Embassies in London, to leave untried no method of conciliation or arbitration to avert the threatening disaster. Numerous women’s societies in Holland, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland arose simultaneously and joined the good cause. Soon a great movement for peace began to sweep through the women of the entire world.
But women’s efforts to bring the conflict to a standstill lacked as yet the necessary strength. They were overpowered by the influence and machinations of those statesmen, financiers, publishers of newspapers and countless others, who wanted war. And so nothing remained for women but to repeat ever and again their protests against the madness of men.
When in December, 1914, suffering Christianity prepared to celebrate the natal day of the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, a noble-minded woman of London, Miss Emily Hobhouse, wrote the following letter:
“To American Women, Friends of Humanity and Peace!
“Friends:—May I appeal to you in the name of Humanity, on behalf of the children of Europe, before whom suffering or death has already taken place, and whose future is fraught with pain? In you lies our hope of help for them, for you are free to speak and act.
“Will you not come to our troubled world, unite with the women of other neutral lands and initiate a crusade—a real ‘holy’ war, fought with the swords of the Spirit?
“Appalling as is this massacre of the manhood of Europe, that is not the worst. As long as men adopt barbaric methods of settling disputes they must abide by the consequences; but for those innocent victims, the non-combatants—women, babes, old and sick—I crave your help. Their names and numbers will never be known. They are multiplying in Poland and Galicia, in Belgium and France, in East Prussia and Holland, and elsewhere. Ponder this vast host, voiceless, suffering, dying, crouching beside their blackened ruins or fleeing from the devastated areas both east and west. Think of disease let loose, of the horrors of cold and famine!
“I know it is not easy to visualize details of conditions so foreign to average experience. It needs a mental effort few can make. It is because I was daily witness of such things in the South African War that I dare not be silent. Disease, devastation, starvation and death were words I then learned as war interprets them. I saw a country burnt and devastated as large parts of Europe are to-day; I saw old and sick, women and children turned out of house and home; I saw them, half clad, starving, lying sick to death upon the bare earth; I saw babies that were born in open, crowded trucks; I saw haggard, endless sick, gaunt skeletons, hourly deaths. There in the Boer States death swept away non-combatants in the proportion of five to one of those who fell in the field.
“It is because I know the brunt of this war, too, is falling and must fall, heaviest upon the weak and young, that I appeal now on their behalf, not merely to those who love peace, but to the great body of women who love children. Little children, more sensitive to exposure, to extremes of heat and cold, to tainted food, to starvation, and to the stench, the poisonous stench of war, quickly fade, quickly die.
“Will you not arise and work for peace?—For peace alone can save the children. It would be, I well know, a struggle against powers of darkness and will need the whole armor of God. Yet every sentiment of pity and of civilization, leave alone Christianity, demands the effort. The victims cannot help themselves; succor must come from without.
“Relief, we know, you pour most generously, but relief cannot meet a want so colossal, neither can it touch the worst ills. Cut at the root of the evil—the war itself. A strong lead is needed. Myriads want peace; they never wanted war. In each country this is true; constant proofs reach us from Germany and France, as well as various parts of England. The press of each nation asserts that the people are unanimous for war. It is not so, but those who have the means of speaking, and who swim with their governmental streams, can speak the loudest and alone are heard. Many dare not, many cannot speak. Others make a truce and save thousands of human lives and receive the blessings of thousands of wives and mothers.
“A union of neutral women could investigate the facts of the sufferings amongst non-combatants, and founded upon acquired personal knowledge they could in the name of Humanity formulate demands persistent, cogent, irresistible, not in favor of any one party or nation, but simply for Peace.
“It seems futile to turn to statesmen, governments or prelates for aid. They are tied and bound by position, custom and mutual fear. They await propitious movements. Famine, disease and death do not wait.
“Women have this advantage: they are still unfettered by custom and expediency; they need consult only the dictates of humanity. If ever the world needed their intervention on a vast scale, it needs it now!
“Failure in such a task would have no fears for them; failure in a noble effort is often a measure to success! The greatest have seemed to fail. Judged by human standards, Christ’s life on earth was a failure. The effort in any case would leave its mark upon the thought and history of the world. Womanhood will have arisen in vindication of a higher humanity—to avenge desolated motherhood and protect martyred children; it will have asserted its right to shield the weak and young from the fatal results of the organized murder called war.”
MISS JANE ADDAMS.
The appeal was not made in vain. The day after its receipt a number of prominent American women called a convention in Washington, D. C., on January 10th, 1915. Miss Jane Addams of Chicago acted as chairman. The result of this meeting was the organization of the “Woman’s Peace Party,” which adopted the following
Preamble and Platform.
“We women of the United States, assembled in behalf of World Peace, grateful for the security of our own country, but sorrowing for the misery of all involved in the present struggle among warring nations, do hereby band ourselves together to demand that war be abolished.
“Equally with men pacifists, we understand that planned-for, legalized, wholesale, human slaughter is to-day the sum of all villainies.
“As women, we feel a peculiar moral passion of revolt against both the cruelty and the waste of war. As women, we are especially the custodians of the life of the ages. We will not longer consent to its reckless destruction.
“As women, we are particularly charged with the future of childhood and with the care of the helpless and the unfortunate. We will not longer endure without protest that added burden of maimed and invalid men and poverty-stricken widows and orphans which war places upon us.
“As women, we have builded by the patient drudgery of the past the basic foundation of the home and of peaceful industry. We will not longer accept without a protest, that must be heard and heeded by men, that hoary evil which in an hour destroys the social structure that centuries of toil have reared.
“As women, we are called upon to start each generation onward toward a better humanity. We will not longer tolerate without determined opposition that denial of the sovereignty of reason and justice by which war and all that makes war to-day render impotent the idealism of the race.
“Therefore, as human beings and the mother half of humanity, we demand that our right to be consulted in the settlement of questions concerning not alone the life of individuals but of nations be recognized and respected.
“We demand that women be given a share in deciding between war and peace in all the courts of high debate—within the home, the school, the church, the industrial order, and the state.
“So protesting, and so demanding, we hereby form ourselves into a national organization to be called the Woman’s Peace Party.
“We hereby adopt the following as our platform of principles, some of the items of which have been accepted by a majority vote, and more of which have been the unanimous choice of those attending the conference that initiated the formation of this organization. We have sunk all differences of opinion on minor matters and given freedom of expression to a wide divergence of opinion in the details of our platform and in our statement of explanation and information, in a common desire to make our woman’s protest against war and all that makes for war, vocal, commanding and effective. We welcome to our membership all who are in substantial sympathy with that fundamental purpose of our organization, whether or not they can accept in full our detailed statement of principles.
Platform.
“The Purpose of this Organization is to enlist all American women in arousing the nations to respect the sacredness of human life and to abolish war. The following is adopted as our platform:
1. The immediate calling of a convention of neutral nations in the interest of early peace. 2. Limitation of armaments and the nationalization of their manufacture. 3. Organized opposition to militarism in our own country. 4. Education of youth in the ideals of peace. 5. Democratic control of foreign policies. 6. The further humanizing of governments by the extension of the franchise to women. 7. “Concert of Nations” to supersede “Balance of Power.” 8. Action toward the gradual organization of the world to substitute Law for War. 9. The substitution of an international police for rival armies and navies. 10. Removal of the economic causes of war. 11. The appointment by our Government of a commission of men and women, with an adequate appropriation, to promote international peace.”
In the meantime women of other countries had not remained idle. Dr. Aletta H. Jacobs, President of the Dutch National Society for Woman Suffrage, directed a letter to the most prominent women societies of various nations, saying that it was of the greatest importance to bring those women, representing the women societies of the world, together in an international meeting in a neutral country, to show “that in these dreadful times, in which so much hate has been spread among the different nations, the women at least retained their solidarity and that they were able to maintain mutual friendship.” At the same time she suggested to hold this International Congress in Holland, and offered to make the necessary arrangements.
While many women welcomed this first effort to renew international relations it was only natural that, especially in belligerent countries, a fierce criticism should be directed against this daring move. This criticism came even from some of the women’s organizations. “It was to be impossible to hold the Congress! No one would attend! Even if the Congress were held the nationalities would quarrel amongst themselves!” But those who had undertaken the work were not deterred by this criticism, but encouraged by many enthusiastic responses. The announcement that Miss Jane Addams had accepted the invitation to preside at the Congress gave courage to all who were working for it. And so the memorable “International Congress of Women for Permanent Peace” came to pass. It was held at the Hague from April 28 to May 1, 1915, and attended by 1136 delegates and a large number of visitors. The countries represented were Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United States of America.
In her address of Welcome, Dr. Aletta H. Jacobs, the President of the Executive Committee, said: “In arranging this International Congress we have naturally had to put aside all thoughts of a festive reception, we have simply endeavored to receive you in such a way that you may feel assured of our sympathy, our mutual sisterly feelings, our goodwill to link the nations together again in the bonds of fellowship and trustful co-operation.
“With mourning in our hearts we stand united here. We grieve for the many brave young men, who have lost their lives in barbaric fratricide before even attaining their full manhood; we mourn with the poor mothers bereft of their sons; with thousands and thousands of young widows and fatherless children; we will not endure in this Twentieth Century civilization, that governments shall longer tolerate brute force as the only method of solving their international disputes. The culture of centuries standing and the progress of science must no longer be recklessly employed to perfect the implements of modern warfare. The accumulated knowledge, handed down to us through the ages, must no longer be used to kill and to destroy and to annihilate the products of centuries of toil.
“Our cry of protest must be heard at last. Too long already has the mother-heart of woman suffered in silence. O, I know and feel most strongly, that it is impossible that a world-fire, such as has been blazing forth for the last nine months, can be extinguished, until the last bit of inflamable material has been reduced to ashes, but I also feel most strongly that we must raise our voices now, if the new era of civilization that will arise from these ashes is to rest upon a more substantial basis, a basis on which the women with their inherent conserving and pacific qualities shall have the opportunity to assist men in conducting the world’s affairs.
“We women judge war differently from men. Men consider in the first place its economic results. What it costs in money, its loss or its gain to national commerce and industries, the extension of power and so forth. But what is material loss to us women, in comparison to the number of fathers, brothers, husbands and sons who march out to war never to return. We women consider above all the damage to the race resulting from war, and the grief, the pain and misery it entails. We know only too well that whatever may be gained by a war, it is not worth the bloodshed and the tears, the cruel sufferings, the wasted lives, the agony and despair it has caused.
“Important as are the economic interests of a country, the interests of the race are more vital. And, since by virtue of our womanhood, these interests are to us of greater sanctity and value, women must have a voice in the governments of all countries.
“Not until women can bring direct influence to bear upon Governments, not until in the parliaments the voice of the women is heard mingling with that of the men, shall we have the power to prevent recurrence of such catastrophes.
“The Governments of the world, based on the insight of the half of humanity, have failed to find a right solution of how to settle international disputes. We therefore feel it more and more strongly, that it is the duty, the sacred duty of every woman, to stand up now and claim her share with men in the government of the world. Only when women are in the parliaments of all nations, only when women have a political voice and vote, will they have the power effectively to demand that international disputes shall be solved as they ought to be, by a court of arbitration or conciliation. Therefore on a programme of the conditions whereby wars in future may be avoided, the question of woman suffrage should not be lacking, on the contrary, it should have the foremost place.
“May this Congress be the dawn of a better world, a world in which each realizes that it is good to serve one’s own country, but that above the interests of one’s Country stand the interests of humanity, by serving which a still higher duty is fulfilled.”—
The business sessions, presided over by Miss Jane Addams, led to the adoption of the following resolutions:
I. WOMEN AND WAR.
1. Protest.
We women, in International Congress assembled, protest against the madness and the horror of war, involving as it does a reckless sacrifice of human life and the destruction of so much that humanity has labored through centuries to build up.
2. Women’s Sufferings in War.
This International Congress of Women opposes the assumption that women can be protected under the conditions of modern warfare. It protests vehemently against the odious wrongs of which women are the victims in time of war, and especially against the horrible violation of women which attends all war.
II. ACTION TOWARDS PEACE.
3. The Peace Settlement.
This International Congress of Women of different nations, classes, creeds and parties is united in expressing sympathy with the suffering of all, whatever their nationality, who are fighting for their country or laboring under the burden of war.
Since the mass of the people in each of the countries now at war believe themselves to be fighting, not as aggressors but in self-defence and for their national existence, there can be no irreconcilable differences between them, and their common ideals afford a basis upon which a magnanimous and honorable peace might be established. The Congress therefore urges the Governments of the world to put an end to this bloodshed, and to begin peace negotiations. It demands that the peace which follows shall be permanent and therefore based on principles of justice, including those laid down in the resolutions 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 adopted by this Congress.
4. Continuous Mediation.
This International Congress of Women resolves to ask the neutral countries to take immediate steps to create a conference of neutral nations which shall without delay offer continuous mediation. The Conference shall invite suggestions for settlement from each of the belligerent nations and in any case shall submit to all of them simultaneously, reasonable proposals as a basis of peace.
III. PRINCIPLES OF A PERMANENT PEACE.
5. Respect for Nationality.
This International Congress of Women, recognizing the right of the people to self-government, affirms that there should be no transference of territory without the consent of the men and women residing therein, and urges that autonomy and a democratic parliament should not be refused to any people.
6. Arbitration and Conciliation.
This International Congress of Women, believing that war is the negation of progress and civilization, urges the governments of all nations to come to an agreement to refer future international disputes to arbitration and conciliation.
7. International Pressure.
This International Congress of Women urges the governments of all nations to come to an agreement to unite in bringing social, moral and economic pressure to bear upon any country, which resorts to arms instead of referring its case to arbitration or conciliation.
8. Democratic Control of Foreign Policy.
Since War is commonly brought about not by the mass of the people, who do not desire it, but by groups representing particular interests, this International Congress of Women urges that Foreign Politics shall be subject to Democratic Control; and declares that it can only recognize as democratic a system which includes the equal representation of men and women.
9. The Enfranchisement of Women.
Since the combined influence of the women of all countries is one of the strongest forces for the prevention of war, and since women can only have full responsibility and effective influence when they have equal political rights with men, this International Congress of Women demands their political enfranchisement.
IV. INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION.
10. Third Hague Conference.
This International Congress of Women urges that a third Hague Conference be convened immediately after the war.
11. International Organization.
This International Congress of Women urges that the organization of the Society of Nations should be further developed on the basis of a constructive peace, and that it should include:
a. As a development of the Hague Court of Arbitration, a permanent International Court of Justice to settle questions or differences of a justifyable character, such as arise on the interpretation of treaty rights or of the law of nations.
b. As a development of the constructive work of the Hague Conference, a permanent International Conference holding regular meetings in which women should take part, to deal not with the rules of warfare but with practical proposals for further International Co-operation among the States. This Conference should be so constituted that it could formulate and enforce those principles of justice, equity and goodwill in accordance with which the struggles of subject communities could be more fully recognized and the interests and rights not only of the great Powers and small Nations but also those of weaker countries and primitive peoples gradually adjusted under an enlightened international public opinion.
This International Conference shall appoint:
A permanent Council of Conciliation and Investigation for the settlement of international differences arising from economic competition, expanding commerce, increasing population and changes in social and political standards.
12. General Disarmament.
The International Congress of Women, advocating universal disarmament and realizing that it can only be secured by international agreement, urges, as a step to this end, that all countries should, by such an international agreement, take over the manufacture of arms and munitions of war and should control all international traffic in the same. It sees in the private profits accruing from the great armament factories a powerful hindrance to the abolition of war.
13. Commerce and Investments.
a. The International Congress of Women urges that in all countries there shall be liberty of commerce, that the seas shall be free and the trade routes open on equal terms to the shipping of all nations.
b. Inasmuch as the investment by capitalists of one country in the resources of another and the claims arising therefrom are a fertile source of international complications, this International Congress of Women urges the widest possible acceptance of the principle that such investments shall be made at the risk of the investor, without claim to the official protection of his government.
14. National Foreign Policy.
a. This International Congress of Women demands that all secret treaties shall be void and that for the ratification of future treaties, the participation of at least the legislature of every government shall be necessary.
b. This International Congress of Women recommends that National Commissions be created, and International Conferences convened for the scientific study and elaboration of the principles and conditions of permanent peace, which might contribute to the development of an International Federation.
These Commissions and Conferences should be recognized by the Governments and should include women in their deliberations.
15. Women in National and International Politics.
This International Congress of Women declares it to be essential, both nationally and internationally, to put into practice the principle that women should share all civil and political rights and responsibilities on the same terms as men.
V. THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.
16. This International Congress of Women urges the necessity of so directing the education of children that their thoughts and desires may be directed towards the ideal of constructive peace.
VI. WOMEN AND THE PEACE SETTLEMENT CONFERENCE.
17. This International Congress of Women urges, that in the interests of lasting peace and civilization the Conference which shall frame the Peace settlement after the war should pass a resolution affirming the need in all countries of extending the parliamentary franchise to women.
18. This International Congress of Women urges that representatives of the people should take part in the conference that shall frame the peace settlement after the war, and claims that amongst them women should be included.
VII. ACTION TO BE TAKEN.
19. Women’s Voice in the Peace Settlement.
This International Congress of Women resolves that an international meeting of women shall be held in the same place and at the same time as the Conference of the Powers which shall frame the terms of the peace settlement after the war for the purpose of presenting practical proposals to that Conference.
20. Envoys to the Governments.
In order to urge the Governments of the world to put an end to this bloodshed and to establish a just and lasting peace, this International Congress of Women delegates envoys to carry the message expressed in the Congress Resolutions to the rulers of the belligerent and neutral nations of Europe and to the President of the United States.
These Envoys shall be women of both neutral and belligerent nations, appointed by the International Committee of this Congress. They shall report the result of their missions to the International Women’s Committee for Constructive Peace as a basis for further action.
The memorable Congress adjourned on May 1. In closing the sessions Miss Addams said: “This is the first International Congress of Women met in the cause of peace in the necessity brought about by the greatest war the world has ever seen. For three days we have met together, so conscious of the bloodshed and desolation surrounding us, that all irrelevant and temporary matters fell away and we spoke solemnly to each other of the great and eternal issues as to those who meet around the bedside of the dying. We have been able to preserve good will and good fellowship, we have considered in perfect harmony and straightforwardness the most difficult propositions, and we part better friends than we met. It seems to me most significant that women have been able to do this at this moment and that they have done it, in my opinion, extremely well.
“We have formulated our message and given it to the world to heed when it will, confident that at last the great Court of International Opinion will pass righteous judgment upon all human affairs.”—
In accordance with Paragraph 20 of the resolutions the members of the different delegations appointed to present the resolutions to the rulers of the belligerent and neutral nations of Europe and to the President of the United States of America began their work on May 7th. Various delegations with Miss Addams and Dr. Jacobs as speakers, were received on that day in the Hague by Prime Minister Cort van der Linden; on May 13th and 14th in London by Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey and Prime Minister Asquith; on May 21st and 22d in Berlin by Foreign Minister von Jagow and Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg; on May 26th in Vienna by Foreign Minister von Burian; on May 30th in Buda Pest by Prime Minister von Tisza; on June 2d in Berne by Foreign Minister Hoffmann and President Motta; on June 4th and 5th in Rome by Foreign Minister Sonnino, and Prime Minister Salandra; on June 8th by the Pope; on June 12th and 14th in Paris by Foreign Minister Delcassé and Prime Minister Viviani; and on June 16th in Havre by the Foreign Minister of Belgium, M. d’Avignon. Other delegations submitted the resolutions to the Prime Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia. The resolutions were likewise sent to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of all countries not visited by the delegates, and to President Woodrow Wilson.—
That all these efforts by noble-minded women, to secure the cessation of hostilities, failed, is a grave reproach to those men who directed the war. Blinded by hate and revenge they insisted that the murderous struggle be carried on to the bitter end. And to do this unhindered and unmolested, they decried all “pacifists” as despicable creatures to whom no attention should be paid. To speak of peace was made a crime, equal to illoyalty and sedition, and so the resolutions of the Woman’s Peace Conference were drowned under waves of detraction and calumny.
One of the most glaring examples of this sort of warfare was that of Miss Jeanette Rankin, who in 1917 had been sent by the State of Montana as the first woman member to the House of Representatives. Her first act in this body was very dramatic. When on the memorable April 6th, 1917, the House voted on the question, if the United States should enter the World War, she answered the call with the words: “I love my country and I want to stand by it. But I cannot vote for war! No!” After these words she sank, tears in her eyes, into her chair. Although Miss Rankin had without doubt expressed the feeling of the overwhelming majority of American women, she nevertheless excited the wrath of the notorious “National Security League,” who in 1918 defeated the re-election of Miss Rankin by sending broadcast to Montana tons of literature in which her vote against the declaration of war was stigmatized as an “infamous and damning act.”
Undaunted by such persecutions the gallant women once more raised their voices when it became evident that the so-called Peace Congress of the allied delegates at Versailles, instead of giving quick relief to the starving millions, and instead of promoting good will and better understanding among the different nations, was degenerating into an orgy of autocracy, merciless extortion and land-grabbing, repudiating all the high-sounding phrases of humanity, democracy, self-government, political and economic liberty, with which the war had been carried on.
On May 12th, 1919, delegates of the “International Women’s Party for Permanent Peace” assembled at Zurich, Switzerland, to discuss the work of the Peace Congress in Versailles and the movement for a League of Nations. Sixteen countries were represented, the neutral with thirty-five, the countries of the Entente with forty-nine, and the Central Powers with thirty-six delegates. Among the twenty-three delegates of the United States were Jane Addams, and Jeanette Rankin, ex-member of Congress for Montana. Again Miss Addams acted as president.
The noble spirit, that had brought these women together, found expression first in the following address of the French delegates to the German women:
“To-day for the first time our hands which have sought each other in the night can be joined. We are a single humanity, we women. Our work, our joys, our children, are the same. French and Germans! The soldiers which have been killed between are for both of us alike victims. It is our brothers and our sisters who have suffered. We do not want vengeance. We hate all war. We push from us both the pride of victory and the rancor of defeat. United by the same faith, by the same sense of service, we agree to consecrate ourselves to the fight against war and to the struggle for everlasting peace.
“All women against all wars!
“Come, to work! Publicly, in the face of those who have vowed eternal hate, let us unite, let us love each other!”
To this address the German women made the following reply:
“We German women have heard the greetings of our French sisters with the deepest joy, and we respond to them from the depths of our souls. We too protest against the perpetuation of a hate which was always foreign to women’s hearts. Our French sisters! It is with joy that we grasp your extended hand. We will stand and march together, in common effort for the good of mankind. On the ruins of a materialist world, founded by force and violence, on misunderstanding and hate, we women will, through death and sorrow, clear the road to the new humanity. As mothers of the coming generations, we, women of all nations, want love and understanding and peace. Despite the dark gloom of the present we stumble, comforted, toward the sunshine of the future.”
On May the 14th the delegates passed the following resolution, which was sent to the Congress at Versailles:
“This International Congress of Women expresses its deep regret that the terms of peace proposed at Versailles should so seriously violate the principles upon which alone a just and lasting peace can be secured, and which the Democracies of the world had come to accept. By guaranteeing the fruits of the secret treaties to the conquerors the terms tacitly sanction secret diplomacy. They deny the principle of self-determination, recognize the right of the victors to the spoils of war, and create all over Europe discords and animosities, which can lead only to future wars. By the demand for the disarmament of one set of belligerents only, the principle of justice is violated and the rule of force is continued. By the financial and economic proposals a hundred million people of this generation in the heart of Europe are condemned to poverty, disease and despair, which must result in the spread of hatred and anarchy within each nation. With a deep sense of responsibility this Congress strongly urges the Allied Governments to accept such amendments of the terms as may be proposed to bring the peace into harmony with those principles first enunciated by President Wilson upon the faithful carrying out of which the honor of the Allied peoples depends.”
This communication was proposed by Mrs. Philip Snowden of England and seconded by Miss Jeanette Rankin of the United States.
Another resolution protested against the prolongation of the blockade as bringing starvation and death to innumerable innocent women and children of the Central Powers. It also urged that all resources of the world, food, raw materials, finance, transport should be organized immediately for the relief of the peoples, in order to serve humanity and bring about the reconciliation and union of the peoples. A third resolution demanded representation in the League of Nations for women, and that Miss Addams be the first woman representative. At its concluding session the Congress voted unanimously to call a world-wide strike of women in the event another war be declared, even if such a war should be sanctioned by the League of Nations.
