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.