Women were not prohibited from political activities in Hungary as in Austria and when the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was formed in Berlin in 1904 Rosika Schwimmer came from Budapest with a report that in 1900 Francis Kossuth and Louis Hentaller were advocating woman suffrage in the Parliament and in 1903 women were working with men for political reforms. By 1905 a Woman Suffrage Association was formed, auxiliary to the International, mass meetings were held and petitions were sent to the Parliament. In 1906 Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the international president, and Dr. Aletta Jacobs, president of the Netherlands National Association, visited Budapest and addressed enthusiastic meetings. Later Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg of Finland and Mrs. Dora Montefiore of England did the same. Strenuous agitation was kept up, meetings, processions, demonstrations, and half a million leaflets were distributed. The Government was to discuss a Reform Bill in 1908 and a determined effort was made to keep the women out of the House of Parliament as spectators. Mrs. Catt paid another visit that year and gave ten lectures in eight cities. Eloquent women speakers went to the aid of the Hungarian women from Berlin, Munich, Berne, Turin and Rotterdam. In 1910 the conservative National Council of Women added a woman suffrage committee and a Men's League for Woman Suffrage of representative men was formed. There were suffrage societies in 87 cities and towns composed of all classes. The women were badly treated by all political parties and excluded from their meetings, the Radicals and Social Democrats being their strongest opponents. The struggle continued with sometimes a favorable and sometimes an unfavorable Government and always the contest by men for their own universal suffrage.
In 1913, through the remarkable efforts of Rosika Schwimmer, the International Suffrage Alliance held its congress in Budapest with delegates from all over the world. It was a notable triumph, welcomed by the dignitaries of the State and city; its meetings for seven days crowded to overflowing and every possible courtesy extended. The demand that women should have the vote seemed to have become universal. Then came the War and all was blotted out for years. When it was over in 1918 internal revolution followed and out of it came a Republic but without stability. A law was enacted giving suffrage to all men of 21 but only to women of 24 who could read and write. Women voted under it in 1919 and one was elected to the Parliament but the law has not yet been written into a permanent constitution.
BOHEMIA.
Bohemian women suffered the disadvantages of those of Austria and could not attend political meetings or form suffrage societies, although by an old law taxpayers and those belonging to the learned professions could vote by a male proxy for the members of the Diet of the Kingdom, and were eligible themselves after the age of 30. They had a Woman Suffrage Committee and petitioned the Diet to include women in the new electoral law of 1907 but it received word from Vienna that nothing must be done. By 1911 a Woman Suffrage Committee was doing a good deal of active suffrage work and women's organizations were being formed in the political parties but the Social Democratic was the only one that favored equal suffrage. For a number of years the women endeavored to secure the nomination of a woman candidate for the Bohemian Diet but were always unsuccessful. Finally in 1912 the Social Democratic and a section of the Liberal party each nominated a woman and by the most heroic effort and a combination of fortunate circumstances the latter, Mrs. Vikova-Kuneticka, a prominent writer and suffragist, was elected on June 13. The Governor of the district, doubting her eligibility, delayed issuing the certificate; the Diet did not meet; the War came on and after it ended Bohemia assumed her own government with equal rights for women, and she took her seat.
In the newly organized country of Czecho-Slovakia woman suffrage prevailed throughout and in 1920 thirteen women were elected to the Lower and three to the Upper House of the National Parliament. The new Parliament of Jugo-Slavia voted against woman suffrage.
It is practically impossible to give an accurate account of the situation in regard to the suffrage and office-holding of women in the re-alignment which took place in central and southeastern Europe after the war. The States which were formed with new or changed boundaries all began with the declaration of absolute democracy, equal suffrage for men and women and eligibility to all offices. At their first elections women in some of them were elected to the Parliaments and city councils of the new régime. Poland, restored, gave universal suffrage, and elected eight to the Parliament. Its women are strongly organized and very capable. It is not possible to foretell the future of these experiments in democracy. It has been reported from time to time that the suffrage had been given to women in Bulgaria, Roumania and Serbia and then denied but at present they do not seem to be exercising it. (1920.)
SWITZERLAND.
Switzerland, like France, is a republic only in name, as women are wholly disfranchised. It is now the only country where the question of woman suffrage has to be submitted to the individual voters. To give women the franchise for the Federal Council that body must submit the question to all the voters, and to give it in each Canton of the 22 for its Council, this body must submit the question to all the voters in the Canton. It never has been submitted by the Federal Council, which holds that it must first be granted in the Cantons. Whenever they have voted on it they have defeated it, the agricultural population being especially hostile. There are many organizations of women, the most important of which ask for the suffrage. The largest of them, the National Council of Women, with 20,000 members from all kinds of societies, was very slow to recognize the value of the vote but in January, 1919, when a revision of the constitution was expected, it took official action and unanimously adopted suffrage work.
Mme. Chaponnière-Chaix (who is now president of the International Council of Women), Mme. Saulner and Mlle. Camille Vidart were present at the forming of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Berlin in 1904 to represent a group in Geneva. In May, 1908, a Central Woman Suffrage Committee was formed in Berne of societies in seven cities and it was admitted to membership in the Alliance. In January, 1909, a National Association was organized with M. de Morsier, a Deputy of the Council of the Geneva Canton, as president and lectures and organizing commenced. The work was continued and small gains were made. Vaud, Geneva, Neuchâtel, Bâle-Ville and Berne gave women a vote in the State church. They can sit on school boards in these Cantons and Zurich. They can vote for and serve on the tribunaux de prud'hommes—industrial boards—in two or three Cantons, these rights granted by the Councils. The universities and the professions are open to women.