There were many luncheons, teas and dinners in beautiful private homes. The social entertainment which will be longest remembered was the evening trip down the Danube with supper and music on board, a happy, congenial party with three hours of the exquisite scenery along the shores. Usually suffrage conventions closed in a burst of oratory at a grand mass meeting but not so in this pleasure loving Hungarian city. The last evening was given over to a banquet which taxed the capacity of the big convention hall. There were toasts and speeches and patriotic songs, and the presentation of the international pin, set with jewels, by the ladies of Budapest to Miss Schwimmer. She said in a clever acceptance that the women had done what the men never had succeeded in doing; it was the desire of all Hungarians to make this city the resort of the world and the women of the world had been the first to come. "These ambassadors," she said, "who came, to quote the words of Mazzini, 'in the name of God and humanity,' will report to their countries the friendly reception they have met and will surely help the cause of international good feeling."
Several countries competed for the honor of the conference of the Alliance in 1915 and its regular convention in 1917. Mrs. May Wright Sewall, honorary president of the International Council of Women, presented an official invitation from the managers of the Panama Pacific Exposition to be held in San Francisco in 1915, endorsed by the California Suffrage Association; the executive committee of the National Suffrage Association of Germany extended an urgent request for the conference and that of France for the congress. The answer was referred to the board, and it later accepted the invitations to Berlin and Paris. This had been the largest meeting of the Alliance. Never had the prospects seemed so favorable for accomplishing its objects; never had the fraternity among the women of the different nations seemed so close. When they parted with affectionate farewells and the bright hope of meeting two years hence in Berlin they little dreamed that it would be seven long years before they came together again; that during this time the world would be devastated by the most terrible war in history and that the task must be once more commenced of developing among the women of the nations the spirit of confidence, friendship and cooperation.
EIGHTH CONFERENCE OF THE ALLIANCE.
On call of its president, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt of the United States of America, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was summoned to its Eighth congress June 6-12, 1920, in Geneva, Switzerland, seven instead of the usual two years after the last one. The reason for the long interim was given in the opening sentences of the president's address on the first day: "It is seven years since last we met. In memory we live again those happy days of friendly camaraderie in Budapest. All the faces were cheerful. On every side one heard joyous laughter among the delegates and visitors. Every heart was filled with buoyant hopes and every soul was armored with dauntless courage. We had seen our numbers grow greater and our movement stronger in many lands and here and there the final triumph had already come.... Alas, those smiling, shining days seem now to have been an experience in some other incarnation, for the years which lie between are war-scarred and tortured and in 1920 there is not a human being in the world to whom life is quite the same as in 1913.... So we do not come smiling to Geneva as to Budapest."
On Sunday morning, June 6, for the first time in the history of Geneva a woman spoke in the National Church, the Cathedral of St. Peter, and standing in the pulpit of Calvin Miss A. Maude Royden of Great Britain preached in French and English to an audience that filled the ancient edifice to the doors. That morning at 9 o'clock Father Hall, sent by the Catholic ecclesiastical authorities from England for the purpose, delivered a sermon to the congress at a special mass in Notre Dame.[227] In the afternoon a reception was given by Mlle. Emilie Gourd, president of the Swiss National Suffrage Association, in the lovely garden, Beau Sejour. At a public meeting in the evening at Plainpalais, M. J. Mussard, president of the Canton of Geneva; Mme. Chaponnière Chaix, president of the Swiss National Council of Women, and Mlle. Gourd gave addresses of welcome, to which responses were made by Miss Annie Furuhjelm, Finland; Mme. De Witt Schlumberger, France, and Mrs. Anna Lindemann, Germany, officers of the Alliance. Mrs. Catt then delivered her president's address. She described the physical, mental and moral chaos resulting from the war, the immense problems now to be solved, and said: "For the suffragists of the world a few facts stand forth with great clarity. The first is that war, the undoubted original cause of the age-old subjection of women the world around; war, the combined enemy of their emancipation, has brought to the women of many lands their political freedom!"
Mrs. Catt showed how the suffrage had come in some countries where no effort had been made for it, while in others where women had worked the hardest they were still disfranchised, and she gave a scathing review of the situation in the United States, where it had been so long withheld. She paid eloquent tributes to Susan B. Anthony, a founder of the Alliance, and to Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, who had helped to found it and had attended every congress but had died the preceding year. She pointed out to the enfranchised delegates the great responsibility that had been placed in their hands and through it the vast power they would have in re-creating the world and said: "I believe had the vote been granted to women twenty-five years ago, their national influence would have so leavened world politics that there would have been no world war." Among the many objects for the Alliance to accomplish she named the following: (1) Stimulate the spread of democracy and through it avoid another world war; (2) Discourage revolution by demonstrating that change may be brought about through peaceful political methods; (3) Encourage education and enlightenment throughout the world; (4) Keep the faith in self-government alive when it fails to meet expectations. Methods for achieving these results were suggested and it was impressed on the younger women that this would be their task, as the older ones had practically finished their work. This address of surpassing eloquence closed with these words:
God's order will come again to the world's stricken, unhappy, much-suffering people. It will come because the divine law of evolution never ceases to operate and the destiny of the race leads eternally on without pause. So much sacrifice and sorrow as the war has cost the world can not have been endured in vain.... As I view world politics the only possible hope for the happiness, prosperity and permanent peace of the world lies in the thorough democratization of all governments. There can be no democratization which excludes women and no safe or sound democracy which is not based upon an educated, intelligent electorate. Nor is it enough to establish democracy in individual nations—it must be extended to world politics. The old militarism must go and with it the old diplomacy, with its secret treaties, distrust and intrigues. No League of Nations can abolish war unless every government in the world is based on democracy.
In our home countries we should urge support of every movement for the extension of popular education, foster every agency which helps men and women to think for themselves, promote every endeavor to maintain honest elections, judicially conducted campaigns and high ideals in parties and parliaments, for democracy succeeds when and where independence and intelligence are greatest.
A few of the delegates wished to disband the Alliance; a few others desired to change the character of its objects, but by an overwhelming majority it was voted to continue it along the original lines, although broadened, until the women of all countries were enfranchised. The Congress was held in the Maison Communale de Plainpalais, the large town hall in a suburb of Geneva, and here one evening its municipality gave a reception to the members. The shady gardens and sunny terrace were the scene of many social gatherings.[228] The congress opened with a roll call of the suffrage victories and the responses showed the almost unbelievable record that twenty countries had enfranchised their women during the years of the war! The Official Report was edited by Miss Chrystal Macmillan, recording secretary of the International Alliance, and the Introduction was a graphic review, which said in part:
"Despite the difficulties of travel and the fact that only three months' notice had been given the gathering at Geneva was more widely representative than any previous meeting. Women were present from thirty-six countries. Of the twenty-six affiliated with the Alliance at the time of the last meeting, in 1913, the auxiliaries of nineteen showed their continued vitality by sending fully accredited delegates to Geneva. Representatives were also present from the former auxiliaries in Austria and Germany, who were accorded full membership rights. The Russian national president, a fugitive from her country, was unable to come but sent her greetings. The Belgian society abstained from taking part and from the Polish and Portuguese auxiliaries no answer was received.