Mrs. Fawcett and Mrs. Catt were preparing to send a deputation from the Alliance to the Peace Conference to ask for a declaration for woman suffrage when the National Woman Suffrage Association of France, through its president, Mme. DeWitt Schlumberger, took the initiative and called for the national associations of the allied countries to send representatives to Paris to bring pressure on it. They were cordially received by the members of the Conference and a pronouncement in favor of the political equality of women and eligibility to the secretariat was placed in the constitution of the League of Nations, which attracted the attention of the world.
When the plan of holding the Congress of the Alliance at Berlin in 1915 had to be given up Holland sent an urgent invitation for that year but its acceptance was not considered feasible. The Swedish Auxiliary wanted it held at the time and place of the Peace Conference but this was found to be inadvisable. The majority of the officers and auxiliaries in the various countries wished to have a congress the next spring after the Armistice but there proved to be insurmountable obstacles. Toward the end of 1919 an invitation was accepted from the suffrage societies in Spain to come to Madrid in 1920. Preparations were under way when local opposition developed which made it necessary to abandon the plan. Switzerland had already invited the congress and it gladly went to Geneva.
In the report of Mrs. Coit, the treasurer, she said:
You will remember that at Budapest in 1913 a sum of about 2,000 pounds was raised, mostly by promises of yearly donations for the period of two years. This sum was to finance headquarters and the paper till we met in Berlin in 1915. In August, 1914, not even all the first instalments had been received, and from then on, owing to war conditions, it became impossible for some of our biggest donors to redeem their pledges. By the beginning of 1917 we found ourselves with an empty exchequer and facing the possibility of closing down our work. It was then that help came from our auxiliary in the United States. Mrs. Catt, with the help of her many devoted friends, raised a sum of $4,333, which was placed at our disposal and has enabled the Alliance to keep going. When speaking of the United States' help I wish to make special mention of the splendid work for the Alliance by Miss Clara M. Hyde, private secretary for Mrs. Catt. To her incessant interest and energy it is due that the number of honorary associates in the U. S. A. now is at least three times as high as in any other country; also she has quite trebled the number of subscribers to the International News in the States. Her devoted work is an example of what can be done by a single national auxiliary to further the development of the Alliance, and I recommend her example for universal imitation.
The United States Auxiliary continued to add to the above sum and from May, 1916, to May, 1920, it sent in membership dues, subscriptions to the paper and donations $9,337. Mrs. Frank M. Roessing, president of the Pennsylvania Suffrage Association, was responsible for collecting over $5,000 of this amount.
The money for the Congress in Geneva, about $3,500, was raised by a British committee of which Miss Rosamond Smith was chairman and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence treasurer. To this fund the United States, which had not suffered from the war to the extent of European countries, was a large contributor. At the close of the congress there were no funds on hand for the coming year and the delegates from all countries were feeling the effects of the war financially. At this critical moment Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick of the United States, corresponding secretary of the Alliance, made a contribution of $5,000, and a little later the Leslie Commission added $4,000. This with individual subscriptions raised the amount of about $15,000 and guaranteed the expenses for resuming and continuing the work of the Alliance.
From the organization of the Alliance in Berlin in 1904 Mrs. Catt had been the president and at no election had there been another candidate. Her strong desire to relinquish the office was overruled at Budapest. She went to Geneva with the positive determination not to accept it again but she faced an equally determined body of delegates. Not only was she supported by all from the Allied Countries, as they were known during the war, but she was equally acceptable to those from the Central Countries. She was literally compelled to retain the office.
Nominations for the other officers were made by ballot and submitted to the convention and the ten receiving the highest number of votes constituted the board. They were as follows: Mme. DeWitt Schlumberger (France), Miss Chrystal Macmillan (Great Britain), Mrs. Anna B. Wicksell (Sweden), Mrs. Corbett Ashby (Great Britain), Dr. Margherita Ancona (Italy), Mrs. Anna Lindemann (Germany), Miss Eleanor Rathbone (Great Britain), Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick (U. S. A.), Mme. Girardet-Vielle (Switzerland), Mrs. Adele Schreiber-Krieger (Germany). Most of them were officers of the National Association in their own countries. Miss Rathbone was also a member of the city council of Liverpool.
Among the twenty-two sent as Government delegates were Viscountess Astor, member of the British House of Commons; Mrs. Marie Stritt, city councillor of Dresden, and Mrs. Josephus Daniels, wife of the Secretary of the Navy, U. S. A. Invited members were present from nine countries, including ten from India, one from Japan and the wife of the Tartar president of the Parliament of Crimea. There were fraternal delegates from six international associations; from associations in nearly every country in Europe (fourteen in Great Britain) and from South Africa, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay. Greetings were sent from associations in many countries including China.
A number of the resolutions adopted have been foreshadowed in this report of the proceedings. Others were for the equal status of women with men on legislative and administrative bodies; full personal and civil rights for married women, including the right to their earnings and property; equal guardianship of their children by mothers; that the children of widows without provisions shall have the right to maintenance by the State paid to the mothers; that children born out of wedlock shall have the same right to maintenance and education from the father as legitimate children, and the mother the right of maintenance while incapacitated. Resolutions called for the same opportunities for women as for men for all kinds of education and training and for entering professions, industries, civil service positions and performing administrative and judicial functions, and demanded that there shall be equal pay for equal work; that the right to work of women, married or unmarried, shall be recognized and that no special regulations shall be imposed contrary to the wishes of the women themselves. A higher moral standard for both men and women was called for and various resolutions were adopted against traffic in women, regulations of vice differentiating against women and State regulation of prostitution.