meetings and public banquets in
Berlin, Dresden, Prague and Vienna. Twenty-two countries were
represented by 240 delegates and alternates. The full quota of 24 were
present from Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain, the United
States and Hungary; Finland sent 15; Denmark and Norway 11 each;
Switzerland 9: Italy 8; Russia 5; Belgium and Austria, 4 each; from
South Africa came 4, from Iceland, 2; from Canada, 3; from Bohemia
one.
It was indeed a cosmopolitan assemblage. The government of Australia
had an official delegate, Mrs. Frederick Spencer, and that of Norway
two, the president of the National Suffrage Association, Mrs. F. M.
Qvam, and the president of the National Council of Women, Miss Gina
Krog. The Governors of California, Oregon and Washington had appointed
representatives. Written or telegraphed greetings were received from
nineteen countries, encircling the globe. The question of fraternal
delegates reached its climax, as 163 were present from twelve
countries, all wishing to offer their greetings and a large number
intending to advocate the particular object of their organizations. A
resolution was finally adopted that no credentials should be accepted
until the society presenting them should be approved by the National
Suffrage Association of its country and no fraternal delegate should
speak except by invitation of the president of the Alliance and with
the consent of the congress. This checked a torrent of oratory and
allowed the convention to carry out its program. The Chinese Woman
Suffrage Society was admitted, for which Mrs. Catt had sowed the seeds
at the time of her visit to that country, and the beautifully
embroidered banner they had sent was presented to the Alliance by Dr.
Aletta Jacobs, president of the Netherlands Association, who had
accompanied her. She said in part:
It is difficult to speak to an audience which certainly does not
know the Chinese women in their own land, an audience of which
only a few have had the privilege to hear from the lips of those
feet-bound women what an important part they have taken in the
revolution of their country and in the political reform which has
resulted from it; to make you clearly understand the spirit of
these Chinese women when they offered this banner to Mrs. Catt,
as president of the Alliance, in gratitude for what it is doing
for the uplifting of womanhood, and when they expressed their
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