as a country
which possesses the independent right to enfranchise its women.
At that time eight such nations had woman suffrage associations.
Now, nine years later, with the exception of the Spanish American
Republics, there are in the entire world only seven without an
organized woman suffrage movement. Only three of these are in
Europe--Greece, Spain, and the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. The
remaining four are not well established self-governing nations,
and Japan, which is more autocratic than democratic. We shall
admit to membership the Chinese Woman Suffrage Association and
the standard of the Alliance will then be set upon five
continents. Twenty-five nations will be counted in its
membership. Organized suffrage groups also exist on many islands
of the seas. Like Alexander the Great, we shall soon be looking
for other worlds to conquer! The North Star and the Southern
Cross alike cast their benignant rays upon woman suffrage
activities. Last winter when perpetual darkness shrouded the land
of the Midnight Sun, women wrapped in furs, above the Polar
Circle, might have been seen gliding over snow-covered roads in
sledges drawn by reindeer on their way to suffrage meetings, from
whence petitions went to the Parliament at Stockholm. At the same
moment other women, in the midsummer of the southern hemisphere,
protected by fans and umbrellas and riding in "rickshas," were
doing the same thing under the fierce rays of a tropical sun;
while petitions poured into the Parliament asking suffrage for
the women of the Union of South Africa from every State and city
of that vast country.

Since our last Congress not one sign has appeared the entire
world around to indicate reaction. Not a backward step has been
taken. On the contrary a thousand revelations give certain,
unchallenged promise that victory for our great cause lies just
ahead.... During the past winter woman suffrage bills have been
considered by seventeen national Parliaments, four Parliaments of
countries without full national rights and in the legislative
bodies of twenty-nine States.... The largest gains for the past
two years have been in the United States. Five western States and
the Territory of Alaska have followed the example of the four
former equal suffrage States and have