enfranchised their women.
Now 2,000,000 women are entitled to vote at all elections and are
eligible to all offices, including that of President.... If
France, Germany, Great Britain, Austria and Hungary could be set
down in the middle of this territory, there would be enough left
uncovered to equal the kingdom of Italy in size.

Mrs. Catt spoke of the trip of Dr. Jacobs and herself around the world
and said: "We held public meetings in many of the towns and cities of
four continents, of four large islands and on the ships of three
oceans and had representatives of all the great races and
nationalities in our audiences. We are now in touch with the most
advanced development of the woman's movement in Egypt, Palestine,
India, Burmah, China, Japan, Java and the Philippine and Hawaiian
Islands, and also in Turkey and Persia, which we did not visit."

In telling of the momentous changes taking place in the East she said:
"Behind the purdah in India, in the harems of Mohammedanism, behind
veils and barred doors and closed sedan chairs there has been
rebellion in the hearts of women all down the centuries.... We spoke
with many women all over the East who had never heard of a 'woman's
movement,' yet isolated and alone they had thought out the entire
program of woman's emancipation, not excluding the vote...." She
reviewed at length the position of women in Persia, in India and in
Asia, the influence of the various religions and the signs of
progress, paying a tribute to Mrs. Annie Besant, to the teachings of
theosophy and especially to those of the Bahais. The terrible
conditions for wage-earning women, the child labor and the nearly
unrestricted white slave traffic in the far East were feelingly
described and the address, which had been heard with almost breathless
interest, concluded:

The women of the western world are escaping from the thraldom of
the centuries.... Their liberation is certain; a little more
effort, a little more enlightenment and it will come. Out of the
richness of our own freedom must we give aid to these sisters of
ours in Asia. When I review the slow, tragic struggle upward of
the women of the West I am overwhelmed with the awfulness of the
task these Eastern women have assumed. They must follow the
vision in their souls as we have done and as other women before
us have done. My heart yearns to give them aid and comfort. I