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.
Chaponniere 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
enlighte