ve
women associated themselves together with the object of reforming what
seems to them social chaos. In practically every civilized country in
the world to-day there exists a Council of Women, a central organization
to which clubs and societies of women with all sorts of opinions and
objects send delegates. In the United States the council is made up of
the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union, and innumerable smaller organizations, like the
National Congress of Mothers, and the Daughters of the American
Revolution. More than a million and a half American women are
affiliated.

Four hundred and twenty-six women's organizations belong to the council
in Great Britain. In Switzerland the council has sixty-four allied
societies; in Austria it has fifty; in the Netherlands it has
thirty-five. Seventy-five thousand women belong to the French council.
In all, the International Council of Women, to which all the councils
send delegates, represents more than eight million women, in countries
as far apart as Australia, Argentine, Iceland, Persia, South Africa, and
every country in Europe. The council, indeed, has no formal organization
in Russia, because organizations of every kind are illegal in Russia.
But Russian women attend every meeting of the International Council.
Turkish women sent word to the last meeting that they hoped soon to ask
for admission. The President of the International Council of Women is
the Countess of Aberdeen. Titled women in every European country belong
to their councils. The Queen of Greece is president of the Greek
council.

The object of this great world organization of women is to provide a
common center for women of every country, race, creed, or party who are
associating themselves together in altruistic work. Once every five
years the International Council holds a great world congress of women.

What eight million of the most intelligent, the most thoughtful, the
most altruistic women in the world believe, what they think the world
needs, what they wish and desire for the good of humanity, must be of
interest. It must count.

[Illustration: LADY ABERDEEN President of the International Council of
Women.]

The International Council of Women discusses every important question
presented, but makes no decision until the opinion of the delegates is
practically unanimous. It commits itself to no opinion, lends itself to
no movement, until the movement has