NAWSA General Correspondence Internation Woman's Suffrage Alliance - 1929 AND EQUAL CITIZENSHIP. INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE. _______________________ AFFILIATED ASSOCIATIONS IN: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jugo-Slavia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Porto Rico, Portugal, Rhodesia, Roumania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay. Hon. President and Founder: CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT. BOARD: PRESIDENT: MARGERY I. CORBETT ASHBY, 33 UPPER RICHMOND ROAD LONDON S.W.15. ENGLAND. 1st Vice President: ADELE SCHREIBER (Germany). Vice-Presidents: MARGHERITA ANCONA (Italy); GERMAINE MALATERRE-SELLIER (France); ROSA MANUS (Holland); FRANTISKA PLAMINKOVA (Czecho-Slovakia). Corresponding Secretary: EMILIE GOURD, Crêts de Pregny, Geneva, Switzerland. Treasurer: FRANCES M. STERLING, Home Wood, Hartfield, Sussex, England. Assistant Treasurer: SUZANNE GRINBERG-AUPOURRAIN. Members: JULIE ARENHOLT (Denmark); MILENA ATANATSKOVITCH (Jugo-Slavia); HODA CHARAOUI (Egypt); PAULINA LUISI (Uruguay); FREDERIKKE MÖRCK (Norway); RUTH MORGAN (U.S.A.); EUGENIE DE REUSS JANCOULESCU (Roumania); BESSIE RISCHBIETH (Australia); MARQUESA DEL TER (Spain); AVRA THEODOROPOULOS (Greece); DOROTHEE VON VELSEN (Germany); INGEBORG WALIN (Sweden). LIST OF INTERNATIONAL STANDING COMMITTEES: Committee for an Equal Moral Standard and against the Traffic in Women. Chairman: DR. PAULINA LUISI, Uruguay. Committee on the Nationality of Married Women. Chairman: MISS CHRYSTAL MACMILLAN, Great Britain. Committee for Like Conditions of Work for Men and Women. Chairman: FRU JULIE ARENHOLT, Denmark. Committee for Family Allowances. Chairman: MISS ELEANOR RATHBONE, Great Britain. Committee for the Unmarried Mother and her Child. Chairman: FRAU ADELE SCHREIBER, Germany. Committee for Work in the Enfranchised Countries. Chairman: SENATOR PLAMINKOVA, Czecho-Slovakia. Committee for Peace and the League of Nations. Chairman: MISS RUTH MORGAN, U.S.A. Committee for Women Police. Chairman: MEJ. ROSA MANUS, Holland. Committee for the Equal Status of Women under the Law. Chairman: MME. GRINBERG-AUPOURRAIN, France. OFFICIAL MONTHLY ORGAN: ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, 6S. THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE NEWS (JUS SUFFRAGII). HEADQUARTERS: 190, VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.W.I.., ENGLAND. HEADQUARTERS SECRETARY AND EDITOR: KATHERINE BOMPAS. TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY. ELEVENTH CONGRESS, BERLIN, JUNE 17–22, 1929. 29th April 1929. Mrs. Chapman Catt, 120, Paine Avenue, New Rochelle. Dear Mrs. Catt, We were delighted to get your long letter and feel from it as if we really may begin to count on your presence at Berlin. It will be an enormous help to have you on the 13th, for your advice and help in committee matters and last minute crises which always arise will be invaluable. It is a pity that you have to leave us so soon as June 26th, but you will then have a quiet summer at home, richly deserved. I much like your speech as planned and believe it would strike the right jubilee note with its wonderful record of success. We have already invited each delegation to come prepared with a flag and a white dress for the Sunday peace demonstration, and as it will be an entirely different audience each time we can well use the same ladies and flags. We have already large flags of all the countries and our own lovely banner which we use as decoration for the hall, but this time we have asked each delegation to bring a small one as well. As regards the two peace meetings, there has been some confusion because I think Rosa did not clearly remember the minutes of the Board meeting. The afternoon Friday meeting is a business meeting of the Congress at which the report and resolutions of the peace committee must be presented and discussed. The evening peace meeting was to be an Alliance meeting at which you, as the founder of the Alliance, were to make a constructive peace speech and speakers were to show the Alliance attitude towards the practical problem. This meeting the Board understood was to be an ordinary meeting of the Congress in the sense that it came out of the ordinary budget of the Congress. At the Board meeting a year ago it was suggested that the Peace -2- Commission should finance a peace demonstration of a popular kind immediately after the Congress and out of that has grown the popular peace demonstration in the Volksbühne which is to be financed by the Peace Commission and will be half speeches from the continents, half demonstration in poerty and music of women's world solidarity for peace. Our idea at the Board was that Friday night should be political and constructive and that Sunday should be sentimental and a demonstration vivid and dramatic, rather than closely reasoned. Since your letter arrived we have had a difficult letter from Germany, in which they seem for the first time apprehensively aware that our Congress arrives only a week before the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The Germans will make that anniversary a terrific day of national mourning and protest and will be getting worked up into a state of most militant nationalism. I am being firm that our Congress must be truly international and truly stand for peace. I hope Rosa and Mrs. Bakker are hard at work at this moment in Berlin, but it is really out of the question to have a French speaker. There would most likely be organised opposition or boycott! May we count on you in any case for ten minutes? You are the leader of the new world peace movement and we want that recognised. As regards the Leslie Commission I can't begin to thank you. It has been a nightmare to me to think of arrying on the Alliance after Berlin, and I was terribly afraid it meant cutting down our staff and office and making general economies when we really need to expand now that the countries which need assistance lie further afield. I have just returned from a suffrage tour in Belgium where a new society is likely to be more energetic than the old. I can't be grateful enough for the continued help. As regards Rosika Schwimmer it seemed impossible not to invite her as a pioneer in suffrage work, but I wrote to Mrs. Meller, her Hungarian friend, saying I was doing it with reluctance as if she once left the States she would probably not be able to return, and that I hesitated to incur any responsibility for encouraging her to come. I hear from her that she won't come unless she gets U.S.A. nationality. I am so glad you will be in Berlin by the 13th as it will give me some quiet time with you. Yours affectionately, Margery Corbett Ashby P. KB. Dictated but not read Translated copy of a letter from the Dutch Embassador in Berlin to Mrs. Bakker-van Bosse, Vice-Chairman of the Committee for Peace, L. of N., of the I.A.W.S.E.C. ----------- Madam, Yesterday Mrs. Corbett-Ashby, Frau Herz, Frau Abegg and Miss Manus called on me to talk about the preparations of the Congress. There was not spoken about the point that gave you much anxiety on April 30th, the possibility of an opposition between the right and the left among the German women, but they talked vaguely about the desirability of speeches by French and Belgian women. Only at the moment of leaving, when they were in great haste to be in time to go and visit Mrs. Stresemann, with whom they had an appointment, I had the opportunity to have a few private words with Mrs. Ashby about this split. The German women were of opinion that such speeches ought to be given, because otherwise the impression would arise that in France and in Belgium they won't hear anything about Peace. It was not my affair to contradict the German ladies in their own country, but as I had advised you to consult Frau Herz about the public opinion in Berlin, I want to let you know that I believe that the way in which these German ladies see these things, is very onesided. Here is on the "right" certainly a group who are of opinion: le. that Pacifism at this moment for Germany only means: that one must accept everything without protest, what other countries do to Germany; 2o. that to speak about Peace by French and Belgian women must be out of the question. You (Mrs. Bakker-Van Bosse) have made a great impression with your speech in the Lyceumclub and won so much sympathy, that it would be by far the best, if you and Mrs. Ashby could come beforehand to examen the situation here yourselves. Although I fear that this advice will be difficult for you to follow, I feel I am obliged to give it to you. It may however be possible that in talking with Frau Stresemann and Frau Von Schubert thing are seem more distinctly. It must surely not be omitted to consult Frau Von Haxthausen. Respectfully, w.s. Count Van Limburg Stirum. Telephone: Putney 0667 33, Upper Richmond Road. S.W.15. May 11, 1929. My dear Mrs. Catt, It is no use your adding soothing messages about the Leslie Commission to soften the terrible blow in your letter. Nothing can make up to us for your absence in Berlin. You gather together & personify all the Alliance is & has done & would give us so much inspiration for the future. I flew over to Rotterdam last Monday for a couple of hours talk with Rosa but her news of Berlin was sufficiently disquieting for me to go on by the night train to Berlin itself. It was a good thing I did so as the political atmosphere is so dense at this moment and the women were fussed and anxious. We had most helpful advice from the dutch minister & the minister for police as well as from Dr. Bauwer so that we have really been able to straighten out the peace meeting. Miss Morgan will be in the chair & Mrs Bakker von Bosse will make the chief peace speech after the greetings from Streseuman & Bernsdorf. Then we thought of Mme Gourd also from a neutral country to talk on the work done by the Alliance with the League at Geneva & Mme Puech on the work of the "Intellectual Co operation." Mme Gourd to speak in French & Mme Puech if possible in German. She is so serious a student, so wise and tactful she is sure to please the public in these difficult times. It is an enormous relief to know that we can carry on for another three 2 Telephone: Putney 0667 33. Upper Richmond Road. S.W.15. years with an assured income. Between now & then [we] I hope to build up firmer communications with other countries to try to distribute the financial burden. It is not fair that the U.S.A. should carry it all. I read your message about the flags over the phone to Mrs. Bowpas & she agreed with me it would be a most dramatic and delightful gift. I am turning the practical arrangements over to her. I expect this will be my last political fight. My reasons for going on were too complicated to explain just now but after this election we shall have women so well established as candidates and members I shant feel needed so much. We are trying to get into touch with Mrs. F. Louis Slade at once. I am so torn between anxiety for your health & a desperate wish for your presence & help. We would let you do as you liked at any N???ite[?] but just to have you smiling at us would give us such a warm comforting feeling. Do come at the last moment if you can. The programme is elastic & is made for you to alter as you like. We do want to have you with us so badly. It would make an enormous difference to me personally to have your help & encouragement behind the scenes and your occasional presence on the platform even as onlooker would be lovely. You know best but the Jubilee will be like "Hamlet" without Hamlet. Yours most affectionately Margery I. Corbett Ashby Telephone: Hartfield 22. 18 May/29 Home Wood Hartfield, Sussex Dear Mrs. Chapman Catt, The dire news that your doctors have not managed to patch you up enough for a journey to - or rather a stay in Berlin is, as you will know a most bitter grief to us all. Even your wonderful news of the further generous gifts from the Leslie Commission, something rejoiceful as it may be to my Treasurer's heart, just makes no difference - it belongs to another world. Most beloved leader & friend I won't 'rub it in' - but what a much worse state of affairs it wd be if we didn't care, now wouldn't it? - or even if we heaved a sigh of something like relief - or counted you, as I gather another poor old leader [is] was counted as merely a protection against some worse soil[?]. No, really! - for all the pain that your absence brings & the worse pain of its cause we really wouldn't have it otherwise, for then you wouldn't be you but a much less precious person. I feel a very worn in that I have been patched up & I am to be allowed to go - How willingly I wd swap strength with you if it were allowed, but maybe we've got to learn to stumble along with our own less capable selves to guide us; I confess we might easily lean too much on your finer insight & character if you were there, & so grow downwards instead of up. But! - oh! dear - To turn to a frivolous matter - Rosa said you rather liked the feel of a Shetland scarf I knitted her so I've made another for you. If I posted it you'd have bother with the Custom House may be I shall to & send it back by Miss Morgan or some of the other delegates - any way the height of summer is not the time you'd need it most, but it shall each you at the first opportunity. I wonder if those seeds are coming up - those birthday international seeds, I mean. I do hope some at least will thrive - Of course we'll send you news of our doings & honest gossip too, to amuse you. Much love from Yr ever devoted follower Frances M. Sterling partial letterhead of The International Woman Suffrage News Headquarters Secretary and Editor: Katherine Bompas Home Wood. Harfield. Sussex, England. 18 May/29 Dear Mrs. Chapman Catt, Mrs. Ashby has reported to me that once more the Alliance has to thank you & the Leslie Commission for generous gifts, both for the coming three years & for the expenses of the Congress. Will you please be our mouthpiece in expressing our profound thanks & personally, my sense of relief from a great burden of anxiety. I wish France & South Africa & Belgium were getting on a bit better but of course in each case the question of the vote is tangled-up with other political matters which are the real hindrance. You have helped us to be in a better position for helping those women to pull the suffrage question out of the tangle. I shall go to Berlin with something of real worth to tell the Board & the Congress. Yr very gratefully Frances M Sterling Treasurer. COPY (Original in Radcliffe College Women's Rights Room, Maud Wood Park Collection) May 31, 1929 To the 25th Anniversary of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance: Greetings: My heart is filled with sorrow that I am unable to be with you, dear friends, at this anniversary convention. How distinctly do I remember every incident of that little gathering of brave souls a quarter of a century ago. Many of you can not realize the bitterness and the contempt with which the great majority of people regarded woman suffrage in that day. Germany and Austria still had their laws forbidding women to participate in politics and no national suffrage organisation could be lawfully formed in either, the most that any woman amongst us would have dared to predict was that, sometime women would enjoy equal suffrage and equal opportunity. It was our intention to work so hard for these desires and, that we believed they might come while some of us lived. No one dreamed that in twenty-five years, the women of half the nations of the world would be endowed with some form of suffrage, nor that Germany would lead the nations in the number of women in its City Councils, its State Parliaments and in the Reichstag. To my mind, the evolution in the status of women the world around during the past twenty-five years is of more far reaching effect upon human society, and of more fundamental value to the race, than any other social change wrought within the same length of time. There is nothing women want that they cannot achieve if they will.- The world will rise or fall, move forward of backward, in step with the thinking and acting of women. Most nations are now ruled by the people and women are rulers. The better half of men and women can and will make an end of wars: they will bring friendly relations between nations and between capital and labour; they will establish happier living standards and bring better homes, nobler fathers and mothers, and a more just social life. Together they will learn to think straight and act with courage. I congratulate you, dear fellow workers, upon the many victories already won, and I urge you to march on with spirits undaunted wherever there is a human problem calling for solution. Whatever is right and just will become established usage when leaders and workers demand. The past quarter of a century was agreat period in human history. Make the next one equally so. May God be with you all. CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT [*(3 copie)*] [*Copy*] [*58*] May 31, 1929 To the 25th Anniversary of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance: Greetings: My heart is filled with sorrow that I am unable to be with you, dear friends, at this anniversary convention. How distinctly do I remember every incident of that little gathering of brave souls a quarter of a century ago. Many of you can not realize the bitterness and the contempt with which the great majority of people regarded woman suffrage in that day. Germany and Austria still had their laws forbidding women to participate in politics and no national suffrage organization could be lawfully formed in either, the most that any woman amongst us would have dated to predict was that, sometime women would enjoy suffrage and equal opportunity. It was our intention to work so hard for these desires end, that we believed they might come while some of us lived. No one dreamed that in twenty-five years, the women of half the nations of the world would be endowed with some form of suffrage, nor that Germany would lead the nations in the number of women in its City Councils, its State Parliaments and in the Reichstag. To my mind, the evolution in the status of women the world around during the past twenty-five years is of more far reaching effect upon human society, and of more fundamental value to the race, than any other social change wrought within the same length of time. There is nothing women want that they cannot achieve, if they will. - The world will rise or fall, move forward or backward, in step with the thinking and acting of women. Most nations are now ruled by the people and women are rulers. The better half of men and women can and will make an end of ware, they will bring friendly relations between nations and between capital and labour; they will establish happier living standards and bring better homes, nobler fathers and mothers, and a more just social life. Together they will learn to think straight and act with courage. I congratulate you, dear fellow works, upon the many victories already won, and I urge you to march on with spirits undaunted wherever there is a human problem calling for solution. Whatever is right and just will become established usage when leaders and workers demand. The past quarter of a century was a great period in human history. Make the next one equally so. May God be with you all. signed: Carrie CHAPMAN CATT. 1929 TELEPHONE: VICTORIA 0285 TELEGRAMS: VOCORAJTO, LONDON. INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FOR SUFFRAGE AND EQUAL CITIZENSHIP. INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE. AFFILIATED ASSOCIATIONS IN: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jugo-Slavia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Porto Rico, Portugal, Rhodesia, Roumania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay. HON. PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER: CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT. BOARD: PRESIDENT: MARGERY I. CORBETT ASHBY, 33, Upper Richmond Road, London, S.W.15, England. 1st Vice-President: ADELE SCHREIBER (Germany). Vice Presidents: MARGHERITA ANCONA (Italy); GERMAIN MALATERRE-SELLIER (France); ROSA MANUS (Holland); FRANTISKA PLAMINKOVA (Czecho-Slovakia). Corresponding Secretary: EMILIE GOURD, Crêts de Pregny, Geneva, Switzerland. Treasurer: FRANCES M. STERLING, Home Wood, Hartfield, Sussex, England. Assistant Treasurer: SUZANNE GRINBERG-AUPOURRAIN Members: Julie Arenholt (Denmark); Milena Atanatskovitch (Jugo-Slavia); Hoda Charaoui (Egypt); Paulina Luisi (Uruguay); Frederikke Mörck (Norway); Ruth Morgan (U.S.A.); Eugenie de Reuss Jancoulescu (Roumania); Bessie Rischbieth (Australia); Marquesa del Ter (Spain); Avra Theodoropoulos (Greece); Dorothee von Velsen (Germany); Ingeborg Walin (Sweden). LIST OF INTERNATIONAL STANDING COMMITTEES: Committee for an Equal Moral Standard and against the Traffic in Women. Chairman: Dr. Paulina Luisi, Uruguay. Committee on the Nationality of Married Women. Chairman: Miss Chrystal Macmillan, Great Britain. Committee for Like Conditions of Work for Men and Women. Chairman: Fru Julie Arenholt, Denmark. Committee for Family Allowances. Chairman: Miss Eleanor Rathbone, Great Britain. Committee for the Unmarried Mother and her Child. Chairman: Frau Adele Schreiber, Germany. Committee for Work in the Enfranchised Countries. Chairman: Senator Plaminkova, Czecho-Slovakia. Committee for Peace and the League of Nations. Chairman: Miss Ruth Morgan, U.S.A. Committee for Women Police. Chairman: Mej. Rosa Manus, Holland. Committee for the Equal Status of Women under the Law. Chairman: Mme. Grinberg-Aupourrain, France. Official Monthly Organ: Annual Subscription. 6s. THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE NEWS (JUS SUFFRAGII). Headquarters: 190. Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.I., England. Headquarters Secretary and Editor: KATHERINE BOMPAS. TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY. ELEVENTH CONGRESS, BERLIN, JUNE 17–22, 1929 June 30 1929. My dear Mrs Catt, I got home nearly a week ago + have really hesitated to write because there seemed so much to tell I didn't know how to begin. Because too I was so desperately busy, plunged straight back into urgent national work waiting for my decision. We missed you dreadfully, most of all when everything was going with a swing + we felt so sproud to be carrying on your work but we missed you badly too where a wise word was needed in a crisis. A jubilee without you was like Hamlet without the name part It was very pleasant to discover again + again the traces of the deep affection you have always inspired almost everyone who spoke referred to you, so affectionately + so proudly, that I was glad I had had the final say on the opening morning before all the possible words had been said again + again. I wish I saw a chance of coming over to confide in you some of the hair breadth escapes and the funny accidents. Of the serious results of the congress I can mention several outstanding ones. First we were the first big international Congress to meet in [German] Berlin since the war. There had been technical congresses of 15 or 20 countries. We succeeded in firing their imaginations We broke down the boycott, they fell back once more with the society of nations, the younger women could hardly believe their ears as they heard the same ideals, same needs expressed by women from every land. It was a great bit of peace work 2ndly we opened new Germany to women of all lands, the new republican germany, amazingly democratic + clean + efficient not in military but in social organisation. They earned the respect of the expert social workers among our delegates + gave unrivalled help to the delegates from backward lands. Thirdly the government representatives treated us seriously in their speeches. They did not welcome us as amiable or beautiful women but as serious + politically minded women who could wield real influence on their governments at home. I missed you most of all when they were talking as it would have enabled you to estimate your wonderful work almost better than anything else. 2. TELEPHONE: VICTORIA 0285 TELEGRAMS: VOCORAJTO, LONDON. INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FOR SUFFRAGE AND EQUAL CITIZENSHIP. INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE. AFFILIATED ASSOCIATIONS IN: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jugo-Slavia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Porto Rico, Portugal, Rhodesia, Roumania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay. HON. PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER: CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT. BOARD: PRESIDENT: MARGERY I. CORBETT ASHBY, 33, Upper Richmond Road, London, S.W.15, England. 1st Vice-President: ADELE SCHREIBER (Germany). Vice Presidents: MARGHERITA ANCONA (Italy); GERMAIN MALATERRE-SELLIER (France); ROSA MANUS (Holland); FRANTISKA PLAMINKOVA (Czecho-Slovakia). Corresponding Secretary: EMILIE GOURD, Crêts de Pregny, Geneva, Switzerland. Treasurer: FRANCES M. STERLING, Home Wood, Hartfield, Sussex, England. Assistant Treasurer: SUZANNE GRINBERG-AUPOURRAIN Members: Julie Arenholt (Denmark); Milena Atanatskovitch (Jugo-Slavia); Hoda Charaoui (Eypt); Paulina Luisi (Uruguay); Frederikke Mörck (Norway); Ruth Morgan (U.S.A.); Eugenie de Reuss Jancoulescu (Roumania); Bessie Rischbieth (Australia); Marquesa del Ter (Spain); Avra Theodoropoulos (Greece); Dorothee von Velsen (Germany); Ingeborg Walin (Sweden). LIST OF INTERNATIONAL STANDING COMMITTEES: Committee for an Equal Moral Standard and against the Traffic in Women. Chairman: Dr. Paulina Luisi, Uruguay. Committee on the Nationality of Married Women. Chairman: Miss Chrystal Macmillan, Great Britain. Committee for Like Conditions of Work for Men and Women. Chairman: Fru Julie Arenholt, Denmark. Committee for Family Allowances. Chairman: Miss Eleanor Rathbone, Great Britain. Committee for the Unmarried Mother and her Child. Chairman: Frau Adele Schreiber, Germany. Committee for Work in the Enfranchised Countries. Chairman: Senator Plaminkova, Czecho-Slovakia. Committee for Peace and the League of Nations. Chairman: Miss Ruth Morgan, U.S.A. Committee for Women Police. Chairman: Mej. Rosa Manus, Holland. Committee for the Equal Status of Women under the Law. Chairman: Mme. Grinberg-Aupourrain, France. Official Monthly Organ: Annual Subscription. 6s. THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE NEWS (JUS SUFFRAGII). Headquarters: 190. Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.I., England. Headquarters Secretary and Editor: KATHERINE BOMPAS. TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY. ELEVENTH CONGRESS, BERLIN, JUNE 17–22, 1929 4thly I don't think we have ever had better publicity in a serious way from both national + international press or anything like the same earnest effort to understand our view + goal. 5thly We had great attraction for the youth movement which in Germany seems especially self conscious + rather palliatie in its constant reiteration that the older generation cant teach them anything. They have suffered so much from misery + poverty + uncertainty + from their complete isolation from any other point of view. After all I felt we deserved it. We didn't make the world a particularly nice place for them so they may have some excuse in thinking they can do without us now. I think we finally captured their imagination + made them friendly + we certainly mixed classes + political parties in a most comprehensive way. Our public meetings + ceremonies were entirely successful. The hospitality was magnificent + boundless both officially and privately. I am only worried about one aspect of the work. We are too big now to do any business in a full session. A team from 45 countries in all stages of civilisations derived from wildly different traditions is bad enough but when [it] [procedure?] is complicated by three languages it is awful. There too the hall that is hardly big enough for a dramatic opening is lonely + too vast for the earnest minded delegates who sit through every session as did the U.S.A. Dutch Swedish + British delegations. We had an interesting meeting of the Board immediately after the Congress just for criticisms. I think we shall have to do our work in sections. Rosa was splendid, she has developed into an admirable speaker she makes people really interested + keen by her own enthusiasm. I cant praise the quality of the U.S.A delegation enough or tell you how much I value Miss Sherwin as a Board member. How I long to talk instead if writing. Yours affectionately Margery I Corbett Ashely Official Monthly Organ: Annual Subscription. 6s. THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE NEWS (JUS SUFFRAGII). Headquarters: 190. Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W.I., England. Headquarters Secretary and Editor: KATHERINE BOMPAS. TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY Eleventh Congress, Berlin, June 17–22, 1929. 6th July 1929. Mrs. Chapman Catt, 171, Madison Avenue, New York. Dear Mrs. Chapman Catt, At the first meeting of the Board before the Congress, and at the Presidents' meeting, the warmest and most affectionate messages were sent to you, coupled with deep regret at your absence, deep gratitude and appreciation for all you have done and are doing for us, and lively wishes for your good health. Your work for peace commands our universal admiration. I cannot express in words the literally hundreds of personal messages and inquiries made by famous or obscure delegates from each corner of the world. You have the heart of each one. Yours affectionately, Margery I Corbett Ashby INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FOR SUFFRAGE AND EQUAL CITIZENSHIP. Twenty-Fifth Anniversary June 17-22, 1929. 6th July 1929. Mrs. Chapman Catt, 171, Madison Avenue, New York. Dear Mrs. Chapman Catt, May we beg you as Chairman of the Leslie Commission to convey to the Commission our warm thanks and deep appreciation for their unfailing support of, and generous gifts to the Alliance, as passed unanimously at our Board meeting. The Berlin Congress proved such a success from the widest point of view that we cannot be sufficiently grateful to the Commission for enabling us to continue the work of the Alliance, which seems more vigorous and more widely needed than ever before. Our suffrage and emancipation work is needed over wide areas still almost untouched, and in addition and peace work of the Alliance, its defense of women in international and national labour market, and its practical handling of social international questions with which the League of Nations and the International Labour Office are constantly dealing, appeal to a wonderful band of enthusiastic and energetic women. We are finding too many younger women to carry on or traditions. All this we owe to the generosity of the Leslie Commission. Yours sincerely, Margery Corbett Ashby (?) President. Dear Mrs. Chapman Catt, 23 Aug'129 I have just managed to capture my President for a talk - among other things about the question you [raised] in a letter to her as to whether, if you sent the Leslie money now, we could invest. If you are still in that mind we sho[uld] gladly receive it. What is needed soon we should put on short deposit the next part due on yearly deposit (at [?] interest) + the remainder we sho[uld] invest, for use in the 3rd year. It is glorious news to me that your generous Leslie will be able to give the $1,000 for next convention - I had not expected that I had told the Board that they w[ould] need to put by [Sterling] 200 of such money as we have (beyond our budgeted annual expenditure for office staff [?]) to make up for your not being able to give [?] it again. Of course that $1,000 w[ould] be invested along with such part of our yearly income as Josiah [?] to be expended too soon to make the expenditure on brokerage & stamp (i.e. Gov't tax) worth while. You may depend I will keep a tight hand over the money & not allow it to come into our [annual?] income till it is due to do so & that I'll get all the interest we can first! Sometimes one can catch up an extra 1/2 year's interest before withdrawing from deposit or selling out; by a little management of the payment of a/cs & so on. My office people are very sharp over such things & try not to incur a heavy bill on a given date if it is just going to prevent our collecting interest. Miss Mercer was in a Bank during the war & knows what she's at, & Mrs. Bompas is equally good & careful. Yr. ever-grateful Treasurer Frances M. Sterling Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.