第85章 XVI(1)

COUNCIL EPISODES

I have said much of the interest attending the international meetings held in Chicago, London, Berlin, and Stockholm. That I have said less about those in Copenhagen, Geneva, The Hague, Budapest, and other cities does not mean that these were less important, and certainly the wonderful women leaders of Europe who made them so brilliant must not be passed over in silence.

First, however, the difference between the Suf- f rage Alliance meetings and the International Coun- c il meetings should be explained. The Council meetings are made up of societies from the various nations which are auxiliary to the International Council--these societies representing all lines of women's activities, whether educational, industrial, or social, while the membership, including more than eleven million women, represents probably the largest organization of women in the world. The International Suffrage Alliance represents the suf- f rage interest primarily, whereas the International Council has only a suffrage department. So popu- l ar did this International Alliance become after its formation in Berlin by Mrs. Catt, in 1904, that at the Copenhagen meeting, only three years later, more than sixteen different nations were represented by regular delegates.

It was unfortunate, therefore, that I chose this occasion to make a spectacular personal failure in the pulpit. I had been invited to preach the con- v ention sermon, and for the first time in my life I had an interpreter. Few experiences, I believe, can be more unpleasant than to stand up in a pul- p it, utter a remark, and then wait patiently while it is repeated in a tongue one does not understand, by a man who is putting its gist in his own words and quite possibly giving it his own interpretative twist.

I was very unhappy, and I fear I showed it, for I f elt, as I looked at the faces of those friends who understood Danish, that they were not getting what I was giving them. Nor were they, for I afterward learned that the interpreter, a good orthodox brother, had given the sermon an ultra-orthodox bias which those who knew my creed certainly did not recognize. The whole experience greatly dis- h eartened me, but no doubt it was good for my soul.

During the Copenhagen meeting we were given a banquet by the City Council, and in the course of his speech of welcome one of the city fathers airily remarked that he hoped on our next visit to Copen- h agen there would be women members in the Council to receive us. At the time this seemed merely a pleasant jest, but two years from that day a bill was enacted by Parliament granting municipal suf- f rage to the women of Denmark, and seven women were elected to the City Council of Copenhagen.

So rapidly does the woman suffrage movement grow in these inspiring days!

Recalling the International Council of 1899 in London, one of my most vivid pictures has Queen Victoria for its central figure. The English court was in mourning at the time and no public audiences were being held; but we were invited to Windsor with the understanding that, although the Queen could not formally receive us, she would pass through our lines, receiving Lady Aberdeen and giving the rest of us an opportunity to courtesy and obtain Her Majesty's recognition of the Cause.

The Queen arranged with her chamberlain that we should be given tea and a collation; but before this refreshment was served, indeed immediately after our arrival, she entered her familiar little pony-cart and was driven slowly along lines of bowing women who must have looked like a wheat-field in a high wind.

Among us was a group of Indian women, and these, dressed in their native costumes, contributed a picturesque bit of brilliant color to the scene as they deeply salaamed. They arrested the eye of the Queen, who stopped and spoke a few cordial words to them. This gave the rest of us an excellent opportunity to observe her closely, and I admit that my English blood stirred in me suddenly and loyally as I studied the plump little figure. She was dressed entirely and very simply in black, with a quaint flat black hat and a black cape. The only bit of color about her was a black-and-white parasol with a gold handle. It was, however, her face which held me, for it gave me a wholly different impression of the Queen from those I had received from her photographs. Her pictured eyes were always rather cold, and her pictured face rather haughty; but there was a very sweet and winning softness in the eyes she turned upon the Indian women, and her whole expression was unexpectedly gentle and benignant.

Behind her, as a personal attendant, strode an enormous East-Indian in full native costume, and closely surrounding her were gentlemen of her house- h old, each in uniform.

By this time my thoughts were on my courtesy, which I desired to make conventional if not grace- f ul; but nature has not made it easy for me to double to the earth as Lady Aberdeen and the In- d ian women were doing, and I fear I accomplished little save an exhibition of good intentions. The Queen, however, was getting into the spirit of the occasion. She stopped to speak to a Canadian representative, and she would, I think, have ended by talking to many others; but, just at the psycho- l ogical moment, a woman rushed out of the line, seized Her Majesty's hand and kissed it--and Vic- t oria, startled and possibly fearing a general on- s laught, hurriedly passed on.