Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/807

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN MANY COUNTRIES 79! petitions for the Municipal suffrage in Prussia were presented to its Diet by women. A Woman's Congress was held in Munich and for the first time in Germany a procession of women marched through the streets. In 1911 differences in questions of policy which had been increasing had resulted in the forming of a second National Association. The two united in 1916 under the presi- dency of Mrs. Marie Stritt, former president of the National Council of Women of Germany and secretary of the International Alliance. In March, 1918, Mrs. Stritt wrote to the International Suffrage News: "We German women have at present no reason to rejoice over the progress of our cause but we have followed with all the greater joy the unexpected success of our sisters in other countries." In 1920 Mrs. Stritt, now a member of the city council in Dres- den, wrote for this History as follows: "Although throughout the more than four years of war the women worked eagerly for the suffrage through their organizations, demanding it in public meetings and petitioning legislative bodies, they did not get it by their own efforts but by the Revolution in November, 1918, at the end of the war. In August, 1919, their rights were confirmed unanimously by all parties in the new constitution. They received the suffrage and eligibility for the Reichstag, and for the Parlia- ments of the States and local bodies universal, equal, direct and secret and applied exactly on the same terms as to men. Women are by the constitution eligible to all State and Government offices. In the first elections, in January, 1920, 39 were elected to the National Assembly, 117 to the State Parliaments in Pru ony, etc., and 1,400 to local bodies. Twenty were elected to the Diet of Prussia." Dr. Alice Salamon, of Berlin, secretary of the International Council of Women, wrote: "From the first day of the Revolu- tion, when suffrage was proclaimed for all men and women from the age of 20, it was accepted as the most natural thing in the world. It was neither questioned nor opposed by any political or professional groups. All political parties resolutely accepted woman suffrage as a fact and : electoral platforms in which they declared themselves for the full partnership of women in political life