This page has been validated.
302
WOMEN WANTED

franchise which shall include women. The free town of Hamburg, Germany, preparing to enlarge its franchise in recognition of the self-sacrifice of soldiers, hears the voice of Helene Lange and 27,000 women. They are reminding the Hamburg Senate that women, too, who have borne the burdens of war, will wish to devote themselves to reconstruction and in order to fulfil the duties of citizens, they claim citizens' rights. The Prussian Diet has before it the petition of Frau Minna Cauer and the Frauenstimmrechtsbund urging that suffrage for women be included in the projected franchise reform. The Reichstag arranging a Representation of the People Bill has at last referred the petition of the Reichverbund, the German National Union for Woman Suffrage, "for consideration" zur kenntisnahme, which is the first indication of their change of attitude before the women's offensive. The Socialists in the Reichstag are urging: "Women suffrage is marching triumphantly through other lands. Can Germany afford to fall behind the other nations, with her women less fully equipped than the rest for the struggle for existence?" Meanwhile, Germany, as other countries, is depending more and more upon her women. Two leading cities, Berlin and Frankfort-on-Main, both have women appointed to their municipal committees. Frau Hedwig Heyl, that woman behind the food control policy for the Empire, who has turned her great chemical factory on the Salzufer to canning meat for the army, says: "Woman suffrage in Germany is a fruit not yet ripe