Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/825

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THE INTERNATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ALLIANCE

international organization and was adopted at each meeting for some years afterwards. It was called a Declaration of Principles and read as follows:

1. Men and women are born equally free and independent members of the human race, equally endowed with intelligence and ability and equally entitled to the free exercise of their individual rights and liberty.

2. The natural relation of the sexes is that of inter-dependence and cooperation and the repression of the rights and liberty of one sex inevitably works injury to the other and hence to the whole race.

3. In all lands those laws, creeds and customs which have tended to restrict women to a position of dependence, to discourage their education, to impede the development of their natural gifts and to subordinate their individuality have been based upon false theories and have produced an artificial and unjust relation of the sexes in modern society.

4. Self-government in the home and the State is the inalienable right of every normal adult and the refusal of this right to women has resulted in social, legal and economic injustice to them and has also intensified the existing economic disturbances throughout the world.

5. Governments which impose taxes and laws upon their women citizens without giving them the right of consent or dissent which is granted to men citizens exercise a tyranny inconsistent with just government.

6. The ballot is the only legal and permanent means of defending the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" pronounced inalienable by the American Declaration of Independence and accepted as inalienable by all civilized nations. In any representative form of government, therefore, women should be vested with all the political rights and privileges of electors.

ORGANIZATION OF THE ALLIANCE.

The International Woman Suffrage Committee, which had been formed at a conference in Washington, D. C., in February, 1902, and adjourned to meet in Berlin in June, 1904, was called to order on June 3, in the Prince Albert Hotel by the chairman, Miss Susan B. Anthony, who was warmly greeted by the women of all countries. The following report of this and subsequent meetings is condensed from the Minutes:

The program arranged by the officers was adopted as the order of business. Dr. jur. Anita Augsburg of the German

Suffrage Association delivered a cordial address of welcome and