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In 1895, Mrs. Catt made a tour of the Southern states with Miss
Anthony, and at its conclusion was made chairman of a newly
formed Organization Committee. She chose Mary Garrett Hay as
secretary of the Committee, and the two remained close collabora-
tors for many years. From this time, Mrs. Catt became the
directing energy of the suffrage association, and when, in 1900,
Miss Anthony retired from the presidency, she named Mrs. Catt as
her logical successor in the office.

ORGANIZES INTERNATIONAL SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT

In 1902, Mrs. Catt and Miss Anthony called an international
suffrage conference in Washington. Preparation for this con-
ference involved months of correspondence with government
officials and private individuals in all parts of the world, a
task which was performed entirely by Mrs. Catt. She learned that
there were only eight national suffrage associations in existence,
and when the conference met, representatives from nine countries
were present, Russia and Turkey among them. The Committee formed
in Washington in 1902 called an international congress In Berlin
in 1904, where the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was
formally organized, with Mrs. Catt as President. The Alliance has
held congresses biennially ever since, except during the first
and second world wars.

During her leadership of the international movement, Mrs. Catt
made many speaking tours of Europe, and in 1911, after the con-
gress of the Alliance in Stockholm, she went around the world,
organizing branches of the Alliance in South Africa, the Dutch
East Indies, Philippine Islands, China and the Hawaiian Islands,
and making contacts with feminists in Egypt, Palestine, India,
Japan, and elsewhere in the Orient. The most dramatic part of
her tour was her visit to China, where she arrived just after the
overthrow of the Manchu dynasty. The tragic story of the part
played by women in that revolution was told her by the Chinese
feminist leaders themselves. Her last international missionary
journey was made in 1922-23, and covered Europe and most of the
countries of South America. At the end of the journey, she
returned to Rome, Italy, where she presided for the last time at
a congress of the Alliance which she had founded twenty-one years
before, and retired from office, to be succeeded by Mrs. Corbett
Ashby of England. In her farewell address on that occasion,
Mrs. Catt stated that of the sixty nations of the world, forty
now had branches in the Alliance; twenty nations had fully
enfranchised women; eight had granted partial suffrage, and only
fifteen countries remained where women had no suffrage.

FOUNDS WOMAN SUFFRAGE PARTY

Her first term as president of the National American Woman
Suffrage Association took toll of Mrs. Catt's health to such an
extent that in 1904 she resigned the office, to be succeeded by
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. The following year, she suffered the loss
of her husband. She was then living in New York City and had
come to the conclusion that winning votes for women in the Empire
State was essential to the winning of suffrage in the nation by
federal amendment. In order to win New York State, it was essen-
tial to convert the Tammany-ruled metropolis which held half the
population of the state. So she went at the gigantic task. She
went after the women first, built up a strong city clientele in
which all suffrage groups were united. By 1909, she was able to
call a convention of 200 elected delegates, representing every
voting precinct in Greater New York, at which time the Woman
Suffrage Party, organized like the dominant political parties,
but with only one plank in the platform, was launched. Over
night the attitude of New York politicians changed from indiffer-
ence to astonished respect. Within two years, the Woman Suffrage
Party form of organization had been adopted by suffrage forces
all over the nation.

LEADS FIRST NEW YORK CAMPAIGN 1915

Nothing like the intensive campaign for the ballot waged by the
women of New York State from 1909 to 1917 can be cited. The state-
wide referenda on votes for women were held, 1915 and 1917, the
latter of which carried by a good majority, and it was New York
City which furnished the majority. Mrs. Catt was campaign chairman
in the 1915 campaign, and the efficiency of her leadership
illustrated by the fact that over 6,000 women served as watchers
at the polls on election day that year.