Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/796

 780 HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE referendum was taken, in which women voted, on making Iceland an independent State having a personal union with Denmark and the same King, which resulted favorably. A new Althing was elected Nov. 15, 1919, and a new constitution adopted which gave to women full suffrage at 25, the same age as to men. SWEDEN. The story of Sweden is especially interesting as the women were the first in Europe to have the Municipal vote and among the last to have the Parliamentary. In 1862 widows and spinsters who had paid taxes had a vote for all officers except members of the Parliament. In 1909 they were made eligible for the offices. Later this franchise was enlarged to admit married women, and in 1918 it was made universal for men and women of 23 without taxpaying requirements. This chapter is indebted for much of the information in it to Mrs. Anna B. Wicksell, who was a dele- gate from Sweden to Berlin in 1904, when the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was formed and is now a vice-presi- dent. Mrs. Wicksell gained international fame when her Gov- ernment appointed her a delegate to the League of Nations meeting at Geneva in 1920-21 and she was placed on the Mandates Commission. The first bill to give women full suffrage and eligibility was presented in the Second Chamber by F. D. Borg, an enlightened member, in 1884 and ridiculed by Parliament and press. In 1902 Carl Lindhagen offered a bill calling on the Government to investi- gate the subject. The first organized movement among the women was the forming of a society in Stockholm this year and an address to Parliament with 5,641 signatures urging this bill. It was rejected by in to 64 in the Second Chamber (Lower House) and without a division in the First. In 1904 his bill, en- dorsed by 30 members, received 1 1 5 noes, 93 ayes and no vote in the First Chamber. In 1905, endorsed by 57, it had 89 noes, 30 ayes in the First Chamber and the Second rejected it by 109 to 88. The suffrage societies had multiplied and now there were 63. A National Suffrage Association was formed in 1904, which Still exists. It carried on the work for seventeen years, under the