Journal de Genève
- Wedding Days
- The Merger Is Voted
- We Have Not Forgotten!
The Journal de Genève of 14 November 1926 opened with a correspondent's account of the festivities for the wedding of the Duke of Brabant and Princess Astrid of Sweden, recalling that the engagement had first met coolness in circles that remembered pro-German Swedes and Stockholm's wartime peace intrigues. On Geneva politics, the paper reported that the Grand Council had adopted the constitutional law on merging the city with its suburbs by 41 votes to 29, after rejecting the Socialist Nicole's amendment and after M. Chapuisat denounced a far-left move to tie women's suffrage to the merger as sabotage. The page also carried an appeal from the Democratic party's central committee recalling the general strike and influenza-stricken mobilization of November 1918.
Translation
Wedding Days
The series of festivities held for the marriage of the Duke of Brabant and Princess Astrid of Sweden leaves everyone with an unforgettable memory. The announcement of the engagement had not been greeted with unanimous approval. The pro-German leanings shown during the war by prominent Swedes, and the memory of Stockholm as the centre of intrigues for peace at any price, created in certain circles an atmosphere of coolness or of thinly disguised discontent. I know of a flag maker who received a note from an "indignant patriot" warning him that the Swedish emblems would be torn to shreds.
The Merger Is Voted
At noon on Saturday, the Grand Council held the final vote on the constitutional law enshrining the merger and the administrative reform: by 41 votes to 29, it answered yes to the question put to it. This decision was not won without a fresh struggle that lasted the whole morning. In the third reading, M. Nicole revived his amendment to create an Administrative Council for the enlarged City, but after a fierce discussion and a moving appeal by M. Rochaix, the Socialist leader's amendment was rejected by 43 votes to 24. It was then that a new incident arose, the far left proposing to settle, in connection with the merger, the question... of women's suffrage! A joke? Sabotage? M. Chapuisat leaned toward the second hypothesis and forcefully showed the Socialists that by acting this way they were doing the worst possible disservice both to the cause of feminism and to that of the merger.
We Have Not Forgotten!
On 11 November 1918, with feelings of joy and gratitude, the Swiss people, together with all the nations, hailed the peace that had at last been announced. For the whole world, that day was a day of deliverance. In the afternoon, the tocsin abruptly tore us away from our demonstrations of enthusiasm. The general strike had been declared, and at the very moment when, on the battlefield, arms were being grounded, the Swiss soldier had to set out to fight the revolution. A committee pursuing political aims was sending threatening ultimatums to the Federal Council. The fatherland was in danger! None of us has forgotten what that mobilization was like. Influenza struck in our ranks, and every evening the ambulance came to take away a few of our own. We did not know whether we would see them again.
Context
When the Geneva merger actually took effect
The paper reported a decisive parliamentary step: the Grand Council's final vote, 41 to 29, on the constitutional law enshrining the merger and an administrative reform, after Nicole's amendment for an Administrative Council of the enlarged City failed 43 to 24. The independent record shows that the merger did go ahead, but only some years later. Geneva has had a single commune merger since the canton was created, and it took effect on 1 January 1931, when Genève, Le Petit-Saconnex, Les Eaux-Vives and Plainpalais were combined into the commune of Genève. That makes the reform the article describes exceptional in Geneva's history, because in the nineteenth century the canton had seen more commune splits than any other. The article therefore records the legislative moment of a change whose practical form, a single enlarged city, arrived more than four years after this page was printed.
The November 1918 general strike behind the Democratic appeal
The appeal signed by the Democratic party's central committee recalled 11 November 1918 as the day a general strike interrupted armistice celebrations, when Swiss soldiers were mobilized against what it called revolution and a committee with political aims sent ultimatums to the Federal Council. The passage translated here names no leader, but the strike it describes was led by the Socialist Robert Grimm. Its demands included a 48-hour working week, old-age pensions and women's suffrage, a programme this passage does not mention. In April 1919 a military tribunal sentenced Grimm to six months in prison for calling on soldiers to refuse orders to fire on strikers, the same confrontation between troops and strikers that the appeal frames from the soldiers' side, with influenza thinning their ranks. Grimm's later career shows how far the strike's leader rose within national institutions: he became President of the National Council in 1946, two decades after this appeal kept the bitterness of 1918 alive.
Women's suffrage as a long-standing socialist demand
The paper's political correspondent treated the far left's proposal to settle women's suffrage during the merger debate as either a joke or sabotage, and reported Chapuisat's argument that the Socialists were harming both feminism and the merger. That is the paper's reading of motive. Independently, women's suffrage had been one of the formal demands of the Swiss general strike of November 1918, alongside the 48-hour week and old-age pensions. The claim was thus part of the labour movement's programme well before 1926, and the same page that mocked the suffrage motion also carried a Democratic appeal attacking the 1918 strike from which that demand had been publicly pressed. Read together, the two items show the non-socialist side of Geneva politics opposing both the tactic and the movement that had made women's votes one of its causes.
Original
JOURNÉES NUPTIALES
La série des fêtes ordonnées à l'occasion du mariage du duc de Brabant et de la princesse Astrid de Suède laisse à tous un souvenir inoubliable. L'annonce des fiançailles n'avait pas reçu un accueil unanimement favorable. Les préférences germanophiles manifestées pendant la guerre par des Suédois de marque, le souvenir de Stockholm, centre des intrigues pour la paix à tout prix, créaient dans certains milieux une atmosphère de froideur ou de mécontentement mal déguisé. Je sais un fabricant de drapeaux qui reçut d'un «patriote indigné» un billet l'avertissant qu'on lacérerait les emblèmes suédois.
La fusion est votée
Samedi à midi, le Grand Conseil a procédé au vote final sur la loi constitutionnelle qui consacre la fusion et la réforme administrative: par 41 voix contre 29, il a répondu oui à la question qui lui était posée. Cette décision n'a pas été acquise sans une nouvelle lutte qui s'est prolongée pendant toute la matinée. M. Nicole a repris, en troisième débat, son amendement tendant à créer un Conseil administratif de la Ville agrandie, mais, après une discussion acharnée et un appel pathétique de M. Rochaix, l'amendement du leader socialiste a été repoussé par 43 voix contre 24. C'est alors que surgit un nouvel incident, l'extrême gauche proposant de trancher, à propos de la fusion, la question... du suffrage féminin! Plaisanterie? Sabotage? M. Chapuisat a opiné pour la seconde hypothèse et, avec énergie, a démontré aux socialistes qu'en agissant ainsi ils rendaient le plus mauvais des services aussi bien à la cause du féminisme qu'à celle de la fusion.
Nous n'avons pas oublié !
Le onze novembre 1918, dans un sentiment de joie et de reconnaissance, le peuple suisse, avec toutes les nations, saluait la paix enfin annoncée. Pour le monde entier, ce jour était un jour de délivrance. Dans l'après-midi, le tocsin nous arracha brusquement à nos manifestations d'enthousiasme. La grève générale était déclarée et, au moment où, sur le champ de bataille, on mettait l'arme au pied, le soldat suisse devait partir pour combattre la révolution. Un comité, poursuivant des buts politiques, adressait au Conseil fédéral des ultimatums menaçants. La patrie était en danger! Ce que fut cette mobilisation, nul de nous ne l'a oublié. La grippe frappait dans nos rangs et, chaque soir, l'ambulance venait chercher quelques-uns des nôtres. Nous ne savions pas si nous les reverrions.