Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 37

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME OF THE WOUNDED IN THE NEW YORK PARADE.

The 369th Colored Regiment was cited as a whole for bravery in action--at Champagne, Chateau Thierry, Mihiel Salient or in the Argonne, wherever there was hard fighting to be done.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MANUAL OF ARMS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Showing the different positions in the drill.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GROUP OF RUSSIAN SAILORS. They are the first to come to New York since the United States entered the war.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SERBIAN CORPS ORGANIZED IN THE UNITED STATES.

Hundreds of Serbians organized an army and went to France and joined the offensive. The photo shows the men leaving San Francisco, where they were mobilized. The United States paid for the transportation of the men.]

"Girls are beginning on the farm at 18 s.h.i.+llings ($4.50) a week; before the war men farm hands worked for 11 s.h.i.+llings ($2.75). Our women are milking cows, running steam plows, digging in the fields and giving complete satisfaction. I dare not venture to predict what will happen in the future, but we can face it with confidence, I am certain. Now we are inspired with the spirit of patriotism; we feel we owe our best to our country; we are ready to suffer hards.h.i.+p just as our brave men are doing in the trenches.

BRITISH WOMEN'S PATRIOTISM.

"The patriotism of British women had stood a hard test; I hope American women have an easier trial. Lloyd George says he hopes America will profit by the mistakes of Britain. For more than a year the government of this country snubbed and discouraged our women. The government does not pay women at the same rate as men; it does not give them the same war bonus. There came a time when the government realized the war could not be won without the women. Then it issued frantic calls for help, and the women responded n.o.bly, just as they would have done months before. I hope your American Government will recognize the value of woman's help from the very start.

"Unfortunately I must judge your women largely by those who come over here for the season in peace days. As I remember they spent a great deal of time and money at the hairdressers, manicures, dressmaking establishments and hotels. But I am certain the great majority of Americans care more for their homes and country and less for display. I feel that they should concentrate on the production of food. We need all we can get and then we shall not have as much as we require. Money, food and s.h.i.+ps are the things most needed.

"Your women have been wonderfully generous in giving us money, supporting hospitals and sending us supplies. We can use some of your nurses and women doctors. We have a hospital here in London holding nearly 1000 soldiers and it is run entirely by women. Our Scottish women's hospitals have done grand work in the various theaters of war.

Not only the nurses, but the doctors and ambulance drivers are women. We have supplied about 72,000 women for this work alone."

"How have women regarded the discipline of army life?" was asked.

"Wonderfully!" said Lady Frances. "It has been good for them. Just see our women 'bus conductors. They work hard, handle all kinds of people, but I never heard them say they are unable to meet the emergencies which arise. And for the most part they are women who come from very humble surroundings. You hear that women have broken down in health under their work, but it seems to me I have read frequently about American business men suffering from nervous breakdowns and overwork."

SUCCESS BUILT ON RUINS OF FAILURE.

No great victories, either in war or in the ordinary relations of life, are attained without initial blunders. Many a splendid success is built upon the ruins of failure, and this is a fact that the women of Europe learned after the first hysteria occasioned by the marching soldiers, the beat of drums and all the excitement incident to real warfare.

American women, when they joined hands with the Allies against Prussianism and all that it meant, builded splendid records of their usefulness upon the mistakes that these women made.

In the summer of 1914 every girl and woman clamored to be a nurse. Women with a great deal of money and no experience opened "hospitals" that were about as fit for the reception and treatment of wounded men as a henroost is capable of housing an eagle. They all wanted to be in the "Red Cross" or "V.A.D." (Voluntary Aid Department) and wear caps and bandage wounds.

Then there were the amateur nurses who didn't know much about nursing, "but would love to try." The daughter of a duke tried to go through a probationary course at St. Bartholomew's Hospital because she thought the uniform "perfectly sweet." But of course this element of "fluffiness" exists on the outside of any great movement. It has to be blown away so that the hard surface of genuine and practical endeavor can be seen and felt. And that is what happened to England. The "fluff"

disappeared and women knew where they were, and men realized that women possess a force, a firm and splendid resolve, that gives them the right to step beside men in the march toward victory.

Another craze that amounted to a vice was the furious and ill-considered efforts of totally unskilled women to make s.h.i.+rts and hospital garments for soldiers. If some of the results had not been pathetic one could almost be overcome with the comicality of the whole business. Soldiers'

s.h.i.+rts were turned out by a circle of busily sewing ladies that would not fit a dwarf, while probably the next batch of garments dispatched with patriotic fervor to a regimental depot might have been designed for a race of giants.

NATIONAL SERVICE FOR WOMEN.

National service for women as well as for men proved a very substantial portion of Great Britain's strength, but before national service had been generally thought of an organization called the Women's Service Bureau had been formed by a group of influential and intelligent women who were imbued with the idea that only by careful and systematized registration and selection could the matter of feminine war work be successfully arranged.

Lady Frances Balfour was the first president of the Women's Service Bureau, which with the London Society for Suffrage established 62 branches in the city of London and its suburbs.

What the women at the head of this society realized was the necessity for giving the right women the most suitable employment and also to give every applicant for work helpful and practical advice. The need for women's labor in the many trades and professions. .h.i.therto closed to them, and for their increased co-operation in those in which they already took part, has been forced home even to unwilling minds.

Here and there on the battlefields of Europe--in Bulgaria, Servia, Roumania, France, Belgium and Russia--have been noted occasionally the presence of a woman warrior, a modern Joan of Arc. It was not expected, however, that in America woman would do more than perform the service work which fell to the lot of the Red Cross nurses and the women practicing conservation and effecting organization in England.

But the women of America were not satisfied with "petticoat preparedness." They rushed to the khaki suits and to the colors with unexpected enthusiasm. One khaki-clad woman walked from San Francisco to New York, making recruiting speeches on the way.

The infantry, the cavalry, the navy, the marines could all point to their girls in khaki.

ALL KINDS OF WOMEN ENLISTED.

As the women enlisted for all kinds of service, so it may be said all kinds of women enlisted--that is, women of all ranks of life--some from society, some from the mills, others from the offices, the shops, the stage, the restaurants and the colleges.

Many years ago the country rang with the name of Tippecanoe, and one of the men who bore arms on the western frontier was William Henry Harrison. The years went by and Benjamin Harrison came to the White House as President.

The Harrison blood showed in the preparedness work, and Old Tippecanoe's great granddaughter helped to make the women of the country fit for the burden of war.

There isn't anything on earth that shows so strongly in the blood as the soldier element, and Elizabeth Harrison, whose great ancestor faced the perils of the frontier warfare, was a leader by force of her inherited ability as a leader. She was elected drill sergeant for the college girls of the New York University.

When the war clouds came she was following inherited bent. All of the Harrison men had been among the country's greatest lawyers and Miss Harrison was studying for the bar.

But just as the warwhoop of the West called Tippecanoe from his books and briefs to bullets and battles, so the daughter of the former President dropped Blackstone and Kent to take up the Drill Regulations and the elementary text books of the army.

She knew that the way to make women fit for their part of war service was to make them strong and healthy and to give them an idea of the things that men-at-arms have to do.

NOTED WOMEN IN THE WORK.

So Miss Harrison was one of the first workers in the movement to teach women the elements of war. Many women of importance in the social and financial world took up the task with a will, and there was a girl for every signal flag, a maid for every wireless station, and an angel for every hospital ward in the making as the men pursued the task of providing guns and the men behind the guns.

Miss Harrison and the girls she drilled at the University wore regulation field service uniform, khaki breeches, coat, heavy shoes and puttees, and a large hat of military cut.

The American Woman's League for Self-Defence and Preparedness was the first woman's military organization in America, according to its president, Mrs. Ida Powell Priest, who is descended from an old Long Island family, Thomas Powell being one of her ancestors.

The first cavalry troop, of which Ethel M. Scheiss was first senior captain, drilled regularly. Their first appearance mounted caused a mild sensation on Broadway. They were most impressively stern soldierettes as they trotted and galloped their horses.

Everywhere the girl in America strove with helpful earnestness to do "her bit." Every strata of society called out its members in a wonderful plan of feminine preparedness. Besides the thousands of women members of the Red Cross some of the most prominent organizations officered and planned by women include The National League for Women's Service, which has branches in every large city in the United States. They enrolled women as motor car drivers, telegraphers, wireless operators, agriculturists and skilled mechanics.

Miss Anne Morgan, as head of this organization, devoted an enormous amount of energy to the success of the work.

OTHER SOCIETIES ORGANIZED.

Other societies organized were the National Special Aid Society, Service of Any Kind, Militia of Mercy, which sends and provides bandages and other necessities and comforts for the soldiers; Girl Scouts of America, first aid, signalling and drills; Daughters of the American Revolution; the Suffrage Party and the Anti-Suffrage Society; the International Child Welfare League and the Girls' National Honor Guard. The Federation of Women's Clubs all over the United States also organized for any patriotic service that women could perform.

A practical way of doing something to help France and Servia was offered early in the war by the splendid initiative of Dr. Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Federation of Women's Suffrage Societies, who organized hospitals for the wounded, the staffs of which were all women, and called on other societies for their support.

The London society responded first by subscriptions from individual members, then by giving beds, then (in February, 1915) by offering itself as London agent for the hospitals and undertaking all the practical work, in the sending out of personnel and equipment, which had to be transacted in London.