Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-09-13

rUROPEs women are seeking their
r. places in the worldwide conflict.
which has transformed France,
Belgium and Poland into the monster
battlefield of all history. Already have
the wives and mothers and sisters of
Norman blood seen their duty in the
fields of their provinces. from which
every able-bodied man has been dragged
into the NAV of war.
And now comes her English sister.
There are no crops to be garnered in the
Briton's isle. There is some need of un-
trained Red Cross nurses, and there is
a great and ever growing need for some
way in which the men of England may
be released from office desk and counting
house stool to answer Eng. and's call for
troops. That is the problem the women
of England have set themselves to
answer.
1t has been the rule. for ages that the
women play a part In every war. The
dours has been felt directly, and that
of their more loyal, but less obtrusive,
sisters indirectly. In every surging charge
that ever swept across corpse-streWn
field.
The time came when women began to
take an active part in preparations for
war They sat at home still, but their
hands were busy with lint and bandages
and clothes destined for field hosp! tafs.
After that came Florence nightingale
and her host of followers. the war nurse
forerunners of women actually on the
field of battle. 1t was Of these women
that Kipling. after the Boer war, which
claimed SO many of the nurses, Eao
closed. wrote his ''Dirge of Dead sisters,
which runs:
.hafr
Earth shall not remember. but the waiting
Them that died at Uitvlugt when the plague was
Her that fell at simons Town in service Of our
foes.
Wherefore. We they ransomed. while the breath
Now and not hereafter. ere the meaner years
Praise with love and worship many honorable
They that gave their lives for Us when we were
But the English woman of the present
war is not the woman who merely sacri-
fees her all in life by sending her man
across the narrow English channel to his
death Nor is she the amateur war nurse
of history. Trained Red Cross nurses. they
know, are better nowadays. She has
heard the call OF England for troops
She has sent all the men she can spare.
And now she deems it her duty, the big
duty of women to this war of the
races, to make it possible for other
men, now held from the front by the
necessity Of providing for depenaen.
the co;ors and exercise that inalienabie
right of every man to fight in defense
of his fireside.
And the woman of Britain is no long
er merely sitting aside and discussing
her duty She is up and militant In the
aght. She is demanding OF the govern
ment her right to substitute In the heids
of mans endeayors while he goes foreh
to war. In the London Times OF August
es the following advertisement appear
ed:
Doctors wife, middle aged. will I'M
dertake to perform the work OF any
tramway conductor. coachman. shop as
sistant or any other married worker Win
children. provided that worker VIII un-
dertake to enlist and fight for his coun-
try in our hour of need: all wages earn
ed to be paid over to his wife anu kahi-
lily .
Strangely enough. but few inches
below this unusual advertisement, ahoth-
er appeared. 1t read:
IAN ex-yeomanry officer who has seen
service and who now occupies the posi-
ton of private secretary to the man.
aging director of a we'll known firm. Will
volunteer for the front IL any indepen-
dent lady will undertake his duties with
out payment. He. having wife and
Young child, his firm has promised to
continue his salary for their benefit. pro-
ytded he finds any honorable substitute.
This idea Of the Interchange of posi-
lions between men and women SO that
the men may be released for enlist
ment seems to have taken deep-rooted
hold upon mothers and wives Of Lon
dom. and IL Is not unlikely that before
long the plan, conceived by the women
who cannot shoulder guns and fare forth
to battle, may give England its desired
army. Still another advertisement In the