New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1914-11-14

WOlIldu Will u1c III CHllu-DII III 40
immeasurably greater than the
probability that the average male
will die in battle.
There IS, perhaps, no woman,
whether she have borne children,
or be merely potentially a chIsd-
bearer, who could look down upon
a battlefield covered with slain,
but the thought would rise In her,
$50 many mothers SONS: So
many young bodies brought into
the world to lie there! So many
months of WEAKNESS and pain
while bones and muscles were
shaped within! So many hours
of anguish and struggle that
breath might be! So many baby
mouths drawing life at women S
breasts all this, that men might
e with glazed ey'
swollen faces, and fixed, blue,
nnclosed mouths, and great limp
tossed-this. that an acre OF
ground might be manured witt
human flesh, that next year S
grass or poppies or -karoo bushes
may spring up grsener and red
der. where they have lain, or that
the sand Of a plain may have a
CLINT Of white beTes!' And we
cry, "Witho,t an inexorable
cause this must not be- No wo-
man who is a woman says OF a
human body, "it is nothing!'
Nor will women shrink from
war because they lack courage.
Earth's women of every genera
ton have faced suffering and
death with an equanimity thai
no soldier on a battlefield has
ever surpassed and few have
equalled; and where war has
been to preserve life, or land, or
freedom. rather than for aggran'
disennent and power, unparasi-
tised and laboring women have Ill
all ages known how to bear an
active part, and die.
It is not because of woman
cowardice. incapacity, nor, above
all. because of her general super-
ior virtue. that she will end war
when her4roice is fully and clear
ly heard in the governance OF
states-it is because, on this one
point. and on this point almost
alone. the knowledge Of woman,
simply as woman, is superior to
that of man: she knows the his
tory of human flesh: she knows
it's cost; he does not.
In a besieged city, it might
seize upon statues and marble
carvings from public buildings
and galleries and hurl them in to
stop the breaches made IN their
ramparts by the enemy, unconsld-
erinely and merely because they
came first to hand. not valulnQ
them more than had they been
paving-stones. One man. how
ever. could not do this-the scuio-
tor. (.
Mems bodies are our woman $
works of art. Given to us power
IN control. we will never care
lessly throw them into fillup the
oaps in human relationships made
by international ambitions and
ereeds. The thought would never
come to us as women, "Cast III
mems bodies; settle the thing
sol" Arbitration and compensa
ton would as naturally occur to
her as cheaper and simpler meth
DDS Of bridging the gaps in ma
tional relationships, as to the
sculptor it would occur to throw
in anything rather than statuary'
though he might be driven TO
that at lastl /.
This is one Of those phases OF
human life, not very numerous
but very important, towards
which the man as man, and the
woman as woman, on the mere
ground Of their different sexual
function with regard to reproduc-
ton. stand. and must stand, at
somewhat differing angle. The
physical creation Of human life.
which. in as far as the male IS
concerned, consists in q few mo-
ments of physical pleasure, to the
female must always signify
months Of pressure and physical
endurance. crowned with danger
to life. To the male,s, the giving
of life is q laugh; to the female.
blood. anguish, and sometimes
death. Here we touch one OF the
few yet important differences be-
tween man and woman as such.
The twenty thousand men pre-
Gol1 NJ hot.