Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-01-25
WOMEN


ing 1t should have to bear its heaviest bur
dens has been an appalling realization. 1t Is
the women who drain wars bitterest lees,
not only the Belgian women, whose homes
have been leveled to a great waste TO make
fitting setting for the war, but the waiting
women of England and Germany, whose
homes are not yet invaded but who are wait
ing
In contrast to the helplessness Of these
women. it is thrilling to read Of the constrtic-
tive attitude taken by our American women
while there is still time, in the formation of a
Womans Peace Party, under the presidency
OF Jane Adams The Independent devotes
several pages to the woman's Peace Move
ment, and speaking editorially says %:
on Sunday afternoon, January TO- 5000
women crowded into the ballroom of the
New willard at Washington, D. C. They
formed formed themselves into the "woman's Peace
rarity the first in the world. They issued
manifesto unsurpassed, we think, in power
ana moral fervor by anything that has been
issued here or abroad since the Great War
pesan' Ihey adopted platform radical,
sound statesmanlike constructive. Though
not line about the conference appeared
the next morning in five of the six leading
New York newspapers, which found space
70 devote 63 columns to the man-kiling in
Europe and the alleged why the
United states should increase her army and
navy, we think the conference so important
that we publish in full the final document
ISSUED Dy IL, ana we urge every one or our
women readers to Join the party.
The Peace Party's Declaration of Princ-
pes'' says in part
We women of the United States, assembled
in behalf of world peace. grateful for the
security of our own country, but sorrowing
for the misery of all involved in the present
struggle. do hereby band ourselves together
TO demand that should be abolished
We demand that women be given a share in
deciding between and peace in all the
courts of high debate within the home, the
school, the church, the industrial order and
the State.
Protesting and Demanding
SO protesting and so demanding. we
hereby form ourselves into a national
ganizaton to be called the "Womans Peace
Party" In addition to their platform, they
passed the following resolution: That we
denounce with all the earnestness of which
we are capable the concerted attempt now
being made to force this country into still
further preparedness for war. We desire to
make a solemn appeal to the higher attri-
butes of our common humanity to help us un-
mask this menace to our civilization"
The party organization: the members
shall be: l. Local groups wherever they can
be organized, each to pay S. annually into
the national treasury. O., Sustaining mem
bers, who shall individually pay 81 annually
into the national treasury. Until the APP
pointment of a treasurer, dues and cOntri-
buttons may be sent to Juliet Barrett Rublee
1105 18th street, Washington d. c.
These officers were elected: Chairman,
Jane Adams; honorary chairman, Carrie
Chapman Gait; vice chairmen, Anna Garlin
Spencer, Mrs. Henry Willard, Mrs. Louis f.
Post, Mrs John Jay White.
Among the most powerful and vivid arti-
cles describing the war are those written
by a woman, Cora Harris. In her "Bravest
of the Brave" (2), she has summed up very
skfully the position and temperament OF
each of the various nationalities of women in
volved in the war She writes:
The Belgian women have been the literal
victims They have been scattered to the four
winds of the earth. They have been
trampled in the dust by the feet of an invad-
ing army. l have women who were
forced to witness the execution of their hus-
bands, women who ran screaming with ter
ror from their burning homes into a world
filled with German soldiers. / have seen
not one or two, but literally thousands of
them who We're famshed for water and
starving for bread. have seen children less
than two years of age who have been with
out food for four days, young babes in their
mothers arms, whose breasts had been dried
by the awful terrors through which they had
passed. have seen women accustomed to
every comfort staggering into a strange land,
without shoes on their feet and without
centime in their pockets.
One must entertain the highest admiration
for the German women. In sense, they are
no less the victims of the Kaiser's army
than the Belgian women. They impressed
me as the greatest women of Europe the
most pathetic in their bondage to men. They
were by far the most thoughtful, the most
capable, the most helpless They had the
mOurnful sense OF SlDylS IN regard TO tnelf
position. They were not hopeful, they We're
only patient. They had the brains of
scholars and philosophers. the seer spirits of
poets They were the slaves of the order
of things there. This war is the great op-
portunity for the women of Germany And
they have met it with courage, They are
filling mems places in every walk of life.
They are no longer at the bottom but at
the top.
OF all the women In the world at the pres
ent moment what the French woman is and
what she does are most important. OF all
the women have seen, she is the least self
conscious She does not think of herself
at all She is the last perfect stroke in this
terrific picture-a little figure in the back
ground, standing like a spirit in the deeper
ont of a set white face; with red lips firmly
closed not smiling, never dropping, always
looking beyond the hour OF this tragedy TO
the France of her faith. She belongs as i'm
mortelles belong, above the graves OF the
braYest; as hope transngures despair Such
dignity and such repose have never been sur
passed by the women of any natlon INVADED
by hostile army,
Clubbing the Clubs
An article which, thought it may not be
popular, ought certainly to rouse comment,
belabors "CIubwomen's Reading go with
the entire courage of it's convictions. 1t is the !
first of series and is called "rhe Malady."
The other two will be "A Diagnosis and
''The Remedy" Mr., A. Il. Bostwick appears
to be more than a mere anti-suffragist.
though just what he is he does not reveal
in this article. He seems. however, to be |
very frank. and quite brave
Unfortunately, the horizon of women's |
clubs is that OF the puddle instead OF the |
ocean When / assert boldly that at the |
present time the majority OF vague and |
Illogical readers are women, and that |
This kind of reading. / shall doubtless incur |
the displeasure of the school OF feminists |
Who seem bent on minimizing the differences |
between the two sexes Obvious physical |