New Britain herald., 1915-08-21
fBv Ernestine Evans New York 1rl-
 bune.)

T, A,;can women really care anything about peace, ana want 'o oro.+o come machinery for preserV- ing it. there's just one thing that they csn do and that's to ceasc being OK travacant' It was Rooert 1errlck
 .s,f,- o4 the very euu of desul- tory talk on what the war was mean t,, and might mean to the women of It,1v and France, from the battle l lines and capltdiS oA "hose ooolitiies he had just come.
 ..Thev can cease being eXtravagant and take the point away from the commercial rivalries that bring war" if isn't the first time that MT. Her rick. our most eminent novelist. has made h~ case for the parasite woman as the root of all evil, and there was ! just a little of the old bitterness in his laconic advice to Miss Addams l and all women pacfists who have gone about peace in other ways. Position of Wome. "Anent the position or women in the war; said MT. Herrick, "it has, most Of all, improved their economic opportunities. They are employed in all the ammunition factories, and at much the same rates ,:s men, and for the mobilized day of eleven hours. I saw them making little hand grenades. They are not only paid for their work, but they are given gov erpment allowance for themselves and for every child if their man is in the war. Almost every working woman has a medallion around her throat as she works-a protrait of her soldier in the north.
 "Women, factory foremen tell me, do their work we'll, are quite as com petent and more faitful.
 Working Everywhere.
 "As everybody who comes back has told you, they are working every where on the trans, on the Metropoli- tan--and very much heater, cleaner and more courteous conductors they make.
 "Afterward, one speculates. women will in all likelihood be retained in many services, partly to take the places of the men who have been lest and partly to leave men free for the rougher work or rebuilding.
 French Business women.
 '"The French woman has always been a business woman, even before tho Franco-Prussian War. Tn the shops she heretofore has run with her husband she now is alone. and 1t is no new experince to her.
 "The French woman," says MT. YIerrick, "has no interest in a new woman's movement She thinks 1t silly, for Latin women nave always been definitely the heads of their families To her her husband and her son turn naturally in decisive moments, and she has a constant sense of her destiny. Her property rights are, on the whole. better safe- guarded than here. She has no con- sciousness that she hasn't rights and secure in the knowledge of her house. hold headship, she has tolerated a greater amount of infidelity than American women endure. "On the war side. she mas been the counsellor and urger on of. French men.
 1 The Leave.
 "As you know, about two months ago it was decided to give the men three and four days home leave. Joffre had considered it for a long time, and was uneasy.
 The morning it was announced a letter appeared-in the Temps l think it was-signed by q prominent 1 woman leader-a very moving letter l addressed to the women of France
 and begging them not to make it hard
 for their husbands to return to the
 front
 The leave worked wonderfully.
 Refreshed and strengthened, the men
 came back with a new determination to fight, with new vision of family
 life as the most precious part of their lives
 Cautiously, the one thing that
 seems certain in the uncertain field of speculation as to what the aftcrmath h will be is that French families are to , be larger-Not merely to fill the empty inks, but because women
 want children, mTe of them. , many of them. and are willing , to sacrifice for them all the luxuries l of the last years.
 Admircs Latin Women. s "So many things" said MT. Her , i rick, "renew my profound admiration 9 for Latin women. To see them man. s aging things is to have a growing I ] sense of their competence, and com - potent they have always been, in a - measure far above American women t They live in a real world, accept it I practically. and yet work with an in- ) spring idealism. I recall watching
 one woman, the Comtesse --, put . through the arrangements for a cer-
 tain soldiers wedding. The poor fel-
 low was blind, his arm was gone, and | vet a girl was coming from Algiers to marry him. She was a teacher, and g. tremendous amount or red tape had
 to be surmounted before she could be
 transferred to Paris and herself up ! from Africa. It was done so quietly
 so simply!