The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1916-01-13
Year 1915 Banner, for Women's
Achievements.

women, everywhere.
The European war was not confined in the
matter of work and relief, to the women of
Europe; Just how many thousands of dollars
were contributed by the private purses of
American women will never be known. Not
10 per cent. of this amount came from women
who were affiliated in any way with the
warning nations; no ties of blood, marriage
nor of sentiment were there to make the call
urgent; it was simply that element of woman
liness-the dominant trait of sympathy which
opened the purses and the hearts of so many
American women when the tales of hardship,
horror and loss suffered by the women OF these
warning nations, was made known.
In the matter of hospitals, supplies, nurses
and aids in all forms, it is doubtful if one
third the work could have been done, that has
been accomplished, with the aid of the women
of these United States. Many Of the finest
tributes have been paid them, collectively and
individually, for the unselfish part they have
taken in this work of mercy.
} None of the suffrag ettes have been cOnsplc-
uous by their work, and those few who did
reach the war zone in the hospitals, lost or
threw aside the cult they had tried so long
to take seriously, and became for the time
being what the Lord meant them to be: the
mercifu, tender aids and help-meets to the
men who had fallen, to those who were trying
to minister to the wounded, and to making
peaceful the last hours of those for whom
science could do nothing.
1t has been a significant fact, worthy of
note bv those who have been most blatant in
declaring women were able to accomplish any
thing without the aid of man-that none Of
the bio hospitals or even any of the relief
stations, have been solely operated by women
The women workers themselves realized that
all the work of relief. whether in the estab-
lished hospitals at the field stations, or IN the
larger work of caring for and providing for
the cOnvalescents-the work demanded the dl-
rection Of men, and under this direction the
women have worked tremendously, in full
accord, and most successfully.
Perhaps in no instance for years back nor
for years to come, will it be possible for the
anti-suffrag ettes to point to facts, such as this
war has provided, to prove that only together
can man and woman accomplish anything for
the general good of humanity.
The tales of the heroic deeds of some of
the women nurses will 90 down in history,
parallel with Grace Darling, Florence Night
mgale and those other women who gave all
they had, to aid and comfort
But the women of 1915 did it under auspices
that were even more horrible than those under
which those other women worked. The fact
that many of these women were women of
wealth. culture, and from that walk of life
which exacts little in the way of physical
effort; and they have been the most helpful
land what the Old-time doctor calls 'the most
biddable'O of the many who volunteered for
this service for humanity.
In the home, in the work of providing
home atmosphere for those whose homes had
been destroyed; in caring for the little chill
dren, and the women, who had nothing to do
with the tissue" which precipitated the war
in all these phases of work, the woman of