The broad ax. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, 1917-12-22
WOMAN AND THE WAR"

Woman's universal interest has ever
been in those things for which men live,
labor and die to achieve.
What is war! War is the clash and
conflict of men in the exposition, de-
tense or support of certain human prin-
eiples. Men are the actual participants
of warfare. Thus, at first sight, war
is the concern chiefly of men, but when
it is considered that every soldier who
goes to the front leaves behind him a
mother, wife or sister, war is as much
the concern of women as il is of men.
1t may be worth while to review,
briefly, the part played by woman in
previous wars. In Babylonian times
woman played very little part while the
war was raging. for in that remote time
woman was a factor, not so much in
caring for the wounded soldiers, as most
of the soldiers were left on the battle
field to die, nor was woman engaged in
knitting useful articles for the soldier,
but woman was considered part of the
spOils of battle and was sold into
slavery by the warning vietors. This
elimination of woman from the actual
concern of war was in vogue down to
the Middle Ages, during which period
little is recorded concerning the part
played by women in war.
Such women as Joan of Are, with the
nobility of her purpose and genuine
ness of her belief in her chosen mission
combined with the purity of her char
aeter and simple patriotism, stand out
clearly; and Charlotte COrday. the
heroine of the French Revolution, who
through her noble and exalted persis-
tency murdered Marat; and Florence
Nightingale, who lived a life eOnse-
Grated to the higher ideals and symbO-
LIKING to us the power to move noun
tains of the passionate womanly SYM
patty, discerning judgment and mag
niheent organizing genius, which
together made her the Crimean heroine
and the reformer of military hygiene
of the Victorian Age
The sufferings and sacrifices made
and endured by woman has apparently
increased from time immemorial, for
with the rise of civilization came in
creased familial and womanly devotion
and stronger ties between soldier hus-
band and wife, between chivalric
brother and sister, between hero son and
mother.
1t was not until the beginning of the
Civil War, 1876, that woman was
considered a vital factor in warfare.
We read during the Civil War Of the
agonizing moments experienced by
women whose sons or husbands had
been wounded on the battlefelds; of the
nursing back to life of wounded soldiers
and numerous other ways in which
woman did her part for her nation.
Their names are legion and a grateful
nation has lavished in bountiful bless
ings continual tributes to the Florence
Nightingales who spent the noblest in
their being for the suffering soldier.
After the close of the Civil War
woman began to take her place in the
civil, commercial, intellectual and politi-
cal life of the nation, and her activities
have increased and broadened until the
present time.
AT the outbreak of the present world
war it was the first expectation that the
part played by woman in it would be to
suffer, as has always been her lot in
wars, and to sueeOr the wounded. This
latter task was attempted in a larger
way than ever before in the history of
the world, through the influence of a
movement started a few years ago in