New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-02-17

Advocates of woman IT. political life have
always recognized that there might be danger
in her disposition to place the special inter-
ests of women ahead of the interest OF So
ciety as a whole Such a danger confronts
us now in the attitude taken by great num-
bers Of women toward the possibility Oh our
entrance into the world war.
Women have always opposed war, pri-
marily because it threatens their special in
terests more than the interests of any other
class. War takes the lives and livelihoods
Of men, but it never deprives them Of their
place in society, their special privileges and
obligations as men. But for every man who
is killed or hopelessly manned, some woman,
voluntarily or not, resigns her chance to
become wife or mother, or is deprived OF
her Importance to society by the destruction
Of her special product. mother OF living
sons has a certain active claim on society;
hut a mother of dead sons-what is she but
a monument, as the old phrase has 1t,
reict?
Thus women may-and must rightfully-
oppose war up to q certain point. but there
is a point at which the value Of men as men
and women as women gives precedence 10
the value Of men or women as members Oh
the social unit. There are human Things
that are intrinsically of more importance
than male things or female things.
Whenever people finds the principles Oh
its social constitution at stake, then IL Is
time for that people to leave off acting as
men and women, and act concertedly as
human beings.
INK N
for their special woman views is to lose
what women everywhere have worked SO
hard for, their right to be considered as
noIiticaI factors. quite apart from their wom-
anness.
In view of the present attitude of large
body of women paciists, one asks oneself
whether the women of America are not IN
danger of making just that mistake.
One must not let ones horror OF the
bloody details Of war blind one to the fact
that war is primarily method OF setting
disputes. As such it must be classed with
diplomacy, chicanery and arbitration. You
have a disagreement with your nelghoor;
YOU beguile him, compromise with him, or
knock him down and drag him out. | am
heartily agreed that war-the knockdown and
drag out methods stupid, wasteful and
often unsatisfactory But it remains a
method which many powerful peoples insist
on using.
There is no doubt the American people are
deeplv preiudiced against war as method
of settling disputes In the common phrase,
thew doubt its capacity for getting any
where" And to get somewhere" Is an IN
dispensable item in the great American ideal.
On the other hand one must admit that when-
ever preiudice against method of doing a
thing is stronger than the capacity to do the
thing in question, there is a still more lam
entable failure to get anywhere" near the
national ideal
Nothing could be worse for a people than
to become method bound.
To be unable to choose war, should war
be demanded, is as crippling as to be unable
to choose peace when peace is in order.
great part Of our Americansm consists
in lust this iuency of choice. Personally
believe that there are forms Of diplomacy
which are more threatening to our liberties
than war would be. Diplomacy can corrupt
the soul of a people as surely as war DIS
rupts its physical constitution. The real
salvation of a nation, its progress ana
sanity. depend on It's capacity to decide
quickly at any given moment the method
hest suited to it's crisis, the weapon with the
least back kick 20 it.
Therefore 7 am troubled for the future OF
feminism in America when | see women
stalking all on a particular method. advo-
Gated or opposed One does not question the
sincerity of the "peace at any price" women.
They have the sincerity Of youth. which IS
so much more formidable than any other
sincerity because youth stakes so much on
IT, But under all the reasons they give this
item of the special interests of women is