The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-07-12
Women and the War
By Frederick J. haskin.

1lid e1ilcs4iLll tilN maj III
ed, with the erect carriage and firm as
sured tired of the trained oder; with
hats jaUntiIy cooked and short skirts
futtering IN the breeze. The soldiers
were women!
Months ago the British military au-
thorities started recruiting a large
number of women clerks and mechanics
and putting them through strenuous
course Of physical training. The idea
was to send them to France to relieve
men who were occupying positions
other than the trenches. There are
now some 1,200 women, with firm hard
muscles and strong constitutions, in the
French war zone doing military work
under the strictest kind of military dis
cipline. They are not actually fighting,
although even that may come. They
are filling jobs of military cooks, clerks,
carpenters and ambulance drivers, who
have been moved up to the front.
In view of social conditions, it is re-
ma:kable to find the British women
serving as clerk on the battlefront of
France. During the past three years
politics has been forgotten IN England.
Even many of the men have not voted,
and the women have been 800 busy to
devote much time to the ballot: They
have worked with an inexhaustible pa
tience and self-sacrifce, and if their
energy was all the greater because they
hoped for reward in the end they de-
serve sympathy. For, according 10
the best observers, the reward has
been very slight.
( At the beginning of the war. when
the women began to organize for war
work, the government gave them TO
understand that their assistance would
necessarily have to be limited. There
were certain things women We're fitted
for and they were to stick to these.
Germany had 800, 900 women in NUM-
ton factories before England had So
coo. Finally it was the private cor
poraton in England which insisted up
on their employment both in the fac
tories and in railways and police de-
partments. In other fields, too. the
government proved stubborn. When
the women attempted to handle the
problem of Belgian refugees the govern
ment would lend no assistance, even
presented opposition-took over the
work and performed it very inefficiently.
But such opposition met its defeat in
its encounter with medical women.
Trained medical women all over the
Uaited Kingdom offered their free ser
vices to the government in Its time Of
need, only to be refused. Undiscourag-
ed, the women then went to France and
France received them gladly. In De
cember, 1914, the first hospital at the
front under British women was thrown
open. This hospital is now considered
one of the most efficient in France, ard
it is entirely run by women, even TO
doctors, nurses, cooks and ambulance
drivers.
After this Great Britain slowly began
to realize its mistake. Gradually women
have been admitted into all fields Of war
work, until now there is woman's
army working in the very midst of
battle in France, and two prominent
women, Mrs. Sidney Webb and DR..
Marion Phillips, have been asked tc
serve on the British Commission of
Reconstruction.
In France, from the beginning, it has
been different The feminine influence
in France since the days Of the French
Revolution has always been great. As
q rule, the Frenchwoman is gifted with
practical commonsense and business
Judgment equal to that of her husband,
and when she speaks the men listen to
her. There women have made and
broken cabinets without the weapon of
the ballot.
When war broke out the French gov
eminent Immediately realized the i'm
mense extent to which it should have to
rely on its women. AS soon as the
women started filling the places of men
in the muntion factories, the govern
ment threw open all the technical
schools to them, so that they might
secure the necessary training. When
the women philanthropic workers start
ed their campaign for the care of
Belgian refugees and for the destitute
children of Northern France, the gov
eminent not only did not interfere but
ordered every project to provide the
headquarters of the women's societies
in Paris with lists of all the refugees in
his district. Thirty thousand Belgian
families were brought together, fed.
clothed and put to work or into school:
1t is the women of France now who
are wrestling with the problem of re-