The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1917-03-01
THE EUROPEAN WAR AND WOMEN


Someone has said that the world
builds monuments to dead reformers not
because they were reformers, but be-
cause they are dead. He must surely
have been referring to the real prophets,
those advocates of reform so beyond
the vision of the average mind that
men cannot receive their message.
World IS Greatest Editor Converted.
Such is not, howver, the dilemma of
the Suffragists of today whose task is
merely that of proving the obvious to a
world in which the old proofs have been
suddenly dramatized as episodes of the
Great War. The visible proof that the
task is almost complete is the conversion
to the suffrage cause of such shrewd
and conservative observer Of modern life
as Lord Northcliffe, the owner of the
London Times, and group of other
English newspapers and periodicals.
In the first year of the war, Lord
Northcliffe, as distinguished visitor
to the United States, expressed in an
chisement of women was impractical,
giving as his reason the fact that wo-
men are not the defenders of nation in
war Today, after lapse of two years,
he places himself on public record in the
greatest of his journals, the. London
Times, as believing that there must at
tie close of The war be conference
held to consider the extension of the
suffrage in England, that this confer
ence must consider the disfranchised
women as we'll as the disfranchised
men, and that no conference will be
complete that does not include as one
Of the representatives Of the disfran-
chised women the originator and leader
of the English militant movement, Mrs.
Emeline Pankhurst. Moreover he gives
az the reason for his change of senti-
ment his new realization Of woman s
place in national defense.
Early views Obsolete.
Lord Northcliffe s early argument
had in the light of the experiences of
the women Of Belgium and the conquer
ed provinces of France, certain dra-
matte quality gave it undeserved force.
He was still in the state of mind that
pictured England as an aggregation of
families, each centering about and pro-
tected by stalwart male bread winner.
How untrue to the existing social and
industrial order this connection is, was
clear to any thoughtful student of mod
women must weep" seemed in effect
Lord Northcliffe 5 motto, and Of what
use was the ballot to the weepera
That this idea should exist in the con-
servative English mind was natural
when one considers that in the last cen
tury England s war have always been
fought in distant lands, and against an
enemy whose inferiority Of resources OF
lack of preparation did not make organi.
cation on national scale imperative
Today, however, the case is altered
En- gland, whatever her confidence In
her ultimate success, is fighting for her
existence as a world power, and is
nerved to supreme effort in war by
whose conditions she must bear the
chief burden Of supplying the munitions
of war This war, moreover, is at Eng
land s very gates, and is on so colossal q
scale as to require most careful stock
| taking OF the nation IS resources. Under
these conditions, it is not surprising to
note that English statesmen and editors
are placing high on the list the makers
of munitions, who are now ranked as Of
equal Importance wit hthe men who hold
| the battle line.
Women Called Outside Her sphere =
1T is now clear that women IS work
in war goes far beyond the task of nurs
ing the wounded, and that they fulfill
l two other important functions, in feed