Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-07-10
Ri. The National Woman's Committee.
By Frederic j. HaSkin

Mrs. Philip NJ. Moore, Mrs. Joseph E.
Cowles, Miss Maude Wetmore, Mrs. Carrie Chap
Gait, Mrs Antoinette Funk, Mrs. Stanley Nc
Cormick, Mrs. Joseph L. Lamar, Miss Ida NJ. Tar
committee.
These women held four days session and dis
cussed the ways and means of collaborating the
scattered efforts of patriotic women all over the
country. Their first idea to hold a nation
wide registration of women the second was to
appoint temporary chairmen in each state to call
the representatives of all women's clubs and socie-
ties together. When the women met they to
elect permanent chairman-not necessarily the
one appointed by the national committee-who
was to be the executive in charge of the patriotic
activities of her state. She to establish vari-
GUS departments, with executive at the head of
each, and this executive in turn was to appoint d
woman in every town and village to look after the
interests of her department.
The departments were to be divided under the
following heads: Food production, food conserva-
ton and home economics; women in industry child
welfare, maintenance of existing social agencies
namely settlements, public health work, philan-
thropies, day nurseries, hospitals, general social
service; and finally the safeguarding of moral and
spiritual forces This was the original plan of the
national committee, and it is the plan which is
now. being carried out.
The country has responded very we'll. Disputes
leadership have subsidized, and the
have put themselves cheerfuly under the orders
of the national committee. Gradually, duplication
of activities and overlapping of various commit
tees is being Strengthened out, as the general sys
tenn becomes perfected
Women whom it has pleased men to credit
with intuition and instinct but rarely with analyti
cal thinking, everywhere displaying tendenc!
to analysis and original suggestion. Thus one
woman recently wrote to the womans committee
of the Council of National Defense and protested
that individuals should not be encouraged to knit.
If all the knitting could be done in two
highly organized factories, and the time employed
in knitting devoted to something else she thought
much more could be accomplished. The idea did
not happen be practical this time but shows
a type of mental process characteristic of the
American business r.
Factories doubtless could be established for
knitting but thew would have to be organized on
small scale and supported entirely by subscrip-
tion Then, too, the hand-knitted wooden socks,
when we'll made, are much more comfortable for
the modern soldier
Another woman was the first to suggest using
the schools and their equipment for domestic SCI
ence training in canning and drying, and 1t
also a feminine mind which conceived the idea of
drillig the communitys cooks in the schools
that they might cook better and waste less mate
rial. &c.,.
Still another woman has collected quite deal
of data the waste of stockings every year, which
she claims totals $100,0OO,0O0. WORKOUT stock
ings today absolutely useless. But this woman
is If the government would investigate the
matter they could devise some method for their
repair and use.
The women of the nation toll and create In a
devotion to the cause fully equal to that of the
men. Under the national committee all prejudice
of race creed, class and principles is eliminated
The society works by the side of the trades
mans daughter; the negro cook by the side of her
mistress, the Jew by the side of the GENTLE united
in common grievance and cause. And the
Playhouse in Washington has changed its name to
the House of Industry, have nearly all the play
houses of the world.