Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1917-03-11
PARTISAN WOMEN
MAKE MUNITIONS
Young Girls Lift Five Tons by
Skillful Use of Heavy
Crane.
THEY ARE REFINED, TOO

correspondence VI lnt AseoNldttu fIenb'P
Paris, Feb. 27.-Three hundred and
fifty thousand women are now work
ing in the government controlled mu-
milton works in France. Albert
Thomas, the minister of munitions,
in talking of their work to the AS
ISOLATED Press, said:
"They are more skillful than men
in things requiring delicacy of touch,
quickness OF hand, such as the mount
ing OF rife parts or the rolling Of
fuses. They are particularly good at
Eliminating work.
"Then on the heavier labor! Look
at the women on cranes lifting five
tons! l have in mind scene in
heavy mechanical management in a
copper-working mill. An active girl
of io on a travelling crane is so at
tentivc to her work that she antci-
pates the slowing down and stopping
signals OF the men who guide the load
to its place. Leaning over the rail-
ing, without taking her hand from the
handle OF the electric wheel, her eye
Judges the movement of her machine
thirty or forty feet below. The peo-
pie underneath working in cooper
alton with her know she will slow
down at the necessary instant. 1t is
fine example Of intelligent and
trained teamwork.
This woman sewed ready-made
clothing before the war. Her physical
labor was spent on the pedal OF
sewing machine. Now she has only
to move lever. Passing from fem
mime employment to some Of the
heaviest work OF men, she has said
that she never worked at so profit
able trade and with less fatigue.
Instead Of pedalline twelve hours
day she prefers managing travel
ing crane for eight. The same quail
ties suffice. Instead of following the
way OF the needle, she surveys the
descent of the load. They see from
below the stern attention Of her eyes"
Insist Upon Courtesy.
NJ. Thomas has noticed that wom-
en- have brought into iron-working
trades personal consideration OF
working people for one another.
"Women from dressmaking and mil
llinery shops, for example" said he,
coming into ruder workshops insist
upon courtesy. They will not tolerate
coarseness and roughness of bearing.
They bring into the Woodworking
mills their own standards of deport-
ment and the men adopt them. The
change where large numbers OF wom-
en- are employed has been remark
able"
M. Thomas was elected as an ex-
IRENE socialist, one of the 1903 men,
bers of the unified socialist group in
parliament. He knows the feelings
of working men in France more thor
oughly, perhaps, than any other men,
Der Of the cabinet.
Il have an impression" said NJ.
Thomas, that an idea has spread in
America that the workingmen's
parties in France are growing indif-
ferent toward the war. | would like
10 correct that view il 1t exists. The
French working men are Frcnchmen.
Therefore they are penetrated pro-
foundry by the French national
spirit, exalted in this period Of war
so powerfully that private and per-
sonal interests have been merged in
the national interest. The individual
soul, as it were, has been absorbed
for the time being into the collective
soul. The personal habits Of men, the
things dear to them in their daily
round, the motives which inspired
their lives, their very opinions con-
corning social and political arrange
ments, have for the time become so
absolutely secondary that they seem
not to exist. The national aspiration
TO win the war and to do everything
that can contribute to that result IS
supreme in individual life throughout
France, regardless Of what a mans
occupation is or what his individual
ambitions were. The French work
ing man, therefore, whether he is
serving in the trenches or whether he
is serving in the workshop, has a SUI
preme aim, that is to contribute to
the saving of France, to do something
toward the hunting from French ter
ritory of the invader and to do some |
thing for Belgium, for Europe.