Licking Valley courier., 1918-10-31
The BLUE TRIANGLE
ON BABEL'S TOWER

Lucia pulled hef shawl farther
across her face and shrank down on
the station platform bench as the solid
blue figure suddenly bent down over
her. Excitedly she shook her head in
answer to the question that she could
not understand. She searched through
rheF-red pfaid ~waist-for the paper-tha.'.
Tony had folded into a little square
and given H her. The writing on It,
In the English that Tony knew and she
did not, told the house where she lived.
Tony had explained it all to her that
morning. He had told it to her again
at the station. Then, waving his hat
he had disappeared into the train with
the rest of the men, and Lucia had
been left standing oueside the gate.
There were crowds of women pushing
all about her They were weeping.
SO Lucia wept, too.
Lucia had been betrothed to Tony
in the old country. Five years before,
with long ticket for New York
pinned into his inside pocket, her lover
had left her. He wrote in every let
ter that he had made her home in
| the new country. Her dOwry money
had finally provided her own transpor-
tation, and for two months Tony and
she had been married. Then he had
drawn ticket with a number on 1t,
and this morning he had gone Off to
war.
To the policeman Lucia told all these
things in rapid Italian. But the po-
liceman only talked back to her as
rapidly in language that was not
Italian. She followed him dumbly to
headquarters. An hour later wom-
an wearing American clothes gently
began talking to her in beautiful Ital-
ian.
Italian Lucia was only one Of thou
sands of foreign-born women, Syrians,
Italians, Armenlans, Russians, Lithu-
anlnns, Polish, who, when the draft
called their men folk to the American
colOrs, asked in helpless confusion
what 1t was all about. When would
their men he back? What did people
mean when they told them they would
receive money through the mailf
Where could they find work that they
knew how to do? Was there no one
who could explain 1t all to them In
their own language?
The Wv. C. A. was ready to offer
assistance, but II would be of no value
to offer It in English. Consequently
It had to supply corps of women who
could talk to the fOrelgn-bOrn woman
at her own door In the language that
she was used to hearing in the home
land. To teach her English was as
essential factor in her Amerlcnnlza-
tlon as to find her job. Therefore
the war council of the Y. w. @. A. set
out to find her English.
A year before the war began In Eu-
rope, the leaders of the Young Wom'
ans Christian association fOresaw Just
such a situation, and made ready to
ulttl u. hwy NNNNiNu NliN hNNN' W.
the immigrant. They trained skilled
American social workers TO become fa'
mllINr with the home habits and to
speak the language Of the Lett and the
Hungarian and the Greek and the 9th
er foreign mothers who brought bn'
bles and bundles over from Ellis island
TO Battery park.
The organization into which this ex-
pertinent has developed was named
by the Y. w. c. A. national board, "The
, International Institute for Young
Women" In terms which these wom'
on can understand, II is teaching the
foreign-born how to sew and cook and
care for the baby.
To girls like Italian Lucia who con
fusedly fingered on the station plat
forms when the draft trains pulled out
the w. Y. G. A. Is Giving direct as