New-York tribune., 1918-03-07
Want 900 Girls for War Work:
Not Frills, but Shot and Shell
bloomfield Plant Issues Call for Aid in Its Labor for Victory
Rich and Poor Side by Side at Its Benches Real
Chance for Women to Serve

On the threshold of New York City
LOCO women are wanted to-day. and
badly needed, for war work.
It isn't knitting; it isn't crocheting.
1t isn't rolling bandages for the Red
Cross, and it isn't selling programmes
at benefit of the Inter-Allled Society
for Consoline Second Cousins Of Mar
tyred Motor Truck Drivers. 1t isn't
anything that can be done at home or
in odd moments as the spirit moves.
It's work. real work, hard work,
steady, grinding, ten-hour-a day work;
work that is done in an apron from
the 10-cent counter rather than in a
new frock for the occasion from Nine.
Frou-Frou' 's-work such as the women
of England and France and Canada
long since have learned to do anu to
this day are cheerfully doing.
The Far Call
Years ago the call sounded for the
women of the other Allied nations.
Family, distantly, it has been sounding
for the last few months to rally the
women Of the United States to the mu-
nitions factories. Right now it rises
clear, trumpeted over across the Hud-
son from the international Arms and
tuze Company's plant at Bloomfield.
n j..
In the big International plant. which
is working overtime every day and yet
cannot fast enough make the time
fuses for the artillery and the navy
primers which the government has or
dered, are / 900 empty benches.
With woman at each of them it would
be possible to keep pace with the con-
tracts, that are more than contracts
that part for part, shell for she'll. repre-
sent the vital needs Of the country's
lighters atioat and ashore. And the
company Is out to get the women.
Women's Part No Novelty
Women in the munitions industry,
even in America. are no novelty. The
war shops at Bridgeport. the Amer
lean Can Company's plant at Edge
water, n. j., ill-fated Eddystone, had
their thousands of women workers be-
fore ever the United States was an
outright ally.
These munitions pioneers of the
sex were accepted by the country in
matter offact fashion. In munitions
factories the wage scale was higher
than in shoe factories and corset fac
tories and candy factories; higher
than housewives paid their helpers
SO from the shoe factories. corset
factories, candy factories and kitchens
came the woman workers. The move
ment was a trend" the expected eff
feet of an "economic condition"
But the other thousand who are
needed ed-there's the rub Help Want
ed' advertisements in the newspapers
of Newark. which is the logical re
cruitng ground for the plant, have re-
turned results gradually diminishing
TO almost none at all. Demand has
far outstrpped supply. For every
girl who is accustomed to getting jobs
through the classified columns and
whose life has been lived in factories
hundred openings offer.
The kind of women Mr. Smith wants
to see in those thousand vacant places
is the non-producing kind of the pres
ent In New York City there are thou
sands upon thousands of the kind
loyal. patriotic, potentially Of inesti-
mable value "behind the lines'-but
now only playing at doing their bit.
A Chance for You
Mavbe there's stenographer who
could march away from her desk and