The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-01-09
WAR SPIRIT AND THE WOMEN.
Experience Of England as an Example
of What May Be Expected Here.

Seven hundred thousand women are
employed in British munition factories.
The larger part of these were accus
toned to earn their own living before
the war. Many of them, of course, have
come from the textile mills Patriotic
motives and the lure of higher pay pre-
sumably are irresistible attractions.
Munitions, it is agreed, have the right
OF way, but the mill managers on gov
eminent goods feel their work to be an
essential industry and are not little
perplexed at the weekly addition to
their standing looms. Were it not that
the production of civilian goods is be
low normal, because of lessened demand
as well as owing to government control
of wool suitable for these goods, their
difficulties would be all the greater. a
| Reliable statistics are apparently net
available, but there does not seem to
have been any large flow of the leisure
women of England into textile life. This
class has gone in bulk into the nontex-
tile occupations left open by men pass
ing to the front and also directly into
munition work. But the difference be-
tween a factory hand and munition
worker is very marked in the English
consciousness; and it may be easily I'M
derstood that women who never could
under any consideration bring them
selves into actual contact with textile
routine in mill or factory will with lit.
tie hesitation don Overalls for quite as
difficult and much more dangerous work
among explosives. They enter work fol
the first time on the war plane and dc
their bit in a new and patriotic way
This is an understanding attitude anC
will have to be recognized, and, if pos
sible, discounted.
l In these considerations there is SOM
little hint as to what may happen her
if the demand for women worker
should increase owing to the larger cal
for men for military service. The skille'
women workers in our various enter
prises will be inclined to enter calling
which, in their minds, at least, will b
esteemed more patriotic employment
. Such employment will probably com
mand higher wages. It will also lea
, them to think that they are more close
" united with their male relatives an
/; friends in helping America to win tn
! war. We shall have to reckon with tn
effects of the war spirit on the textil
workers. The spinning frame is an in
plement of peace and the relation b'
tween spinning worsted yarns in tn
{ same old mill village and helping broti
I er on the firing lines in France is on
that has little steadying influence upo
! war-eyoked emotions.
l If such influences are likely to pia
1 upon the women already occupied the
Il are likely also to exert an equal fore
) upon the reserve woman power of o,
e country. If the male textile worke
o move out in any number to emplo
: ments more directly connected with Il
X art of war, it would not seem reaso
e able to suppose, with English examp
} as a precedent, that the unemploy'
d women in our country will pass in free
e to fill their places. Indeed we may e
e pect to find women of America behavli
q very much as the women of Brltal
&c they will occupy efficiently many ma
culine callings left open, but there is
reason whatsoever TO suppose that tn
&c will flock into industrial life on t
c peaceful. unsentimental plane OF I
s cotton or wooden mill. We may anti
pate the same social phenomena und
the same industrial conditions, and
would seem that with continuation
the war the various mill managemer
will meet with much more labor trout
III ahead-World Textile journal.