The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1918-04-23
Women of England and France
Doing Great Work For War


heated TO a brilliant whiteness, IL Is i
yanked out, steered around to ny
draulic press where a few hundred
tons of pressure can be administered
tilted up endwise, hitched into place
and at the "All ready, here. the
press closes up and gives the shell
It's proper form.
Vulcan himself forging thunder
bolts for the poor little gods OF MS
time, would have felt like a skate'
Yet, aside from few foremen, all
the workers in that foundry-opera''
ing the lifts, runways, holsts'
cranes, presses, blasts and the ike
were women
We went out triHe dazed, to see
ships built. We saw women rolling
out the great steel plates; and maj
Ily we were loaded into a launch anu
started on a trip along the Clyde
where for twenty miles, on elther
side, the rivers margin is a con-
tinuous forest of the ribs and hulks
Of ships in process of building. XIV
eters. welders, filters, tens OF thous-
ands of them, work all day on their
scaffoldings at dizzying heights,
hosting the plates into place ana
riveting them fast. At night the
electric lights are turned on, the
shifts are changed, and the work
goes on in the horrible din OF
thousand boiler factories.
And a large proportion of these
workers, again, are women!
At Birmingham, where they make
cartridges, small arms and all man.
ner of mankilling apparatus the
work of the women is seen in an
other. These processes are ideal for
women lighter work with machinery
whose operation requires less ply
lsical strength, but yields premium
,of results if the operator be quick,
deft and accurate. Here one may
walk mile after mile up and down
the rows of punching, trimming, fill
ing, stamping furnishing machines,
and never see a man at work Won
en- and girls everywhere. Not only
have they taken the places of the
men but they have more than filled
them: they beat the men in getting
results.
Just one more suggestion about
womans new place in industry.
There was a strike and big commo-
ton in one important and particular
ly turbulent industrial district Sun
dry important men had tried with,
out success to argue the men into
resuming work and settling it by ar.
bitration. One day Mrs. Pankhurst
went around to the ministry of mu.
|nitions
Let me go up and try talking to
those men," she suggested.
She was warned that it was too
dangerous; she might get mobbed
pretty rough place.
Remembering times she had been
arrested and locked up, had gone on
nunger-strikes, been forcibly fed and
otherwise delicately treated by the
minions of the law Mrs. Pankhurst
wasn't scared. She smiled sweetlv
and guessed she'd go.
Next night there was meeting of
the strikers. Mrs. Pankhurst an.
peared on the platform in her pref
tiest gown, and she's one of the
most tastefully dressed women in
London. There was some mild dis.
order, but the orderly element
promptly suppressed it. Mrs. Pank.
hurst reminded the men that she had
in her time, been accused of rioting
striking, sedition, and various impo
lite things, because she had insisted
on her rights. She got the men on
her side and then started talking Of
the war and its issues. When she
had got done she had swept the
meeting before her. Next day the
strike was called off.
About 100000 women in Great
Britain are working for the war al
the way from the cartridge makers
at their stamping to Mrs. Pankburst
at her stumping. And most of then
are spending their savings on Vic
tory Bonds; they'd be Liberty Bonds
II they were the American kind The
names all the difference.
Does anybody imagine the English
women are more patriotic than III,
American?