The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-08-10
BY CHESTER NJ. WRIGHT.

Once war was Johns affair and he
did it all-bossed, fought it-and
took the credit and glory and spoils.
Mamie stayed at home, either as
wife or sweetheart, mother or daugh-
ter. All she did was wait and worry
and mourn.
This war isn't Johns war any more
than it is NAMES war.
John couldn't fight this war if
Mamie didn't help him.
What the results of this new par
ticipation in war on NAMES part
~ are going to be time alone can tell
but there are going to be results,
and big ones. Let no one imagine
anything else.
Every time something is started
there has got to be a finish-and
something was started when Mamie
went to war. The finish may be a
long time coming, but come it WILL
~ And we shall probably be happy and
better off with it when it comes, for
better when we have cleared away
the muck and ruck Of this war.
John is still doing the fighting at
the front. He's doing the shooting
and the bold going lover the top"
and he's manning the airplanes and
the ships that go out to sea to fight.
But he's not alone at the front. Ma
n1ie in this war is never out of gun
shot range around the front line of
territory.
Women by the thousands are con-
stantly within gun range of the
trenches. I talked with American
women in France who are running
canteens in territory bombed every
once in while by Hun aircraft. Moth
ing less than an invasion in force will
ever drive these women out of the
field of their work. It is THEIRS
now-they believe it is theirs and
they are there to stick.
80 There is no such thing as safety in
France anywhere between Paris and
the front line. And in that vast dan
ger zone women play their part with
as much devotion and bravery as do
the men,
British women, French women,
American women, Belgian women
women of many ationalities-Ma-
- mics of every civilized land are fight
ing the good fight today. You don't
brighten women away from the war
with tah of danger.
At a great French munition plant
where $4,000 shells per day are
turned out by 10000 workers, there
are 1000 women at work-7,000
- French women. Where is the scoffer
who used to say French women were
dolls of more or less sentimental
makeup and more ornamental than
useful?
These French women stand in the
raging heat of FORCES, swinging ham,
nlers; they run all manner of ma
chimes that help produce this enor-
nous output: they ride high aloft
in huge travelling cranes-they do
almost everything that John used to
do when he ran wars all by himself.
Not only that. Out through
France the women toil-young wom-
en-. middle-aged women and old
women planting the crops of
- France, tending the vines of France.
We rode for mile after mile through
The country overrun by the Hun in
1914 before Joffre stopped the inv"-
ZION at the Marine. 1t has been a pain
full process, bringing this vast area
back to life and productivity. 1t is a
country being created anew. 1t will
take years to bring it to what it was
--before the destroyer marched over it.
Mostly this is Mamie's job. And as
Mamie tolls with bent back over this
task of reconstruction she doesn't
know whether her labor Of today is to
last. She is haunted by the fear that
the Hun may drive through again
and undo what she has labored so
hard to accomplish. She may have
Ito reconstruct again. She doesn't
know. but she labors on. She's taking