Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1918-10-16
THE BLUE TRIANGLE
ON BABEL'S TOWER


Lucia pulled her 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
her red plaid waist for the paper that
Tony had folded into q little square
and given to 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 ii to her again
at the station. Then, waving his hat.
he had disappeared into the train WIFI
the rest Of the men, and Lucia ha6
been left standing oueside the gate.
There we're crowds of women pushing
all about her They were weeping.
So Lucia went, 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 q ticket with q 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 a 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, Arnfenians. Russians, Lithu-
| anians, Polish, who, when the draft
called their men folk to the American
colors, asked in helpless confusion
what it was all about. When would
their men be back? What did people
mean when they told them they would
receive money through the mail?
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 Y. w. G. A. was ready to offer
assistance, but 1t would be of no value
to offer it in English. Consequently
1t had to supply corps of women who
could talk to the foreign-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 q factor in her Americaniza-
ton as to find her job. Therefore
the war council Of the Y. w. G. 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
meet it. They studied the needs of
the immigrant. They trained skilled
American social workers to become ia
miliar with the home habits and to
speak the language of the Lett and the
Hungarian and the Greek and the 9TH
err foreign mothers who brought ba-
bies and bundles over from Ellis island
to Battery park.
The organization into which this ex-
pertinent has developed was named
by the Y. w. G. A. national board, "The
International Institute for Young
Women" In terms which these wom-
en- can understand, it 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. Q. A. Is giving direct as.
sistance. Educated European women,
appointed to the regular staff 3of work.
ers at the camp Y. w. G. A. Hostess
Houses are able to talk to the drafted
men in their own language, assist them
in writing letters home, and in ar
ranging furloughs and little visits to
| the camp.
'The Home Information Service for
Foreign Families Of Enlisted Men" is
doing practical relief work for the
wives and mothers. The purpose Of
the board is to help the women folk
left behind to understand where their
boys are and how they are being treat
ed; how they need home support and
cheer, how to send them comforts, and
to keep pace themselves by learning
English and other things, so that when
the boys come home they will not find
their women still very un-American
and out of sympathy with them.