Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1918-08-14
WHAT WOMEN CAN
DOTO WIN The WAR
Conserve Food and BLY, Eher.y
Bonds-Two Ways They
Can Help.
WOMEN OF AMERICA, Makeup!
Pour All Your Savings Into Uncle
Sans Lap-keep on Saving and
Pouring Until the World
Is Free.
BY INEz HAYNES IRWIN.

BY INEZ HAYNES IRWIN.
What can the women Of America
do to help win this war? Two things
are certain; one that they can do a
great deal and another that, unless
the war lasts ten years longer. they
can never do so much as the French,
English and Italian women have done,
they can never suffer so much as the
French, English aud Italian women
have suffered.
TO me. returning 10 America after
two years in the war countries, the I'M
touched gayety of the American people
caISe as terrific shock. ! had left
world as black and silent as night; a
world in which had seen no dancing,
a world in which l h@5 heard 10 spon-
taneous laughter or-except in the case
of military bands-no music. At first
the atmosphere of America was almost
unbearable. l was obseSScd with the
desire TO get back to the allied coun-
tries, to suffer with them. rather than
enjoy the comparative comfort of a
comparatively unaroused America.
The luxury everywhere appalled, rae.
Those hundreds of motors gliding
through our streets for instance
Private motors have long ago disap-
peared from allied Europe. The beau
titul fabrics, the furs and laces, the
gorgeous sport clothes and the dazzling
evening dresses which still distinguish
fha woman nf
Fan on Evening Clothes.
The first time ] was invited TO
dinner party on my return, l wore a
long-sleeyed high-necked gray-and-
black gown and found myself a wren
among birds Of paradise No woman
Of France would think of wearing eve
ming clothes. Indeed, both men and
women are prohibited by law from APP
pearing in evening clothes at the thea
ter. On the few social occasions in
which they take part, French women
are dressed in black gowns with lit
tie lace at the neck and sleeves. Eng
lish women still wear evening clothes.
When their men return on their rare
leave from the front, they cover their
aching hearts with as much gayety as
possible in order TO send them back TO
the filth and the vermin and the rats
and the damp and the cold and the
wounds and the constant sight of death
psychologically refreshed. But most of
the evening dresses that the English
women are now wearing date back to
the beginning of the war. And strang-
est of all, perhaps, for a country at
war, those lustrous streets with their
rows of electric lights and their vivid.
flashing, changing, iridescent electric
signs. In Paris. you plunge into
deep twilight when you leave your res.
taurant, and in London YOU grope your
way home through a dangerous Sly
gan gloom. Then the careless spend
ing in American hotels and restau-
rants. In Paris those places close at
half-past nine. And food Food con-
ditions have never been so bad in
France as in the other allied coun-
tries. foi France has always fed her
self and is, moreover, the worlds best
cook. But in Italy and England. meat
is rare luxury to be obtained only
once in a great while; butter and
sugar are long-forgotten dreams.
See Their Homes Destroyed.
And then in the case of France and
to some degree Of Italy, the allied
women have seen vast stretches of
4
enormous sections Of sOftly-beautiful
farming country turned into metal-rid-
den dumps; they have seen dozens of
small cities and hundreds Of little vii
lagos transformed to ash heaps; they
have seen so much old sacred beauty
in the form of churches. cathedrals
and historic monuments reduced to
hills OF rubble that the whole world
must seem a desert 30 them. They
have even had to endure the extra
affront Of an exhibition in Berlin of
the art treasures looted from northern
France.
The allied women have nursed the
wounded, the tubercular, the under
nourished; they have taught new
trades to the crippled and blind and
those who are invalided fer life. They
have taken care Of thousands aud
thousands of refugees from Belgium.
northern France and Siberia. They
have had to provide for the bringing
up OF thousands of orphan children.
This has not come upon them gradual
ly, but all the time and in increasing
proportions.
But, after all 'hese things are as
nothing 10 the dea n Of the flower of
their male youth. England and France
and Italy have lost So much IN man
power that no member Of our genera
ton looks for happiness again during
bis own lifetimel They hope only
for one thlng-to insure the freedom
Of the next generation.
Sons All Core.
MY husband is Il Partisan" said
a beautiful American woman married
70 Frenchn8n. lie has always
lived In Paris. He has many friends
here. lie is forty-fye years old. His
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