The Connecticut labor press., 1919-09-09
WOMEN DEMAND
 WARS SHALL END
Peace League Means More to Them Than 1t Can Mean
 to Men.
DR. sHAW's STIRRING PLEA.

(5y the Late pr. Anna Howard shaw.)
 Seven million one hundred thousand men who had laid down their lives in the great war. Think of 1t! Seven million, one hundred thousand young men had died on the field of battlel
 What does that mean to the women of the world? It means that seven million one hundred thousand women walked day by day with their faces toward an open grave that they might give life to a son. It means that seven million one hundred thousand little children lay in the arms of a mother whose love had made them face even the terrors of death that they might become the mothers of men.
 It means that year after year these women had put up their lives into the lives of their sons until they had rear ed them to be men. For what2 In the hope that these sons of theirs could give to the world the things for which women dream, the things for which women hope and pray and long. These were the things that the women had in their hearts when they gave birth to their sons.
 But who can estimate the value of seven million one hundred thousand dead sons of the women of the world? Who can estimate the price which the women have paid for this war; what 1t has cost them, not only in the death of their sons, because that is phase of our war to which we look.
 The Courage of Women.
 We hear our orators tell us of the courage of our men. How they went across the sea. Very few of them re- member to tell us of the courage of our women, who also went across the sea; of the women who died nursing the sick and wounded; the women who died in the hospitals, where the terrible bombs came and drove them almost to madness. They tell us nothing of the forty thousand English women who went to work back of the trenches in France.
 They tell us nothing of the thou sands upon thousands upon thousands of women who not only toiled and worked and slaved in order that the war might be successful, but we do not hear of the thousands of women, not alone in Armenia, not alone in Montenegro, not alone in Serbia, but in Flanders, in Belgium, in Rumania,, in Russia-the thousands of women who lie in graves today, murdered, so horribly murdered that men dare not speak of it.
 And yet we women are asked what
 IT tiOns; asked what we can understand about a League of Nations. Oh men the horrible deaths; the horrible lives of thousands upon thousands of wo- men today in all these nations, who must live, and who must look in the faces of children unwelcomed, unde- sired-of little cf1ildren-and know that these are the result of war;
 And then ask women why they should be interested in a league of peace?
 Women Suffer Most From War.
 If there is any body of citizens in the world who ought to be interested in a league to ultimately bring to the world peace 1t is the mothers of men, and the women who suffered as only women can Su1ISr lR the war anu III devastated countries.
 And we call upon them, we women of the world call upon the men who have been fighting all these battles of the years, the men who have led armies, and led armies close to their deaths.
 We are now calling upon the men of the world to in some way or an other find a passage out of the sea of death. We are asking them to form a league which will bring hope to the women of the future. If women are to bear sons only that they may die If women may not have hope and aspirations for their children if women may not dream the dreams that have in them the hope of the highest civilizations, the highest moral and spiritual life of the people-if wo men may not have these in their hearts as the mothers of men, then women will cease to desire to be the mothers of men. And why should kI,Au Why eh0uId thou not9