The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-02-02
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

One of my friends wanted to know if hadn't overlooked the Big Sisters movement. Not at all, I just haven't had time to open wide my arms to it.
 
 Oh, but you say we have already spIendidIy equipped Young woman's Christian Association. Granted, but it cannot possibly care for the hundreds, yes thousands, of young women in Bir- mingham woh need the protecting care of their better circumstanced sisters. Not that many of them are not self reliant.
 It's duty this great community owes to itself if it is jealous of the chance it has to make a home with the proper environment for the unprotected girN who are in. it's midst surrounded on all sides by emptations while bravely battling to make for them selves a living or a worthy career. The hand of every loving, true mother. true father and chivalrous mar. ought to be reached out to them.
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 1 We talk great deal about what valuable asset is our young manhood and too much cannot be said in their favor, but there is danger in caring for | them that we overlook the value to this I great, growing city of it's young wom- anhood. Say what you please the girl who has to make her way is handf- capped in the race with boys in spite of the fact that more doors of oppor- tunity are opening to them each year. | l am constantly on the go and come 1 in contact with many young women who are working in various ways to | get along I see them in restayrants, in stores, in factories, in banks. in of fees. and my hat is always off to any self respecting girl or woman who has the grit and the perseverance to pro- vide for herself, and unhappily too often for others dependent upon them. made in our midst were known there If some tales of self-sacrifice being would be no trouble to get the Big Sis ters movement properly launched. 1 The world is beginning to learn that lit is folly to sacrifice it's womanhood, and therefore the woman's question is to the front not merely as a political. but as a social. religious and economic question. I believe in the conserva- tion of our natural resources but so far it seems to me we have made ;v, o iol sources of wealth and in safeguarding our animal industries than we have in treasuring our girls of today, who will be the mothers of tomorrow.
 N+
 I know that there is an effort to keep the girls on the farm and I sym pathize with much of the propaganda but we all know that in spite of the l better conditions being inaugurated il the country districts to make farm l6t more attractive, that there is a con. stant exodus of ambitious country girl: from their homes to the boarding houses of the city. Ii is this shifting to the noise and hustle of the cit, which makes the change fraught witf danger.
 The whirr of machinery, the transfer from agriculture to manufacturing, thu shifting of population from rural t' urban with the congestion cause, thereby makes for the disloeation o family ties and is menace to thu Fhome. I realize that in the shortag, of homes here in Birmingham there i constant demand for apartmen houses, and that many are forced t live in hotels or boarding houses wh, homes of their own.
 
 There isn't any use to stop at thi juncture to argue about the advantage as between town and city. for at pres ent in spite of all our preachments tn drift is cityward and we must arrang to. care for those who knock at ou doors for entrance and see to it tha they are not led into pitfalls unawares On the other hand, Birmingham wei comes ambitious young women for it young mans town and naturall there is place for their sisters So tn best thing to do is to make them fee at home in the right kind of a hom when they arrive.
 , The drive that began on Monday, tn 18th which is to last until February inclusive. IS 70 buy or erect a larg ! home where girls working in Birming , ham. whose families live in other citie and who only make small salary ma live in homelike surroundings for nominal sum. With this idea in view l the Big Sisters. which also include some frbig brothers" honorary mem bers, launched their campaign Monda morning. Headquarters have been es tablshed at the Civic association O County Bank building and every da on hand to enroll anyone wishing { join.
 . The Big Sisters movement of whic l Mrs J. E. Fries is chairman, is on part of the work of the communit council of defense which was suggeste ! by the United States government as osl means of realizing peace time ideal for the common life. The communit council aims to be clearing house fo all organizations doing social servic 3 work. Article l, of the constitution c n the Big Sisters movement provides:
 Section 1-The name of this organi
 zation shall be the Big Sisters Commit