Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-31

4 ii ~ q " ASAAORS "a
during the war. England had air raids
only loss of life. The experiences OF tn
as ours were from those of France and
But there have been big changes IN
the United States in two years. Inc
spirit with which the crowds in Ameri-
can cities greeted my father felt like
a fresh enthusiasm, not something that
had been going on for years. very
large numbers of people come out to
welcome a visiting British prime min
lister, the first to come to the United
States while in Office. They might have
had no interest in international or
even public affairs. They might have
come out of curiosity. But once they
saw with their own eyes the man who
was going to talk with their President,
once they realized what 1t was all about.
they felt they had a personal share N
the matter because they were part OF IL.
Believes Personal Contact Valuable.
They had witnessed one scene and
they wanted to follow out the drama.
Always the prime minister's visit Will
remain something personal 70 them.
Always they will connect theif personal
experience with the cause o. peace.
That personal contact wa4, ] believe,
the chief value of the peace mission.
When people see arguments for peace
in newspaper columns they often do
not read them. When they see the
men who are mentioned in the col
umns they become alive to the thought
in them.
Women feel the horrors of war more
and remember them longer than do
men. Once the conflict is over, men
realize what they have been through,
but while the battle is on they have
all the excitement. Women have the
| xxyan ~ oov{aku ~ cfo riVr~ az hnvon
I do not believe mems part In war
is quite as intolerable as womeniS, be-
cause of the exhilaration-a horrible,
unhealthy eXhilaration, but eXhtlaration
all the same. Women have only that
awful waiting, unless they are free to
do nursing and other active service.
My connection with the British peace
mission has been the greatest honor
and delight I have ever known. It has
been a personal matter, of course. I
could not take part in any Of the con-
President. I did not once discuss with
my father what was going on. I was
a man in the street so far IS informa-
| ton went. But at the White House
| and In the Rapidan I had a. sense of
being with people who were progressing
toward a common goal. This contented
me.
Holds Prejudice Against War.
I remember the war very well. Not
the campaign episodes. of course, but
the parts / came across myself. A
day or two before war was declared I
was at LoSSiemouth on a holiday and
I heard them say war was imminent.
1t made little impression On my young
mind. I could not believe war could
happen outside a history book or in
distant countries. Il had heard about
the Balkan War; I was told wal was
declared. My first impulse was in
credulity. It could not be true! It
must be a story. But it wa true, and
1t disguised me.
All during the war-and I wa IL
when it started-I wondered If I should
have been a conscientious obJector had
I been a man. I never quite decided.
because I told myself If / were a man
then naturally I should have a differ
ent nature, and that manly nature
might have liked war. But as things
were I felt I should rather suffer prison
than take part in manSlaughter.
I was In London during the air raids.
Childlike, I enjoyed the excitement.
Children like anything that keeps them
out of bed. I tried to forget what the
noise meant.
But as I grew up I saw the wal had
left its mark on me. For instance, I
never joined the Girl Guides, the Brit
ish equivalent of the Girl Scouts. The
uniform put me of. It seemed so
Girl Guides, though, and through them
/ learned that the organization was
not so military as 1t appeared. But I
neve got over that original prejudice.
That is why I was 81 pleased 10 see
the pretty new green uniform Of the
Girl Scouts / met in Washington.
When I went 10 college I Joined the
League of Nations Union, attended its
lectures and socials and worked Tor It
until I left college.
Women Vital Force for Peace.
believe women can do an enormous
amount of work for peace In small
ways. I think it Is Up to women all
over the world to teach rileir children
and to tell their friends what war really
is. That would insure peace psychology.
The young people Of the United
States and Of Great Britain, girls and
boys younger than myself, may not be
able to remember OIL visualize war.
There is a danger, WHEN they have
grown to be women, that they might
come to feel wal is inevitable, or when
they have grown to be men that wal
Is an exciting interlude in a humdrum
existence. They must be made to real
ize that at the end Of a war people
have to come together to reach a settle
ment, have to sit down at a table with
a terrible wall of bitterness between
them, have to try to come to a salts
factory peace treaty, after bloodshed
and enmity. Why should I.ot all chill
dren grow up with the idea that heads
Of government can meet at a table
before going to war, without that well
of bitterness, there to clear away mis-
understandings and differences with
words?
When two countries go to war through
these misunderstanding, the action al
ways is taken by two small handfuls OF
men, the leaders of the governments
These leaders need the whole Of their
countries behind them. In order to gel
the support Of people, stories are manu-
featured to heat the blood Of emotional
listeners till they will support anything
under the stress of tense feeling. If the
heads of government told the truth
about the ridiculous little disputes over
which they planned to pour out lives
no would back them!
War Stories Vary Little.
Oddly enough, the manufactured sto-
lies vary no more one from the other
than those devastatingly similar she'll
fish, the oysters! The same type OF
stories. appealing to sentiment by de-
plotting the enemy as bloodthirsty, brutal
,@aon1o ava '1iaaA mar after war WE