Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1918 — YOUNG WOMAN AND HER PART IN WAR [ARTICLE]

YOUNG WOMAN AND HER PART IN WAR

Female Helpers Find Many Ways to Aid Government MUST ECONOMIZE IN SKILL Splendid Opportunities Await Those Who Are Anxious to AssistShould Be Able to Do Something Specific. i_ By MARY AUSTIN. (From the Committee on Public Information, Washington, D. C.) What shall she do, the young woman at home, who Is neither the mistress of the house nor a wage earner? How shall she turn back to the general account the care and schooling she has had, and hoW satisfy the hungry desire to serve her country, which is, thank God, as characteristic of our young women as our young men? Every hour since the war my telephone has been ringing with questions like these. Young men are captained and generated. Expert supervision of their patriotic service is at their elbows. They have the splendid inspiration of togetherness, music, banners, shoulder touching shoulder. Even wage-work-ing women have a sense of direction; they see the work that passes through their hands pushed steadily to an end. But the young woman of brains and education and leisure must captain herself. She must find her own job herself. It is all very well for mother to knit and roll bandages in her spare time, which by that process becomes time saved. And though it is no doubt highly patriotic to save food at the expense of time spending, after all, household {economics can only be practiced by those having houses. Red Cross nursing is a privilege of the fit; and requires a long training which few can either physically or financially afford. All these special duties leave a wide margin of capable women who ache to serve.

In France and England the lone woman had no problem, unless It were the difficulty of deciding which of the many things to be done were to be done first But In America labor leaders have warned against clogging the wheels of war Industries with crowds of unskilled women who know-none of the necessities of the wage earners. This Is the wage earners’ opportunity also, and no of zeal on our part should rob them of the chance to carry, as they are, the national burden. But that does not mean that strong welleducated young wombn shall have no part In this war but the traditional hand-waving from the balcony. Capacity Going to Waste. The first condition, however, of the young woman’s getting a specific thing to do Is for her to be able to do something specific. There Is a great deal of formless capacity going to waste In every community—waste of talent and waste of skill. And It Is being wasted largely because we have, as a people, fallen a little into the weakness of democracies, and Imagine we can do nothing by ourselves. We think of something which seems desirable to have done, and we rush out and organize vast machines for cleaning the Streets, when all that was really needed was to sweep out our own front < yard. Women who wish to fill a place ' In the plans of the government must first trim themselves Into some definite shape, as clerks, as secretaries, as mechanicians, or what not. * The trouble with much of our American life Is that It has made us like those cooks who can cook delightfully only so long as they have an unlimited amount of the most expensive materials. We have come to think that we can do very little of anything without the most expensive teachers and pedagogic equipment. But It Is not only In food that we must economize now; we must economize In skill. In every community of 8,000, or even less, there Is enough neglected skill to turn all of its unattached young women into first-rate workers, t Take your town bank, for instance. There Is an expert accountant there, probably eating his heart out because he Is too old or physically unfit for field service. He would be happy to pass on his thirty-five years of expertness to you, to be used as the government is going to have to use women accountants. In your father’s store, very likely, there is a man who could make a bookkeeper out of you in three months, and have the thrill of patriotic service at the same time. If there is a Carnegie library in your town, there is somebody there who can teach you card cataloguing and filing. If you are fortunate enough to live at the county seat your opportunities for learning clerical work are greatly increased. Typewriting you can teach yourself. Learn the touch system and how to make clean carbons. A textbook comes with every machine, and if you cannot afford a machine, borrow one, or club together with two others and rent one for $3. Many Other Opportunities. indexing and filing are both In demand In all departmental work; though It will not be so easy to find opportunity for learning them la towns under 10,000. But telegraphy can be learned even In the rural districts. A few hours from an obliging local operator, a good text book, and a small Morse outfit which can be set up bo-

tween two farms, will carry you a long way toward proficiency. And the code, and everything you learn about electricity, would be of use to you should an opportunity come your way later to learn wireless telegraphy—a work which is peculiarly adapted to the sensitive woman. The government has already opened the motor transport service to women. If this appeals to you, begin to fit yourself for it now. There are'a great many varieties of motor transport Service, but even if none of the more dramatic opportunities come to you, there is an important service ahead of women in driving tractors. If a woman has any gift for it at all, mechanical draftsmanship is very much worth white. Government, construction plants employ many draftsmen, and you would be surprised to find how much of this you can learn from your local architect or from any manufacturing plant near your town. Long before technical schools were established men learned all they needed to know by apprenticeship, and the plan I propose to you is simply to revert to the earlier, simple method. Apprentice yourself to your chosen trade in the person of the most skilled workman you know. If you do not know how to choose, make a census of the skills of your town. Find out the most valuable skill and save that for your country. One of the terrible things about war is the loss of this accumulated skill. Men spend years in school and years more in practice, and then at their most useful time are cut off. Make it your business to capture and retain some of the things that men have learned. Nobody will refuse to teach you. A man owes his knowledge and skill to his country as much as he owes his life; all the mpre if he loses his life.

Can Learn at Home. Women are the natural conservers of civilization. It is our duty to gather up and hold fast every bit of gain. Women are only just learning what it costs men to be proficient, and even if there Is no definite objective in view, we could not go far wrong In attempting to save something of the proficient man’s purchase. I have spoken of these particular occupations as being directly connected with the government machine, realizing something of the hunger of women to be Identified with It as men are. There Is a sense In which any work which releases a man for the front Is government service; but I have particularly wished to point out how women may fit themselves for national service in their own homes. There are other things than these, new openings every week, things which can be mastered on the farm or in the smallest village.- You do not, for example, have to go out of your own town to learn how to be a postal clerk. There is in every town a good job for somebody in keeping In touch with the needs of the government machine. If you can do nothing else, be the coherer ; find out from your state officials and from Washington all about the qualifications, the dates and places of civil service examinations, the jobs for which no examination but merely a certificate of fitness is required. See to it that your circulating library has such books as are needed by students. If your state has a traveling library, know what helps it can give. There is no real reason why any American should not be able to learn anything he—-or she —puts her mind to. There is another branch of patriotic service which, though it has not been departmentally opened to women here as in England, is open through communities and committees to American women. This is the branch of the commissary. It includes all sorts of knowledge supposed to be native to the genius of women, of food buying and storing and cooking on a large scale. The basis of commissary work is a natural aptitude for it and a knowledge of food values. This you can teach yourself at home, making a laboratory of your kitchen. The rest you can learn through community activities in your town, community storehouses, community kitchens, community canning clubs and buying clubs. Demand Exceeds Supply. The department of agriculture can supply you with information on the conduct of all these enterprises. Already the demand for instructors in these branches exceeds the supply. And if the war should surprise us by the years it holds out, there is nd doubt many of them will be made < part of the government machine, just as they have been abroad. In that case the women who will be chosen are the women who had the initiative to prepare themselves long in advance of the necessity.

Food production is as important as food conservation, but it can be learned only by those who have a certain amount of capital at their disposal, lands or tools, or stock. All the things I have mentioned call for very little more than the personal equipment—lndustry, patience and staying power. And this war is different from other wars for women, simply as it uses more of these qualities than any other. Wives and mothers have never lacked opportunity for war service, but this war calls for qualities in woman which transcend her sex and establish her social value on her power, to do, rather than on her power to give. More' than any war that was ever fought, it is a lone woman’s war. Women have played the part of scabbard for the sword, they have been the belt which binds it to their sons; now comes the day when the woman must be herself the sword. Nobody who knows American women can doubt that the occasion will find them well tempered, swift and keen. _L- -1 '—