Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 205, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1918 — THE LAND ARMY OF AMERICA [ARTICLE]

THE LAND ARMY OF AMERICA

(Women m Fann Honda)

By JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS

x Qf The Vigilante!

“I had to hire them for my farm because I couldn’t get men. . . . Neighboring farmers who borrowed some of them later hated to admit that they were more efficient than man workers, but had to!” The farmer who wrote those words employed 25 girls last summer to get in his crops, some of them girls from the "seasonal trades” out of a job, others students or college graduates out for a vacation, but few, If any, of them experienced farm hands. He made two important discoveries. First, that they were good workers. Second, that this kind of work was good for women, and as this farmer is none other than Doctor Sargent, the director of physical training, he ought to know’. He adds that he did not have a chance to try them at plowing or heavy work, though they can do that too, but at other kinds of farm work he found them in all ways the equal and in some ways the superior of men. They do not average as strong as men, though In proportion to. their weight they are, but they made up In care and thoroughness what they lacked in “heft,” and they did not loaf on the job when the boss was not looking. Women are nearly always more conscientious than the “superior sex.” Has Come to Stay. The Woman’s Land Army of America is still a new thing in most parts of the country, but it has come to stay and the sooner the farmers of America get that idea through their heads and live down their old-fashioned prejudice against this “new’-fangled notion” the better for them and for th’e country. Every man released from, the* farm means one more man for the army or for other war work not done by women. A year ago almost every farmer In the country shared this impractical and unpatriotic prejudice. Such prejudices die hard. All our prejudices about women die hard. I will give an amusing illustration. Last summer a number of “units” were employed in various parts of Westchester county, New York. A “unit” means a squad of woman w’orkers (a “gang,” vve might call it, if they were men) who live and work together under the charge of a competent Older woman experienced in agriculture, a sort of forewoman who manages the whole outfit, which Includes their own cook and food and bedding. The farmer does not supply

anything except the wages and possibly a place to put up a few tents. The farmer’s wife has no bother or extra work in the matter at all. Well, every one of these units in Westchester county made good, and there were exactly as many surprised farmers In Westchester county as there were units. At the end of the season each employer was asked, "Will you employ woman farm hands again next year?” Each farmer made exactly the same reply, “Yes, If I can get the same women.” . > ' ' Each.thought that he had happened' to have the luck to get the only good bunch of girls! Sly, shrewd fellows, those farmers! For it seemed to them, quite obvious that women as a class could not be good farm laborers. A perfectly natural prejudice. Men as a class have always had the same certainty that women could never be gbod at anything “outside of the home” until they went out and made good at everything from voting and doctoring to driving ambulances, and even at fighting in the trenches when the necessity arose over in poor betrayed Russia.

Kept Island From Starving. American farmers, however, are the most enlightened in the world. Perhaps it will not take them so long to get the idea into -their heads as it required to beat it into the British brain. In England, even after the scarcity of farm labor had become more acute than it is here now, the “woman’s land army” movement was almost blighted by masculine prejudice until the government became alarmed and turned a clever trick. Prizes were offered at the county fairs for public ’competitions ,for woman workers in various departments of farm work. This aroused considerable curiosity and created a great deal of discussion. The question, however, w’as not whether girls could do farm work, but which girl could do it best! Big crowds gathered. Bets were made.. Rivalry ran high. And when it was demonstrated before the astonished eyes of the British farmers that these “farm lassies,” as they now affectionately term their “farmerettes” over there, not only knew their job but were experts at it, the prejudice broke down and the country was saved. The woman’s land army of England, now 300,000 strong, has kept the island from starving. This patriotic fact has been publicly acknowledged In parliament. There are already 17 states of the Union organized under the Woman’s Land Army of America, and in New York alone 3,000 farmerettes are registered for this season. It is a fine patriotic service, a good thing for the farmer who can thus get good sober, industrious laborers at a cheap rate, a good thing for the girls, who can thus get a wholesome outing as well as fair wages, and the best thing of ail for the nation, which needs food and needs men, and needs them at once.