Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 149, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1919 — National Leaque fS W/ . Q 7 id Womens Service • 1J [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

National Leaque fS W/ . Q 7 id Womens Service • 1J

• Purpose: To provide organized trained women ._,to meet social and economic needs, y

*—•■"JE VOTED women who have been wonderDing where the pathway of constructive and beneficial service would open now that the war is pver may very easily find the signpost pointing out the road in the program set for itself by the B National League for Women’s Service. This organization was formed in 1917, and naturally at that time found Its particular field in war activities. It now sees before it a broadening of its activities and a of real helpfulness that will go even beyond what it found to do While the country was waging conflict. It is the spirit of service learned better than ever before in time of national stress that is the watchword for this nation-wide organization of women. Its purpose, as set forth in the constitution and by-laws, is to provide organized trained groups of women in every community to meet existing needs ►along social and economic lines. ’Die earnest women who make up the motor division of the league might have thought that the end of the war would curtail the scope bf their activities. Nothing of‘the sort. The work of transporting the sick and wounded and the convalescent soldiers, sailors and marines will be continued as long as the need for this Work exists. The motor division has demonstrated the vital necessity of continuing its work as an organized, trained service in peace times to meet emergencies. There is so much work to be done in the way of social welfare and health and industrial helpfulness that the motor corjjs, Instead of diminishing, sees before it growth and expansion. Especial attention is being given by the motor division to the opportunities found in service for the afflicted. One of the concrete examples of this is to be seen in the work being accomplished by the women of'the city of Jamaica, who formed a motor corps in that city. These women motorists .'have already been of great service to the city in transporting crippled children to the hospital for treatment. Not all of these children'*' are permanently crippled, but many of them have lost the use of an arm or a leg after having suffered from infantile paralysis 1 . Sometimes there is only one living parent, who is away from home all day, so there is no one in the family to take the suffering little ones to the hospital for treatment. The workers in the motor corps bring the children from their homes for treatment and then take them back again as soon as they are fit to be moved.

9 Helping the Helpless. One of the most pathetic cases of this sort is that of little Gertrude, only three and a half years of age. She was taken to the hospital and a plaster cast was put on. There are six children in her family and her father is unable to work owing to a severe attack of influenza. The oldest child In the family suffers from epileptic fits. Another child had broken her arm last November and it had never been set. The driver of the ambulance took this child also to the hospital so that her crippled arm could be rebroken by the doctor and properly set. So much suffering in one family was relieved and a great deal of future tragedy was averted by the helpfulness of the motor corps. One little boy, whose poor little legs were absolutely useless, came near to being the cause of an accident on one of the journeys to the hospital. Putting his head out of the froyt of the ambulance he jerked the arm of the driver and safdk “See that guy that passed riding that bicycle 1 Gee, I’m going to be like him soon, and howl will ride when my paddles work again.” A three-year-old Italian girl had been very shy on her trips to the hospital and at first had resented being taken by the driver. Finally after her fourth trip she snuggled up against the lieutenant on the homeward trip and said something which the officer could not understand. One of the older girls explained. > “She says that her mother Is dead and her father doesn’t want her and you can keep her if you want to.” Only three years old and yet that baby realized that there wasn’t a soul in the World who wanted her. These chlldren, whose cases are duplicated times without number throughout the country, are in a dire need of friendly sendee. The parents have the greatest struggle In most cases to provide a living for them, and when any of the children are helpless they are not wanted. Such cases infrequent, and although the work drivingacar all day from house to house in the poorest parts of the cjty, over broken and rough roads, Is nerve racking, the members of the motor corps have never thought of stopping. The vital need of continuing their work Is measured by the amount of good done hundreds of children. The fatth of the children accustomed to walk ;«nd run about is much shaken when they are

crippled by the tragedy of infantile paralysis. That faith is fast coming to the top again, after they have been given the much-needed attention. The women of the motor corps feel that if there Is anything they can do to make these children whole again they are going to do it. A large percentage of the treatments given the children is successful, as most of the children are young. Another form of service rendered by the women of the motor corps, still using Jamaica as an illustration, takes the district nurse all over the city. This nurse follows up the cases of the children who have been treated at the hospital and does good work in finding out what the other needs of the children are. In some cases it is nourishing food, in others shoes, in others clothes. There, is only one district nurse in Jamaica and her salary is paid out of the proceeds of a secondhand clothing shop which is run by the well-to-do woijjen of the community. This shop is patronized by the poorer people of Jamaica and has proved a source of great help to them. One day a shabbily dressed woman Walked into the shop and looked around. 'She saw two Holland shades pn the counter and paid three cents apiece for them. ‘l’he woman who waited on her was very interested and could not imagine what she wanted the shades for, when she was evidently in greater need of other things. A few days later the woman reappeared at the store and proudly displayed a white waist and a pair of white pants her little boy was wearing. “I bleached the shades,” she said, “because we have an opportunity to go away to the country for a week. We were told that we mxyst have a change of clothes,"so I was able to make a -change by doing this. We are going away tomorrow.” - The. giver of the shades would feel glad If she could know what good had been accomplished by her act Jamaica is not the only city where the people have realized what the word “service” stands for. In New York state alone there are ninety-two branches of the National League for Women’s Service, and the league has a national enrollment of three hundred thousand members and is established in thirty-eight states. Plenty of Opportunity. There is plenty of work for all these members — and more—today. Ata Americanization conference of the department of the interior was held at Washington the other day. Americanization seems to Include many activities. “The Americanization movement Js the first great activity of peace times in which everyone can unite, regardless of any, other affiliations,” declared C. H. Pauli of Harvard university. "A community about to Interest itself in Americanization should bring its resources together under a single purpose with a willingness to pool their interests for the common good.” • Dr. Peter Roberts of the International Y. M. C. A. described the work of the-association to help immigrants get settled in their new homes. “Agents of _the association, in prewar days, were stationed in fifteen ports in Europe,” he said, “and here ten secretaries were employed at ports mln-

Istering to the immigrants in a hundred ways. At points of distribution, such as Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, there were other men to givn advice to. th€\.be\yildered foreigners and protect them from exploitation. “The war demoralized_our work in Europe, but opened new fields for service among foreign-born soldiers in cantonments. The work of Americanization in the development battalions was Intrusted wholly to the association. Since tHo armistice was signed the association is again ready to extend its aid to the immigrant.” Factory schools organized by the Council of Jewish Women to reach girls unable to attend other classes were described by Miss Helen Winkler. She told also of how the council had representatives meet unprotected girls at immigrant stations, Interpret the rules to them and enable them to reach relatives safely. T. A. Levy of Syracuse, N. Y., said his city encouraged constant meetings of foreigners with native citizens and supplied rooms at the chamber of commerce where racial groups could gather. Mrs. Frederick Schoft of Philadelphia, president of the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teachers’ Associations, asked the conference for aid in bringing out the for-eign-born mother. She said the mother too often was left

at home, ignorant of all things concerning her ' new land, while the father and children became Americans. “Widowed fathers” are a new problem since the Influenza epidemic robbed thousands of homes of the mother and homemaker. Almost any woman can make a home for her children, given the dollars and cents to buy bread and butter apd shoes; but it takes so much more than dollars and cents to enable a father to make a home. Women engaged in administering mothers’ pensions funds and other forms °f welfare work have found that funds were totally inadequate to solve the problem of the father left a widower with, several small children. Many men whose wives were stricken during the epidemic are hardworking, home-loving fathers, who cling to the children with a tenderness that is- heartbreaking. It is our mission to find homes for the children near enough so z that the father erfn see them every day and keep closely in touch with their little affairs. The father can often pay for the children’s board. It is the extra that women must do for the children that make it impossible for him to keep them at home. The milk problem alone Is large enough and complex enough to keep thousands ot- women busy. It is stated that for every American man who fell on the battlefields of Europe nine of our babies have died. These are the startling figures of the bureau of child hygiene. The war period total was 450,000, againsf our casualty list of 53,000. ' Of every three deaths one is of a child under three years. Dr. S. Josephine Baker, director of the bureau of hygiene of the New York city board of health, frankly brands us as a nation careless of human life, and figures fasten her charge on us. But the experience of the New York Diet Kitchen association (and no doubt of other kindred groups) has been that when these facts are really brought to our consciousness helpful response is immediate. That this response falls so far short of the need can only mean that the full weight of such figures is not visualized as it should be. If the horror of a huge cityful of little slaughtered baby bodies were really brought home to the parent heart of our great-hearted nation it would quicken to one mighty effort- the determination that such things should no longer be. Dr. Harvey Wiley, long head of the national bureau of health, says of the workers for child conservation that they are “in the very front line trenches of humanity; on duty without rest, fighting against terrific odds, but as> certain of ultimate Victory as the forces of the allies were against the devastating Hun.” Can it be possible that our charity must have the perspective of distance? It would seem so, for no unusual difficulty was found in financing with American money five milk stations in London recently. Yet figures showed that while the per--; centage of malnutrition among tondon babies was 19 per cent, that of New’ York babies during the same period was 21 per cent A speaker lately remarked that “New York needs to be three to five thousand miles from Itself in order to be aroused to a sense of its crying needs.”