SPLENDID AMERICAN WOMEN

Evening Star, Issue 16626, 8 January 1918, Page 5

SPLENDID AMERICAN WOMEN

1,000,000 MOBILISED. Writing from New York under date 29th October, G. Ivy Saunders says; Walking down Madison avenue (one of Now Yorks famous highways) a few days ago I was attracted to a large house. No. 257, by the continual coming and going of women in khaki. Up and down the brown stone steps they hurried, obviously intent upon earnest . business, and my thoughts were transported to England, and to our members of the Women’s Ambulance, Women’s Legion, and Women’s Volunteer Reserve, wearing a similar trim military uniform of khaki, and moving with the ,same alertness and smartness that comes of drill and discipline. Over the doorway the Stars and Stripes hung, brilliant in the hot morning sunshine, ancl engraved on the portals were the enlightening words : “ Headquarters of the .Women’s League of National Service.” I entered, and found the large hall, with its_ handsome, wide, open staircase, filled with women eager to enrol for service, with women busy upon various tasks—typewriting, addressing envelopes, and packing parcels of comforts and surgical dressings for the troops—and with yet more women awaiting orders for some one of the many branches of the league's service, which includes : Social and Welfare Division. Home Economics. ■ Business Women’s Division. Motor Division. Overseas 1 ' Relief Division. In a word, the extent and range of the activity of American womanhood have come as a complete revelation to me, for in common, I fear, with many people at home, I had been inclined to imagine that the women’s war work in this vast continent, so remote from the actual scenes of war, was practically confined to the conservation of fbod and the knitting of comforts. Instead I find over a million women enrolled in the Women’s League of National Service, which has as its watchword: “What English'women have done American women will do.” And yet this is but one—though a very important one—-of the many women’s organisations in the_country. Hundreds more are working for Die Red Crosi, on the Mayor’s Committee, tne Special Aid Committee, ancl for the NavyLeague. Legion are the organisations formed to direct and utilise the feminine energy of the country, and conntless are the services they are rendering. WILLING SERVICES. The 5,C00 odd miles intervening between the battlefields of Europe and the United States have been bridged by r this common war, which is just as real to the women here as it is to the women of England ; for they, too, are giving their sons ind sweethearts, and they, too, have come forward to assist in the winning of the war by relieving men for the battlefields, by caring for the troops at home and overseas, and by offering their willing services to the industries of the country. All these things they are doing through the Women’s League of National Service and the various existing organisations, over a hundred of which use the league as a clearing-house to co-ordinate their wartime efforts. The league itself, in addition to its central organisation in Now I ork. has State and local branches and working .detachments in every part of the United States, and is perfectly organised. Speaking of organisation, it is very gratifying to us women of England to know that our American sisters turned bo tho' Mother Land for the basis of their plan of mobilisation, and that our own V.A.D. has been the foundation on which their wonderful work has been constructed. Our limitations, too, have been recognised, and have served as a timely warning, for it is insisted that women shall enrol for and perform only those services for which they are fitted. They are adamant in their policy of utilising the trained mind in the direction in which it has been trained, and do not encourage or countenance the expert typist or telephonist to undertake motor-driving or vice versa. This has brought about a high 'standard of efficiency. It entirely eliminates the dissipation of feminine energies which was unfortunately so apparent in onr own country during the first two years of the war.