Women and War Work by Helen Fraser

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WOMEN AND WAR WORK

by

HELEN FRASER

G. Arnold Shaw
New York

1918

"No easy hopes or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all--
For each one life to give.
Who stands if freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?"

Rudyard Kipling in "For All We Have and Are."

[Illustration: A FEW SHELLS]

DEDICATED TO MOTHER, ANNE, AND THE BOYS.

CONTENTS

Chapter

1. THE SPIRIT OF WOMEN

2. ORGANIZATION AND ITS PITFALLS

3. HOSPITALS--RED CROSS--V.A.D.

4. BRINGING BLIGHTY TO THE SOLDIERS--HUTS, COMFORTS, ETC.

5. WOMAN-POWER FOR MAN-POWER

6. WOMEN AND MUNITIONS

7. THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN IN INDUSTRY

8. "THE WOMEN'S LAND ARMY"

9. WAR SAVINGS--THE MONEY BEHIND THE GUNS

10. FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION

11. THE W.A.A.C.'s

12. WAR AND MORALS

13. WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN

14. RECONSTRUCTION

ILLUSTRATIONS

A FEW SHELLS (Frontispiece)

MISS EDITH CAVELL

DR. ELSIE INGLIS

FIRST AMBULANCE ON DUTY IN THE FIRST ZEPPELIN RAID

"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"

CLEANING A LOCOMOTIVE

WOMEN AS CARRIAGE CLEANERS

WINDOW CLEANERS

STEAM ROLLER DRIVER

TRAINING WOMEN AS AEROPLANE BUILDERS

RIVETTING ON BOILERS

FACING BOILER BLUE FLANGES

ROUGH TURNING JACKET FORGING OF 6-POUNDER HOTCHKISS GUN

HOW TO DRESS FOR MUNITION MAKING

BACK TO THE LAND

WOMEN TACKLE A STRONG MAN'S PROBLEM

SIX REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD BUY WAR SAVINGS CERTIFICATES

"FOR YOUR CHILDREN"

BOOK MARKS ISSUED BY THE N.W.S.C.

W.A.A.C.'s ON THE MARCH

WOMEN OF THE RESERVE AMBULANCE

POLICE WOMEN

FOREWORD

"Our War Loan from England"--That is the heading under which were
grouped the nine lectures given by Miss Helen Fraser at Vassar
College. England has borrowed a billion or so of dollars from us, but
the obligation is not all her way. The moral strength of our cause is
immeasurably increased by her alliance, and the spectacle of a great
democracy organizing itself for complete unity in a world crisis is
worth an incalculable amount to us. Such a vision Miss Fraser has
brought to her wider public among the women of America in this notable
book. Of her personal influence let me quote again from the Vassar
students' newspaper:

"Miss Fraser, here's to you! We don't need to say that we liked Miss
Fraser and everything she had to tell us. The way we followed her
around, and packed every room in which she spoke, out to the doors
and sometimes up to the ceiling, is proof enough of that. And even
the fact that it was Sunday could not check our outburst of song
in the Soap Palace as Miss Fraser departed. Her gracious speech of
appreciation left with us the question not phrased by her before, but
certainly in the minds of every one of us who had been hearing her:
'What are _we_ going to do?'"

An unsolicited testimonial, this, of the most genuine kind. The
College students of today are not easily coaxed into lecture rooms
outside of their own classes.

I believe that Miss Fraser's book will be read with the same eager
attention that followed her first speeches in this country as she
began her work of educating American women to a sense of what the
mobilization of the entire citizen army of a democracy must mean.

Nor will her influence cease there. Miss Fraser's book is a piece of
history; and history is action. The wonderful work of the women of
England is already emulated by the splendid efforts along many lines
of the women in our country. The new lessons of co-operation and of
selfless devotion, learned from this book will, I confidently predict,
within a few months, be translated into action by the Women's War
Service Committees in every state of our land.

And the greatest lesson of all is that women and men must work
together in this new world. I count it an honour--being a man--to be
asked to introduce Miss Fraser in this way to the American public.
For my part I would have no separate women's division, except such
as concerns the tasks exclusively for women. I would have women side
by side with men in every division of labour, working out the task
with equal fidelity, equal authority, and equal rewards. One of the
results of this amazing age is going to be the new comprehension,
understanding, and sympathy of the one sex for the other.

H.N. MacCRACKEN.
Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York.
January 11, 1918.

* * * * *

The women of all the allies are one in this great struggle. Our hopes
and our fears, our anxieties and our prayers, our visions and our
desolations, are the same.

Our work is the same task of supporting and sustaining the energies of
our men in arms and of our nations at home. All the allied women know
more of each other than they ever did before, and this is all to the
good.

The task of women in this struggle and in the reconstruction to come
after, are great tasks, and the world needs in every country not only
the wisdom and knowledge of its own women but the strength in them
that comes from being one of a great world-wide group and conscious of
the unity of all women.

Anything that can help to that unity and understanding seems to me of
great value, and this record is written for American women in the hope
it may be of some small service.

H.F.
December 25, 1917.

* * * * *

THE SPIRIT OF WOMEN

"I have no fear nor shrinking. I have seen death so often that
it is not strange or fearful to me.... I thank God for this
ten weeks' quiet before the end. Life has always been hurried
and full of difficulty. This time of rest has been a great
mercy. They have all been very kind to me here. But this I
would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I
realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred
or bitterness towards anyone."

--EDITH CAVELL's last message.

* * * * *

CHAPTER I

THE SPIRIT OF WOMEN

TO WOMEN

Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts
That have foreknown the utter price,
Your hearts burn upward like a flame
Of splendour and of sacrifice.

For you too, to battle go,
Not with the marching drums and cheers,
But in the watch of solitude
And through the boundless night of fears.

And not a shot comes blind with death,
And not a stab of steel is pressed
Home, but invisibly it tore,
And entered first a woman's breast.

From LAWRENCE BINYON's "For the Fallen."

The spirit of women in this greatest of world struggles cannot, in
its essence, be differentiated from the spirit of men. They are one.
The women of our countries in the mass feel about the issues of this
struggle just as the men do; know, as they do, why we fight, and like
them, are going on to the end. The declarations of our Government as
to conditions for peace are ours, too, and when we vote, we shall show
the spirit of women is clearly and definitely on the side of freedom,
justice and democracy.

Our actions speak louder than any words can ever do, and the record
of our women's sacrifices and work stand as great silent witnesses to
our spirit. There is nothing we have been asked to do that we have not
done and we have initiated great pieces of work ourselves. The hardest
time was in the beginning when we waited for our tasks, feeling as
if we beat stone walls, reading our casualty lists, receiving our
wounded, caring for the refugees, doing everything we could for the
sailor and soldier and his dependants, helping the women out of work,
but feeling there was so much more to do behind the men--so very much
more--for which we had to wait. We did all the other things faithfully
and, so far as we could, prepared ourselves and when the tasks came,
we volunteered in tens of thousands, every kind of woman, young, old,
middle-aged, rich and poor, trained and untrained, and today we have
1,250,000 women in industry directly replacing men, 1,000,000 in
munitions, 83,000 additional women in Government Departments, 258,300
whole and part-time women workers on the land. We are recruiting women
for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps at the rate of 10,000 a month and
we have initiated a Women's Royal Naval Service. We have had the help
of about 60,000 V.A.D.'s (Voluntary Aid Detachment of Red Cross) in
Hospitals in England and France, and on our other fronts, in addition
to our thousands of trained nurses.

The women in our homes carry on--no easy task in these days of
shortages in food and coal and all the other difficulties, saving,
conserving, working, caring for the children, with so many babies
whose fathers have never seen them, though they are one to two years
old, and so many babies who will never see their fathers.

Some of our women have died on active service, doctors, nurses and
orderlies. Our most recent and greatest loss is in the death of Dr.
Elsie Inglis, the initiator of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, who
died on November 26th, three days after she had safely brought back
her Unit from South Russia, which had been nursing the Serbians
attached to the Russian army.

One who was with her at the end writes, "It was a great triumphant
going forth." There was no hesitation, no fear. As soon as she knew
she was going, that the call had come, with her wonted decision of
character, she just readjusted her whole outlook. "For a long time I
_meant_ to live," she said, "but now I know I am going. It is so nice
to think of beginning a new job over there! But I would have liked to
have finished one or two jobs here first!"

She told us the story of the breaking of their moorings as they lay in
the river in a great storm of wind and of how that breaking had saved
them from colliding with another ship. "I asked," she said, "what had
happened." Someone said "Our moorings broke." I said, "No, a hand cut
them!" Then, after a moment's silence, with an expression in face and
voice which it is utterly impossible to convey, she added, "That same
Hand is cutting my moorings now, and I am going forth!" The picture
rose before you of an unfettered ship going out to the wide sea and of
the great untrammelled, unhindered soul moving majestically onwards.

[Illustration: MISS EDITH CAVELL]

[Illustration: DR. ELSIE INGLIS]

There was no fear, no death! How could there be. She never thought of
her own work--she knew unity. "You did magnificently," was said to her
within an hour of her going. With all her wonted assurance and with a
touch of pride she answered, "My Unit did magnificently."

Her loss is irreparable to us, but there is no room for sorrow. She
leaves us triumph, victory, and peace.

Edith Cavell's name is another that shines upon our roll of
honour--the same serene great spirit--no thought of self, but only a
great love and desire to serve--and a great fearlessness. Her message,
before she went out alone at dawn to her death, which added another
stain to the enemy's pages dark with blood, was the message of one who
saw the eternal verities, the things worth living and dying for.

Our men's Roll of Honor is a heavy Roll. We have lost in killed and
permanently out of the army, a million men and over 75 per cent of our
casualties are our own Island losses. Our women in every village and
in every city street have lost husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers and
friends. From every rank of life our men have died, the agricultural
labourer, the city clerk, the railway man, the miner, the engineer,
the business man, the poet, the journalist, the author, the artist,
the scientist, the heirs of great names, many of the most brilliant
of our young men. We comb out our mines and shipyards, and factories,
ceaselessly for more men. Our boys at eighteen go into the army.
From eighteen to forty-one every man is liable for service. Our
Universities have only a handful of men in them and these are
the disabled, the unfit, and men from other countries. Oxford and
Cambridge Colleges are full of Officers' Training Corps men. The
Examination Schools and the Town Hall at Oxford are Hospitals, and
Oxford and Cambridge streets are full of the blue-clad wounded, as
are so many of our cities. We are a nation at war, and at war for over
three years and everywhere and in everything we are changed.

In these years we women have lived always with the shadow of the war
over us--it never leaves us, night or day. We do not live completely
where we are in these days. A bit of us is always with our men on our
many fields of war. We live partly in France and Flanders, in Italy,
in the Balkans, in Egypt and Palestine and Mesopotamia, in Africa,
with the lonely white crosses in Gallipoli, with our men who guard us
sleeping and waking, going down to the sea in ships and under the sea,
fighting death in submarines and mines, and with those who in the air
are the eyes and the winged cavalry of our forces.

We mourn our dead, not sadly and hopelessly, though life for many of
us is emptier forever, and for many so much harder, and we wear very
little mourning. We mourn silently, and with a sure faith that our
men's supreme sacrifice is not in vain. "Greater love hath no man
than this, that he lay down his life for his friend." The little white
crosses of our graves symbolize the faith for which they die.

The message of our soldier poets who have been created by this war
and have written immortal verse, and many of whom have died, is the
message of men who have seen through the veils of time into eternity,
who are free of life and death, whom nothing can hurt, "if it be not
the Destined Will."

The veils of time grow thin in these days to those of us who take
Death into our reckoning all the time. We think of our men gone on
ahead as eternally young.

"Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines before our tears.

* * * * *

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the Sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

We know, too, though we do not often define it, that the forces we
women fight in the enemy are the forces that have left women out in
world affairs.

Germany is the Fatherland, never, it is significant, the Motherland
as our little Islands are, and its mad dream of militarism and
_Weltmacht_ is the dream of men who deny any constructive part to
women in the great affairs of life. The hopes of all the democracies
are bound up in this struggle and its issue, and there is no real
place in the world for the true service and genius and work of women,
any more than for that of the mass of men, save in democracy. We mean
so much in these days by democracy. It seems to be indefinable in its
larger meanings. It is not a system of government, but, on the other
hand, no country can be called democratic that has not established
political freedom, and no country is truly democratic in which such
freedom is only in name, and its women are not included or a group
rule or the demagogue and the worst kind of politician hold sway.

Democracy is not here till all serve and all are given opportunities
so that they have something of value to give to their country and
to the world. Democracy is the ever changing, ever developing, ever
creative spirit of man expressing itself in his institutions and
systems of government and relationships.

Its quarrel with our enemies, who would impose on the mass of men
cast-iron systems, and would set up state idols to be worshipped as
higher than the Conscience and spirit of man, is so profound and goes
so deeply into knowledge and feelings that are too big for words, that
the soldier who never tries to express it but goes out and drills and
works and disciplines himself that he may present his body as a living
shield for the faith that is within him, and the woman who works with
him and behind him, healing and giving, silently, are perhaps wisest
of all.

It is no time for words only, though right words are mighty powers,
but for living faith in deeds and the spirit of the women of all our
allied countries is swift to answer the challenge--by their works
shall ye know them.

The spirit of our women shows, like that of the French women who
tend their farms, keep their shops, work ceaselessly everywhere, most
clearly and wonderfully in their work. In our hundreds of hospitals
night and day, they care for the wounded and the sick and the dying,
bringing consolation, love, skill, heroism, patience and all fine
things as their gift. From myriads of homes they pour forth to
their daily toil, carrying on the work of the country, educating the
children, taking the place of their men on the railways, the factory,
the workshop, the banks and offices. In the munition works, in the
shipyards, in the engineering shops, in the aeroplane sheds, they
work in tens of thousands--risking life and health in some cases,
but thinking little of it, compared with what their men are doing,
knee-deep in snow and mud and water in the trenches. "Is the work
heavy?" you ask. "Not so heavy as the soldiers'." "Are the hours
long?" "Six days and nights in the trenches are longer." "We are going
to win and you are going to help us"--and the munition girl and the
land girl and the workers answer not only with cheers and words but
answer with shells and ships and aeroplanes and submarines and food
produced and conserved, and in industrial tasks done by men and women
together.

The enemy airships and aeroplanes bomb our cities but our girls "carry
on"--no telephone girl has left her post--there have been no panics in
our workshops.

And the spirit of the Waac--the khaki girl--is the spirit of her
brother.

On one occasion in France in an air raid, enemy bombs came very near
some girl signallers. They behaved splendidly and someone suggested
it should be mentioned in the Orders of the Day. "No," said the
Commanding Officer, "we don't mention soldiers in orders for doing
their duty,"--and that tribute to their attitude is deserved and the
right one.

And, like our men, we carry on cheerfully, knowing there is only one
possible end, victory. We fight for the sanctity of the given word,
for honour, for the rights of individuals and nations, for the ideals
that have preserved humanity from barbarism, for the right of service,
for the salvation of common humanity.

More, we women work with a feeling in our hearts that we, who bear
and cherish life, and to whom its destruction is most terrible, have
a great work to do and a great part to play in the settlement of the
problem of war in the future.

The transmutation of the struggles of mankind from the physical to the
spiritual, the solution of national and international problems, the
solution of all the riddles of life that demand an answer or man's
conquest, cannot be done by man alone. It is our task also and to
the great work of building up a new world after we emerge from this
crucible of fire in which the souls of the nations are being tested,
the spirit of women has much to bring.

ORGANIZATION AND ITS PITFALLS

"The more they gazed, the more their wonder grew
That one small head could carry all she knew."

CHAPTER II

ORGANIZATION AND ITS PITFALLS

There are people who declare that the winning of this war depends on
organization alone. That is palpably untrue. Good organization can do
much. The greatest thing in all organizations is the living flame that
makes grouping real--the selfless spirit of service that the fighting
man possesses and that is beyond all words of praise.

Talk to a soldier or a sailor, realize how he thinks and
feels about his ship, his battalion, his aircorps. He is
subordinated--selfless--disciplined. The secret of the good soldiers'
achievements and his greatness is selfless service and in our national
organizations behind him that same spirit is the one great thing that
counts.

If you have that as a foundation among your workers, organization is
easy.

We found, at the beginning of the war, a great tendency among women to
rush into direct war work. Masses of women wanted to leave work they
knew everything about to go and do work they knew nothing about.
One thing we have realized, that the trained and educated woman is
invaluable, that the best service you can render your country is to do
the work you know best and are trained for, if it is, as it frequently
is, important civic work. Another point, no younger woman should stop
her education or training--it is the greatest mistake possible. The
war is not over and even when it is, the great task of reconstruction
lies ahead and we want every trained woman we can get for that. Our
women are in Universities and Colleges in greater numbers than ever,
and more opportunities for education, in Medicine in particular have
been opened to them.

The trained woman makes the best worker in practically every
department and is particularly useful in organizing. A scheme that
is only indifferently good but, so far as it goes, is on right lines,
well organized and directed, will be more valuable and get far better
results than a perfect scheme badly organized and run. An organization
or a committee that has a woman as Chairman, President or Secretary,
who insists on running everything and deciding everything for herself,
is bound for disaster.

I should certainly place the will and ability to delegate authority
high up in the qualifications a good organizer must possess.

We cannot afford to have little petty jealousies, social, local, and
individual, on war committees or any other for that matter, but in
this big struggle, they are particularly petty and unworthy.

We have all met frequently the kind of person who tells you, "This
village will never work with that village," or "Mrs. This will never
work with Mrs. That. They never do"; and I always answer, "Isn't it
time they learned to, when their boys die in the trenches together,
why shouldn't they work together," and they always do when it is put
to them.

There is no difficulty in getting women to work together in our
country. We have a link in our Roll of Honor that is more unifying
than any words or arguments or appeals can be. Our women of every rank
of life are closely drawn together.

The appeal to women is to organize for National Service and to realize
that work of national importance is likely not to be at all important
work.

The women in important places in all our countries will be few in
proportion, but the struggle will be won in the Nation, as in the
Army, by the army of the myriads of faithful workers faithfully
performing tasks of drudgery and quiet service--and a realization of
this is the greatest need.

Sticking to the work is of supreme importance. We do not want people
who take up something with great enthusiasm and drop it in a few
months. Nothing is achieved by that.

The good organizer sees her workers do not "grow weary in well doing."

Another important work in organization is to prevent waste of
material, effort and money, by co-ordination whenever possible,
though I should say, as a broad principle, co-ordination should not
be carried to the point of merging together kinds of work that make
a different appeal for work and money and require different treatment
and knowledge and powers. The best results are reached by securing
concentration of appeal and organization on one big issue and getting
the work done by a group directly and keenly interested in the one big
thing and with enthusiasm for it and knowledge of it.

In the personnel of committees and their composition our women have
made it a definite policy to secure the appointment of women to all
Government and National Committees on which our presence would be
useful and on which we ought to be represented and we always prefer
committees of men and women together, unless it be for anything that
is distinctly better served by women's committees.

There is one pitfall in organization into which women fall more
readily than men in my experience. Our instinct as women is to want
to make everything perfect. We instinctively run to detail and to a
desire for absolute accuracy and perfection.

This is invaluable in many ways, but in organizing on a big scale
may be a serious fault. There must, of course, be method, order
and accuracy, but the great essential to secure in big things is
harmonious working--not to insist on a rigid sameness but to allow for
widely divergent views and attitudes and ways of doing things so long
as the essential rules are observed. We should not insist too much
on identity in the way of work of different places and districts.
In essentials--unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things,
charity--that might well be the wise organizer's motto.

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