SPLENDID AMERICAN WOMEN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 95, 15 January 1918, Page 2

SPLENDID AMERICAN WOMEN

1,000,000 MOBILISED

A HIGH STANDARD OF EFFICIENCY

Writing from New York under date October 9, 6. Ivy Saunders says:— Walking down Madison Avenue (one of Now York's famous highways) a few. days ago I was attracted to a large house, No. 57, by the continual coming and going of women in khaki. Up and down the brown stone steps they hurried, obviously intent upon earliest 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, and engraved nn the portals were the enlightening words: "Headquarters of the Women's League of National Service."

I entered, and found the largo hall, with its handsome, wide, open staircase filled with women eager to. euro! for service, with women busy upon various tasks—typewriting, a&ireii&itig, envelopes, and parking 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 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 workin vast continent, so remote from the actual scenes of war, was practically confined to the conservation of food and the knitting of comforts. Instead, I find over a million women enrolled in the AVonien's League of National Service, which has as its watchword, "What English women 'iavo done, American women will do." And yet this is hut-one—though a very important one—of the many women's organisations in the country. Hundreds more'are working for-the Red Cross, on the Mayor's Committee, the Special Aid Committee, and for tho Navy League. Legion are the organisations formed to direct and utilise the feminine energy of the country, and countless are" the services they are rendering. The three thousand odd miles intervening between the battlefields of Europe and the United States have been bridged by 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 and sweethearts, and they, too,_ have como forward to nssist in the winning of tho war by relieving men for the battlefields, li.y caring for the troops at home and overseas, and by offering their willing services to the. industries of the country.

All these things they arc doing through the "Women's League of Kr.tional Service, and the various existing organisations, over a hundred of which uso the league as a clearing house to co-ordinate their war-time efforts. The league itself, in addition to its central organisation in New "York, has State snd local branches and working detachments in every part of the TJniied States, and is perfectly organised.

Speaking of organisation, it is very [{ratifying to us women of England to know that our American Bisters turned to the Motherland for the basis of their plan of mobilisation, and that our own Y.A.D. has been the. foundation on which their wonderful work lias 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 (ittod. 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 v(i\s;i. This has brought about a nigh standard of efficiency. It entirely eiiniuates the dissipation of feminine energies which was unfortunately mi apparent in our own country during the first two years of the war.