WAR WORK OF MRS WOODROW WILSON

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 61, 6 December 1918, Page 2

WAR WORK OF MRS WOODROW WILSON

HELPING THE AVAR MACHINE.

Writing of Mrs. Woodrow TV' l ! work in war-time, a corrcspoiulent oi the "Queen" says that to-day the White ouse has no social eide to its existence and Mrs. Wilson has been concerned to set an example of thrift in «U<k«to -in entertaining and, tho matte ot equipage and olothes, in food, amuse; m "rife md the like. "This U.tho timo, he, husband said, "for America to cor- ■ «ct her unpardonable habit of waste ul- , new ami extravagance.. It s, tlieie- , fore Mrs Wilson's mission to bring bach. , ber iKope-n0,0f10,000 of them-lo mmSor Sards'of living. Thta »*«>«- fy for the sake of the Alliwl nabt», . whose cause in this wans .too ; Anieiica's and whose need of wheat and meats fits and fuel-oil, is very great. "WoVe. in fact, eating at a common (able with them," .vns President Wilsi message to' V through .his lood Controller, .Mr. Herbert Hoove,. \iul as a result, food valued at no less than .0280,000000 was shipped to tho Allied countries last joar out of Amer ica's teeming abundance, fcv enthewild beasts of the Now York Zoo nio H«n erising" now; and tho tame WW nations out West have tabled thoir « and stock production, as_wdl as meat, in? over JC2.000.000 in Liberty llonrts. Natura y, tho First Lady plays a prominent part in all this new discipline, Xchis so foreign to the American a it" and standards of yesteryear Women are extraordinarily mutative over there-as the "grands niagasins of Paris knew to their year y profit, lheie aw fashions in clubs and duties,, as we 1 win entertainments ond dress. Mrs. Wilson has .declared, with no uncertain voice, that all ostentation is more vulgarity, until Humanity's War is-as tho Resident 6 ays-"worthi y won, and tho world reconstructed after this unparalleled upheaval. , . Now tho "say-so" of the First I.od> has enormous weight. What she doe , whom she praises; her 1 ' hints and pleas, all are flashed acioss : tl,o continent and published in thousands of the keenest newspapers in the [ world Mrs. Wilson's "Rave an ounce, (of sugar) each day,", has already meant a stoc!; of 1,185,000 tons for the new National! Armies, and their brotherwnarms in the field. . . Again, her hint about a maximum of 21b of shortening in tho kitchen-vCße-iablo oil-as against 01b. winch was tho old avora-e has released 100,000,00011, of lard in the year. Then Mrs. Wilson has interested herself in tho sale> of Liberty lionds. with t!ic result that millions o American families now hold Government securities who never held them before. "Saving-stamps" offer new inducements to the American child; and that child s mother knows more than she did about the value of coal, and also how kitchen K nrbage-r>o,ooo tons of it yearly in Was hin»ton alone-can be converted into "iirm, first-quality pork,' or (by the wizardry of science) into wheat and even powder charges for the Allied guns. In her great campaign for American simplicity and thrift—the " hnifnchkei and "Sparsamkeit" of. the. teuton oth-ers-Mrs. Wilson lias had i> ablest guidance, and loaflcts go out in her name to tens of millions of women. One bel'oro me as 1- write ehows (lie German Emperor pursued by a tjigandc c-xan hen who is, of course, America s ally in the'grcal tug-of-war. . Mrs. Wilsons crusado against waste has had a really wonderful effect; and States Ihrco times «s large as England havo hastened to send her particulars of now and ingenious measures whic.li have quite transformed their social life and ways. Never again will visitors, like the Indian poet Kubindranath Tagoro. brand tho United States' as the most reckless of nations in this regard. First of all-thanks lnrgely to White House example—luxuries are taboo, whether in the form of costly pictures and works of art, Paris frocks, hats and lingerie, jewels, and the like. Then far lo«s meat is in one month the Stale, of Indiana reported a saving ol lillii 0001b. And the nuiveniont gathers way, with the First Lady, iw its head, setting a pattern to all. and pictured to millions on "the movies" receiving deputations and devising new ideas in the Bureau of Information at Washington.