"Business as usual" expressed the fine spirit, the courage, the determination of a people. As the sporting motto of an indomitable race, it was very splendid. But war is not a sport, it is a cold, hard science, demanding every energy of the nation for its successful pursuit. In proportion as our indulgence in luxury has been greater than that of any European nation, our challenge to every business must be the more insistent. There must be a straight answer to two questions: Does this enterprise render direct war service, or, if not, is it essential to the well-being of our citizens? But the discipline will not come from the gods. Nor will our government readily turn taskmaster. The effort must come largely as self-discipline, growing into group determination to win the war and the conviction that it is impossible to achieve victory and conserve the virility of our people, if any considerable part of the community devotes its time, energy and money to creating useless things. A nation can make good in this cataclysm only if it centers its whole power on the two objects in view: military victory, and husbanding of life and resources at home. Let me hasten to add that the act of creating a thing does not include only the processes of industry. The act of buying is creative. The riot of luxury trades in the United States will not end so long as the American woman remains a steady buyer of luxuries. The mobilization of women as workers is no more essential to the triumph of our cause, than the mobilization of women for thrift. The beginning and end of saving in America rests almost entirely in the hands of women. They are the buyers in the working class and in the professional class. Among the wealthy they set the standard of living. Practically every appeal for thrift has been addressed to the rich. I am not referring to the supply of channels into which to pour savings, but to appeals to make the economies which will furnish the means to buy stamps or bonds. Those appeals are addressed almost wholly to the well-to-do, as for example, suggestions as to reducing courses at dinner or cutting out "that fourth meal." Self-denial, no doubt, is supposed to be good for the millionaire soul, but to such it is chiefly recommended, I think, as an example sure of imitation. What the rich do, other women will follow, is the idea. But the steady insistence that we fight in this war for democracy has put into the minds of the people very definite demands for independence and for freedom. In such a democratic world the newly adopted habits of the wealthy will not prove widely convincing. Economy needs other than an aristocratic stimulus. [Illustration: How can business be "as usual" when in Paris there are about 1800 of these small workshops where a woman dips Bengal Fire and grenades into a bath of paraffin!]