Women and War Work — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Women and War Work
John Stuart Mill · en
"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.