“War time (Mrs. Willsie said) is woman’s time to show the stuff she is made of. This war is going to take the ‘fluff’ out of feminism in America just as it did in England. It’s”—hesitation and a twinkling eye—“it’s going to blow the foam off the feminist beer!” [A good figure, that, for feminism has certainly been something yeasty, something brewing, and with a little hop in it!] “I hope the war is going to make American women realize the importance of being women, and the chance that it gives them to mold the coming generation.
“As I see it there are two things American women can do—one abstract and one concrete. They can teach children in this time of national stress what it means to be Americans, and in that way form the Americans of the future; and they can mobilize their resources and offer them to the government. Like all abstract things, the first is the more difficult.
“Women have got to get down from pink teas to brass tacks! If the average woman would only stop to realize just how important it is to be a woman! Why, woman’s business is not only the bringing into the world of the coming generation, but the molding of that generation’s ideals. American men are too busy making a living to give much time to the children—it’s the women who teach them at home and at school. And they ought to be taught what it means to be Americans as well as being taught religion and morals, or grammar and geography.
“But here’s the rub! To teach children that, a woman has got to realize what it means herself. How many do?
“I hope more women realize it than men—that is, than the men I’ve asked. Several years ago I started out asking all sorts of men ‘What is an American?’ I asked ‘Bohunks’ and ‘Guineas’ at work on street construction, I asked American men in every walk in life—and what do you suppose I got as an average answer? That an American was a man who knew how to get rich quick!
“This war has shown us that taking out naturalization papers, or even being born here, doesn’t necessarily make an American. We’ve found out that the melting pot doesn’t always melt. To be an American you must have a certain philosophy of government, and only a thoughtful person can have a philosophy at all. If you are going to be a true American, you’ve got to think things out! You’ve got to come to an understanding of the big ideals on which the men who founded this country built.
“Every American who does that develops a paradox. He finds first that he has a sense of freedom and equality, and then he arrives at a feeling of responsibility. That latter feeling has been very evident among thinking Americans since the beginning of the European war, and it is particularly evident now.
“It’s up to American women, then, to think out what it means to be Americans before they attempt to teach their children—or some one else’s children—what it means. I wish that we might have an American litany—a national creed that mothers and teachers could give to our children! I wish that every American child might be brought to understand the state of mind of the men who wrote and signed our Declaration of Independence—a state of mind compounded of utter bravery, the spirit of self-sacrifice, and a devotion to cause and country that made them literally offer up their ‘lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.’
“Now do you see why I said the abstract thing women have a chance to do is the hard thing? But if it is the more difficult, I believe it is also the more important.
“As for the concrete thing, that is already being done to a certain extent. Women have begun offering their services to the government through their various organizations, but they ought to do it more completely. If we are to have universal service for men, we ought to have a variety of universal service for women—at least a mobilization of the resources of all the women in the country. I believe that women here in America will get the vote out of this war as women are getting it in England, but American women will have to show, as English women have done, that they are worthy of the vote.