One feels the weight of the German system. Patient women shoulder double burdens. They always did.
In the Post and Telegraph department there is an army of fifty thousand women. The telephone service is entirely in their hands, and running more smoothly than formerly. Dr. Käthe Schirmacher declares comfortingly in the Kriegsfrau that "one must not forget that these women know many important bits of information--and keep silent." Women have learned to keep a secret!
One hundred and eighty nurses, experts with the X-ray, were in the front line dressing stations in the early days of the war, and before a week of conflict had passed women were in the Field Post, and Frau Reimer, organizer of official chauffeurs, was on the western line of attack.
Agriculture claims more women than any occupation in Germany. They were always on the farm, perhaps they are happier there now since they themselves are in command. It is said that "the peasants work in the boots and trousers of their husbands and ride in the saddle." War has liberated German women from the collar and put them on horseback!
But strangest and most unexpected of all is the professional and administrative use of women. The government has sent women architects and interior decorators to East Prussia to plan and carry through reconstruction work. Over a hundred--to be exact, one hundred and sixteen at last accounts--have taken the places of men in administrative departments connected with the railways. Many widows who have shown capacity have been put in government positions of importance formerly held by their husbands. Women have become farm managers, superintendents of dairy industries, and representatives of landed proprietors.
The disseminating of all instruction and information for women on war economies was delegated to the League of Women's Domestic Science Clubs. The Berlin course was held in no less a place than the Abgeordnetenhaus, and the Herrenhaus opened its doors wide on Rural Women's Day when Agricultural Week was held at the capital.
When the full history of the war comes to be written, no doubt one reason for Germany's marvelous power to stand so long against the world will be found in her use of every brain and muscle of the nation. This has been for her no exclusive war. Her entire people to their last ounce of energy have been engaged.
And this supreme service on the part of German women seeks democratic expression. From them comes the clearest, bravest word that has reached us across the border. The most hopeful sign is this manifesto from the suffrage organizations to the government: "Up to the present Germany has stood in the lowest rank of nations as regards women's rights. In most civilized lands women already have been given a large share in public affairs. German women have been granted nothing except within the most insignificant limits. In New Zealand, Australia and most American States, and even before the war in Finland and Norway, they had been given political rights; to-day, Sweden, Russia and many other countries give them a full or limited franchise. The war has brought a full victory to the women of England, Canada, Russia and Denmark, and large concessions are within sight in France, Holland and Hungary.
"Among us Germans not only the national but even the commercial franchise is denied, and even a share in the industrial and commercial courts. In the demand for the democratization of German public life our legislators do not seem even to admit the existence of women.
"But during the war the cooperation of women in public life has unostentatiously grown from year to year until to-day the number of women engaged in various callings in Germany exceeds the number of men.