Starvation has swept across wide areas, and steady underfeeding rules in every country in Europe and in the cities of America, letting loose malnutrition, that hidden enemy whose ambushes are more serious than the attacks of an open foe. The world is sick.
And the world is poor. The nations have spent over a hundred billions on the war, and that is but part of the wealth which has gone down in the catastrophe. Thousands of square miles are plowed so deep with shot and shell and trench that the fertile soil lies buried beneath unyielding clay. Orchards and forests are gone. Villages are wiped out, cities are but skeletons of themselves. In the face of all the need of reconstruction we must admit, however much we would wish to cover the fact,--the world is poor.
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A useful blending of Allied women. Miss Kathleen Burke (Scotch) exhibiting the X-ray ambulance equipped by Mrs. Ayrlon (English) and Madame Curie (French)
And still, as in no other war, the will to guard human welfare has remained dominant. The country rose to a woman in most spirited fashion to combat the plan to lower the standards of labor conditions in the supposed interest of war needs. With but few exceptions the States have strengthened their labor laws. In its summary the American Association for Labor Legislation says:
"Eleven States strengthened their child labor laws, by raising age limits, extending restrictions to new employments, or shortening hours. Texas passed a new general statute setting a fifteen-year minimum age for factories and Vermont provided for regulations in conformity with those of the Federal Child Labor Act. Kansas and New Hampshire legislated on factory safeguards, Texas on fire escapes, New Jersey on scaffolds, Montana on electrical apparatus, Delaware on sanitary equipment, and West Virginia on mines. New Jersey forbade the manufacture of articles of food or children's wear in tenements.
"Workmen's compensation laws were enacted in Delaware, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah, making forty States and Territories which now have such laws, in addition to the Federal Government's compensation law, for its own half-million civilian employees. In more than twenty additional States existing acts were amended, the changes being marked by a tendency to extend the scope, shorten the working period, and increase provision for medical care."
The Great War, far from checking the movement for social welfare, has quickened the public sense of responsibility. That fact opens the widest field to women for work in which they are best prepared by nature and training.
Many keen thinkers are concerned over the question of population. One of our most distinguished professors has thrown out a hint of a possibility that considering the greater proportion of women to men some form of plurality of wives may become necessary. The disturbed balance of the sexes is a thing that will right itself in one generation. Need of population will be best answered by efforts to salvage the race. The United States loses each year five hundred thousand babies under twelve months of age from preventable causes. An effort to save them would seem more reasonable than a demand for more children to neglect. Life will be so full of drive and interest, that the woman who has given no hostages to fortune will find ample scope for her powers outside of motherhood. The "old maid" of tomorrow will have a mission more honored and important than was hers in the past.