I issued an order early in the war that women be given preference in appointments to clerical positions in the Navy. This released men for military duty. The war taught that the Navy was dependent upon woman's deftness not only to prevent "lack of woman's nursing," but also in multifarious duties, including assembling parts for torpedoes and other war munitions. Upon a visit to the Newport Torpedo Station, I found women in overalls at work, putting together parts of torpedoes made there. They were so capable and showed such skill that scores were enabled to do, and to do excellently, a character of work formerly done exclusively by men. Not a few of them were school teachers, who, feeling the compulsion for war-work, shared the feeling of the wealthy woman in Washington, who, applying for a position in the gun factory at Washington, said:
"I can knit at night. If I cannot fight, I wish something to do where I can feel I am really in the war, helping to make guns or torpedoes or other real instruments of war—a job that is hard, and where labor in the heat and burden of the day taxes all my strength."
She was a sister in spirit of the many women who worked in munition plants, fashioning rifles, dressed in overalls, faces begrimed, proud that they were thus helping on with the war. If there had been need, many more would have gone into the shops, glad to tax their strength for the cause in which their very souls were enlisted.
Not only does the world owe a lasting debt of gratitude to women who served, in shops, in the Navy Department, in factories making naval aircraft, at navy bases, in work for the Army, but likewise the larger number, who in their homes and communities and in welfare work at home and abroad, dedicated their hands and spirit to the varied war activities. Their most notable organized duties were in the Red Cross and the Young Women's Christian Association. A story of the benefactions of the Red Cross is chiefly the story of woman's work and woman's ministrations. With the mothers of our fighting forces, they constituted in truth the irresistible first line of defense and offense which would have held to the last against all odds. They furnished the basis of what, for lack of a better name, we called morale—the will to win—without which ships and guns and fighting machinery never yet won a battle. A Woman's Advisory Committee on Naval Auxiliaries to the Red Cross War Council rendered patriotic and useful service.
The Government early found the necessity for the organization and direction of women in war work, and the Council of National Defense set up a Woman's Council, headed by that great woman of statesmanship and vision, the late Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. The women who composed this Council, in addition to Dr. Shaw, were Mrs. Philip N. Moore, Mrs. Josiah E. Cowles, Miss Maude Wetmore, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. Antoinette Funk, Mrs. Stanley McCormick, Mrs. Joseph R. Lamar, Miss Ida M. Tarbell, Miss Agnes Nestor, Mrs. Ira Couch Wood, secretary. Under the direction of this Woman's Council the women of America were mobilized for war work in all parts of America. Women were found, wholly enlisted, with their counsel and labors and sacrifice, wherever men planned or fought or died. Some gave their lives, many gave their health, all gave complete consecration.
CHAPTER XXXII
COAST GUARD WON DISTINCTION
ESCORTING CONVOYS BETWEEN GIBRALTAR AND ENGLAND, CUTTERS MADE NOTABLE RECORD—"TAMPA" SUNK, WITH ALL HER GALLANT OFFICERS AND MEN—"SENECA" SAVED SURVIVORS OF "COWSLIP" AND "QUEEN"—COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY AND LIGHTHOUSE SERVICE DID FINE WORK.
The Coast Guard automatically came under control of the Navy when war was declared. Its vessels, its trained officers and men proved a valuable addition to our forces, and rendered notable service in various areas and in many lines of activity, at home and abroad.