A soldier's mother in France

by Rheta Childe Dorr

But what becomes of individual effort? it is suggested. We want to do something more than give money. We want to give personal service. Of course. I should like to see women in the United States in the same close personal touch with the government and with the army and navy as the women of England are. I should like to see over here an organization of women like the British Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, the “Wacks” as they are called. These women are regularly enlisted members of the army. They sign up for the duration of the war, they are under the war ministry, they are subject to discipline, they have their own officers, a uniform, they live in barracks and they are paid by the government.

The “Wacks” are organized to take the places of men who are needed to fight. They do all kinds of clerical work, they cook, wait on table at officers’ mess, they have charge of supplies, they have almost entirely taken over the signal branch, telephoning and telegraphing and the like. There really seems to be little that the “Wacks” haven’t taken over in the way of civilian tasks. They even assist the veterinarians in taking care of sick and wounded horses and mules.

There are about twenty thousand women in this branch of the British service. Some of them work in Great Britain and others in France. Often they have served under fire, and always with great bravery. The telephone and telegraph operators have been cited for coolness and devotion to duty under shell fire and air raids. Great Britain is proud of her Women’s Auxiliary Army.

She is proud also of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, known as the “Wrens,” of the great land army of women who work on farms and help feed the country and the army in France. Altogether there are over a million women in Great Britain who have signed up for government controlled war work.

I talked with General Pershing about the possibility of organizing women in America to release men for the trenches. I told him that it distressed me to see men in uniform working at card indexes, sorting mail, pounding typewriters and attending to telephones. He said that it was only a question of time before some of this work, at least, would be taken over by women.

“I know that we shall have to have women telephone operators,” said the commander. And within a few months the first women telephonists were actually in France.

General Pershing told me at the close of our conversation that he should, if consulted, recommend that the work of our women be begun at home, in the cantonments. That strikes me as an excellent idea.

Women ought to be signed up for clerical work, garden work and especially for housekeeping work in all the cantonments. A uniform is absolutely necessary, and the women should be officered and disciplined by women. They should take over most tasks not actually military, thus releasing officers and men to drill. In this way the work of speeding up a huge army would be greatly accelerated.

Our army in the cantonments and in the field abroad is very well fed, but there is no standard which has to be maintained in all the regiments. If a company has a good mess sergeant the food is good, well selected, well cooked and served. If it has a poor mess sergeant the food is abundant but not well cooked or served.

If the officers of a regiment are as zealous, thoughtful and resourceful as they ought to be the men are as well taken care of as they would be at home. I have in mind as a model officer a young first lieutenant, a Yale man, in command of a company of negro stevedores, at one of the great ports which we are using in France.