Americanization. The chairman, Mrs. Bagley, continued her report of the preceding year of the work in connection with the Councils of Defense of the several States "by means of the local machinery of the various suffrage organizations." She urged the teaching of English to aliens as the first step in Americanization, with emphasis on the point that the immigrant women must not be left out. "This Americanization is a function peculiarly appropriate to suffragists," she said, "as a woman married to an alien must herself forever remain an alien unless her husband becomes a citizen, and as the States enfranchise women hundreds of thousands will still be left without the vote. Every married alien whom suffragists help to take out naturalization papers means not only a vote for him but also for his wife.
During the convention in December, 1917, the plan for Oversea Hospitals was presented to the delegates by Mrs. Charles L. Tiffany of New York, at the request of Mrs. Catt, the national president, to whom the matter had been suggested by the action of the Scottish Suffrage Societies in sending to France in 1914 the Scottish Women's Hospitals, units managed and staffed entirely by women, and was accepted. Mrs. Tiffany was made chairman of the Hospital Committee and Mrs. Raymond Brown director of the work in France. At the convention of March, 1919, in St. Louis, Mrs. Brown made a full report, from which the following is an extract.
"At its convention in 1917 the National Suffrage Association, as part of its war work, agreed to support a hospital unit in France and undertook to raise $125,000 for its maintenance for a year. This unit was already in process of organization by a group of women physicians of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and was to be composed entirely of women. Since the U. S. Government does not accept women in its Medical Reserve Corps, and at that time neither it nor the Red Cross was sending women surgeons for service abroad, the unit was offered to the French Government, which accepted it by cable. The first group of the unit sailed on Feb. 17, 1918, and expected to establish a hospital for refugees in the devastated area. Before they could be installed the villages to which they had been assigned were taken in a new drive by the Germans and about half the group, headed by Dr. Caroline Finley, was suddenly called upon for hospital service within the war zone. The hospital to which they were assigned was evacuated before they could reach it and they were finally placed in Chateau Ognon, a few miles north of Senlis on the road to Compiègne.
"Soon after the first group was sent into the war zone, the French Government asked the remainder of the unit to go to the Department of Landes in the south of France in order to establish there a hospital for refugees. The Germans were still advancing and as the refugees poured into the south the government was trying to build villages of barracks for them. When Dr. Alice Gregory with a group of fifteen women, including a carpenter, plumber, chemist and chauffeur, reached Labouheyre, early in April, a site had still to be found for the hospital and the buildings were still to be built, furnished and equipped. The barracks were erected in due time by the government; the equipment was the gift of the American Red Cross; the planning, directing purchasing and installing were done by our women. Dr. Marie Formad was finally put in charge. Later, at the request of the French Service de Sante, a 300-bed hospital unit for gas cases was organized by the Women's Oversea Hospitals and was started on its way from America to France. This was the first hospital unit exclusively for gas cases and had a personnel solely of women. Its principal group in Lorraine cared for 19,307 cases in three months."
The Oversea Hospitals service was divided and sent from point to point to answer the many demands of war, having charge of hospitals and treating tens of thousands of cases. "With the signing of the Armistice," Mrs. Brown's report said, "the great problem in France became the care of refugees and repatriates, who were returning at the rate of thousands a day, most of them utterly destitute and in need of medical care, to homes in many cases completely destroyed." The hospital and dispensary service was therefore continued. Dr. Finley and her group were sent to Germany and here met the returned prisoners of war, who were in desperate condition.
"The work of the Oversea Hospitals has been handled with great economy," the report said, "and has cost less than was anticipated, both because of the large amount of volunteer work and because the units in French military hospitals received French rations. The State suffrage organizations have contributed most generously." A list was furnished of the trucks and ambulances given by the women's organizations in the United States. "The total number of women sent to France with the hospitals was seventy-four, who came from all parts of the United States. Several of the doctors received the French equivalent of a commission; three obtained the Croix de Guerre and two were decorated with the Medaille d'Honneur."
The report of Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers, treasurer of the National Association, given at the convention, stated that funds for the hospitals service to the amount of $133,340 had passed through her hands. Their disbursement, carefully audited, is published in the Handbook of the association for 1918, page 111.
At the annual convention of the National Suffrage Association held in Chicago, in February, 1920, the report of Mrs. Rogers stated that Oversea Hospitals funds to the amount of $178,000 had passed through the treasury and a balance of $35,000 remained. (See Handbook, page 116.) The question of the disposition of this balance was put to the convention, which voted that it be divided equally between the work in France of the Women's Oversea Hospitals and the American Hospital for French Wounded in Rheims. Mrs. Tiffany, chairman of the committee, and Mrs. Brown, director in France, made a final report to the convention, stating that the work in France was continued until September 1, 1919, in order to care for the French disabled soldiers, and to maintain hospitals, dental clinics, dispensaries, ambulances, motor cars, etc. Such work proceeded in connection with the American Fund for French Wounded. The principal group was transferred from Lorraine to Rheims in April, with Dr. Marie Lefort still in charge. On September 1, with its mission finished, the hospital and all its equipment were presented to the American Fund for French Wounded. The Mayor sent a letter to Dr. Lefort which said in part: "The Municipality of Rheims would like to express to you and the Women's Oversea Hospitals its profound gratitude for the splendid assistance you have given our population. France and the city of Rheims are deeply moved." The full equipment of the smaller hospital groups was given to the French government for its own hospital service. Dr. Caroline Finley returned to the U. S. in August, still a Lieutenant in the French Army. The Prince of Wales, who was in New York, invited her on board H. M. S. Renown, where he conferred on her the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her work at Metz, where British prisoners stricken with influenza were cared for as they arrived from German prison-camps.
This ends the story of the Women's Oversea Hospitals, for which the National Suffrage Association willingly raised nearly $200,000 at the crisis in its own fifty-year movement. Desks for suffrage work were vacant over all the country while their occupants were cheerfully giving their best service to the demands of the war. For the vast majority this took the forms indicated by the above committee reports. In addition there were the activities of money-raising; caring for children and other dependents; safeguarding public health; the usual tasks of nursing and other Red Cross work; the distribution of food administration pledge cards, the organizing of food committees in all townships under the direction of district captains, with "clean-up" days and "elimination of waste" days in counties; canning demonstrations throughout communities; alloting and directing garden plots; holding normal training schools to teach gardening; making collections for the Red Cross and other war funds, with countless other activities. Liberty Bonds in the second, third and fourth campaigns to the amount of one-fourth of the total sales were disposed of through the National Suffrage Association, its State branches and women throughout the country.