Of this the Inger understood nothing. What could she be talking about, when the United States was to go to war at once?
“... it is because women understand that this is so, that we have been able so to come together. Not a month ago the word went out. Yet every state in the United States is represented here in Washington to-day by from one to five hundred women. And no one has talked about it. No one has wondered or speculated. We are here because the time has come.”
And now the Inger thought he understood. They were here to help! The time had come—war was here—they had come here to be ready, to collect supplies, to make bandages....
“... seven women from seven of the warring nations of Europe,” the quiet voice went on, “and women of the other states of Europe answered our appeal, and they are here. They will speak to us to-night—and they are to go from state to state, helping all women to understand.”
Women from the warring nations! The Inger looked eagerly. They had been there, they had seen, they had cheered their husbands and sons. Some of them must have lost their men—of course they could tell the American women what to do.
The first woman, however, was not of a warring country. She was a woman of Denmark. And she was of the same quiet manner and conversational speech.
She said: “During the first day of the war an old man said to me, sad and indignant: ‘To me it is quite unintelligible that citizens of the twentieth century consent to be driven like sheep to the shambles.’ And truly, only a fraction of those involved in the war did intend the war. To them and to us it was a surprise that will repeat itself in history as long as war is declared without the consent of the people, as long as war depends on secret notes and treaties.
“Where can we find a way to prevent another happening of these terrors? Can women possibly have any chance of succeeding where men have recently failed so miserably?
“I came from Denmark to say to you that women have better opportunities than anybody else for creating public opinion—the opinion that grows stronger with the coming race. Women give the next generation its first impressions.
“And the mother must give her children another idea than the armed warrior. Let her show them how unworthy it is of the citizen of the twentieth century to be used, body and blood, without will or resistance, as food for cannon....”[2]