Mobilizing Woman-Power | Page 3

endless and
ruinous wars in the future, or else a world despotism which would
mean the atrophy of everything that really tends to the elevation of
mankind.
Mrs. Blatch has herself rendered a very real service by this appeal that
women should serve, and that men should let them serve.
Theodore Roosevelt

I
OUR FOE
The nations in which women have influenced national aims face the
nation that glorifies brute force. America opposes the exaltation of the
glittering sword; opposes the determination of one nation to dominate
the world; opposes the claim that the head of one ruling family is the
direct and only representative of the Creator; and, above all, America
opposes the idea that might makes right.
Let us admit the full weight of the paradox that a people in the name of
peace turns to force of arms. The tragedy for us lay in there being no
choice of ways, since pacific groups had failed to create machinery to
adjust vital international differences, and since the Allies each in turn,
we the last, had been struck by a foe determined to settle disagreements
by force.
Never did a nation make a crusade more just than this of ours. We were
patient, too long patient, perhaps, with challenges. We seek no
conquest. We fight to protect the freedom of our citizens. On America's

standard is written democracy, on that of Germany autocracy. Without
reservation women can give their all to attain our end.
There may be a cleavage between the German people and the ruling
class. It may be that our foe is merely the military caste, though I am
inclined to believe that we have the entire German nation on our hands.
The supremacy of might may be a doctrine merely instilled in the
minds of the people by its rulers. Perhaps the weed is not indigenous,
but it flourishes, nevertheless. Rabbits did not belong in Australia, nor
pondweed in England, but there they are, and dominating the situation.
Arrogance of the strong towards the weak, of the better placed towards
the less well placed, is part of the government teaching in Germany.
The peasant woman harries the dog that strains at the market cart, her
husband harries her as she helps the cow drag the plough, the petty
officer harries the peasant when he is a raw recruit, and the young
lieutenant harries the petty officer, and so it goes up to the highest,--a
well-planned system on the part of the superior to bring the inferior to a
high point of material efficiency. The propelling spirit is devotion to
the Fatherland: each believes himself a cog in the machine chosen of
God to achieve His purposes on earth. The world hears of the Kaiser's
"Ich und Gott," of his mailed fist beating down his enemies, but those
who have lived in Germany know that exactly the same spirit reigns in
every class. The strong in chastizing his inferior has the conviction that
since might makes right he is the direct representative of Deity on the
particular occasion.
The overbearing spirit of the Prussian military caste has drilled a race
to worship might; men are overbearing towards women, women
towards children, and the laws reflect the cruelties of the strong
towards the weak.
As the recent petition of German suffragists to the Reichstag states,
their country stands "in the lowest rank of nations as regards women's
rights." It is a platitude just now worth repeating that the civilization of
a people is indicated by the position accorded to its women. On that
head, then, the Teutonic Kultur stands challenged.
An English friend of mine threw down the gauntlet thirty years ago.

She had married a German officer. After living at army posts all over
the Empire, she declared, "What we foreigners take as simple
childlikeness in the Germans is merely lack of civilization." This keen
analysis came from a woman trained as an investigator, and equipped
with perfect command of the language of her adopted country.
"Lack of civilization,"--perhaps that explains my having seen again and
again officers striking the soldiers they were drilling, and journeys
made torture through witnessing slapping and brow-beating of children
by their parents. The memory of a father's conduct towards his little son
will never be wiped out. He twisted the child's arm, struck him
savagely from time to time, and for no reason but that the child did not
sit bolt upright and keep absolutely motionless. The witnesses of the
brutality smiled approvingly at the man, and scowled at the child. My
own protest being met with amazed silence and in no way regarded, I
left the compartment. I was near Eisenach, and I wished some good
fairy would put in my hand that inkpot which Luther threw at the devil.
Severity