Part 3

"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 towards children is the rule. The child for weal or woe is in the complete control of its parents, and corporal punishment is allowed in the schools. The grim saying, "Saure Wochen, frohe Feste," seems to express the pedagogic philosophy. The only trouble is that nature does not give this attitude her sanction, for Germany reveals to us that figure, the most pathetic in life, the child suicide.

The man responding to his stern upbringing is in turn cruel to his inferiors, and full of subterfuge in dealing with equals. He is at home in the intrigues which have startled the world. In such a society the frank and gentle go to the wall, or--get into trouble and emigrate. We have profited--let us not forget it--by the plucky German immigrants who threw off the yoke, and who now have the satisfaction of finding themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder with the men of their adopted country to free the Fatherland of the taskmaster.

The philosophy of might quite naturally reflects itself in the education of girls. Once when I visited a Höhere Töchter Schule, the principal had a class in geometry recite for my edification. I soon saw that the young girl who had been chosen as the star pupil to wrestle with the pons asinorum was giving an exhibition of memorizing and not of mathematical reasoning. I asked the principal if my surmise were correct. He replied without hesitation, "Yes, it was entirely a feat in memory. Females have only low reasoning power." I urged that if this were so, it would be well to train the faculty, but he countered with the assertion, "We Germans do not think so. Women are happier and more useful without logic."

It would be difficult to surpass in its subtle cruelty the etiquette at a military function. The lieutenant and his wife come early,--this is expected of them. For a few moments they play the role of honored guests. The wife is shown by her hostess to the sofa and is seated there as a mark of distinction. Then arrive the captain and his wife. They are immediately the distinguished guests. The wife is shown to the sofa and the lieutenant's little Frau must get herself out of the way as best she can.

My speculation, often indulged in, as to what would happen if the major's wife did not move from the sofa when the colonel's wife appeared, ended in assurance that a severe punishment would be meted out to her, when I heard from an officer the story of the way his regiment dealt with a woman who ignored another bit of military etiquette. A débutant, once honored by being asked to dance with an officer at a ball, must never, it seems, demean herself by accepting a civilian partner. But in a town where my friend's regiment was stationed a very pretty and popular young girl who had been taken, so to speak, to the bosom of the regiment, danced one night at the Kurhaus early in the summer season with a civilian, distinguished, undeniably, but unmistakably civilian. The officers of the regiment met, weighed the mighty question of the girl's offense, and solemnly resolved never again to ask the culprit for a dance. I protested at the cruelty of a body of men deliberately turning a pretty young thing into a wall-flower for an entire season. The officer took my protest as an added reason for congratulation upon their conduct. They meant to be cruel. My words proved how well they had succeeded.

Another little straw showing the set of the wind: we were sitting, four Americans, one lovely early summer day, in a restaurant at Swinemünde. We had the window open, looking out over the sea. At the next table were some officers, one of whom with an "Es zieht," but not with a "by your leave," came over to our table and shut the window with a bang. The gentleman with us asked if we wanted the window closed, and on being assured we did not, quietly rose and opened it again. No one who does not know Prussia can imagine the threatening atmosphere which filled that café.

We met the officers the same night at the Kurhaus dance. They were introduced, and almost immediately one of them brought up the window incident and said most impressively that if ladies had not been at the table, our escort would have been "called out." We could see they regarded us as unworthy of being even transient participants of Kultur when we opined that no American man would accept a challenge, and if so unwise as to do so, his womenfolk would lock him up until he reached a sounder judgment! The swords rattled in their sabres when the frivolous member of our party said with a tone of finality, "You see we wouldn't like our men's faces to look as if they had got into their mothers' chopping bowls!"

Although I had often lived months on end with all these petty tyrannies of the mailed fist, and although life had taught me later that peoples grow by what they feed upon, yet when I read the Bryce report, German frightfulness seemed too inhuman for belief. While still holding my judgment in reserve, I met an intimate friend, a Prussian officer. He happened to mention letters he had received from his relatives in Berlin and at the front, and when I expressed a wish to hear them, kindly asked whether he should translate them or read them in German as they stood. Laughingly I ventured on the German, saying I would at least find out how much I had forgotten. So I sat and listened with ears pricked up. Some of the letters were from women folk and told of war conditions in the capital. They were interesting at the time but not worth repeating now. Then came a letter from a nephew, a lieutenant. He gave his experience in crossing Belgium, told how in one village his men asked a young woman with her tiny baby on her arm for water, how she answered resentfully, and then, how he shot her--and her baby. I exclaimed, thinking I had lost the thread of the letter, "Not the baby?" And the man I supposed I knew as civilized, replied with a cruel smile, "Yes--discipline!" That was frank, frank as a child would have been, with no realization of the self-revelation of it. The young officer did the deed, wrote of it to his uncle, and the uncle, without vision and understanding, perverted by his training, did not feel shame and bury the secret in his own heart, but treasured the evidence against his own nephew, and laid it open before an American woman.

I believed the Bryce report--every word of it!

And I hate the system that has so bent and crippled a great race. Revenge we must not feel, that would be to innoculate ourselves with the enemy's virus. But let us be awake to the fact that might making right cuts athwart our ideals. German Kultur, through worship of efficiency, cramps originality and initiative, while our aim--why not be frank about it!--is the protection of inefficiency, which means sympathy with childhood, and opportunity for the spirit of art. German Kultur fixes an inflexible limit to the aspirations of women, while our goal is complete freedom for the mothers of men.

The women of the Allies can fight for all that their men fight for--for national self-respect, for protection of citizens, for the sacredness of international agreements, for the rights of small nations, for the security of democracy, and then our women can be inspired by one thing more--the safety and development of all those things which they have won for human welfare in a long and bloodless battle.

Women fight for a place in the sun for those who hold right above might.

Evidence and Documents laid before the Committee on Alleged German Outrages. Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., London. 1915.]

WINNING THE WAR

The group of nations that can make the greatest savings, will be victorious, counsels one; the group that can produce the most food and nourish the populations best, will win the war, urges another; but whatever the prophecy, whatever the advice, all paths to victory lie through labor-power.

Needs are not answered in our day by manna dropping from heaven. Whether it is food or big guns that are wanted, ships or coal, we can only get our heart's desire by toil. Where are the workers who will win the war?

We are a bit spoiled in the United States. We have been accustomed to rub our Aladdin's lamp of opportunity and the good genii have sent us workers. But suddenly, no matter how great our efforts, no one answers our appeal. The reservoir of immigrant labor has run dry. We are in sorry plight, for we have suffered from emigration, too. Thousands of alien workers have been called back to serve in the armies of the Allies. In my own little village on Long Island the industrious Italian colony was broken up by the call to return to the colors in Piedmont.

Then, too, while Europe suffers loss of labor, as do we, when men are mobilized, our situation is peculiarly poignant, for when our armies are gone they are gone. At first this was true in Europe. Men entered the army and were employed as soldiers only. After a time it was realized that the war would not be short, that fields must not lie untilled for years, nor men undergo the deteriorating effects of trench warfare continuously. The fallow field and the stale soldier were brought together.

We have all chanced on photographs of European soldiers helping the women plough in springtime, and reap the harvest in the autumn. Perhaps we have regarded the scene as a mere pastoral episode in a happy leave from the battle front, instead of realizing that it is a snapshot illustrating a well organized plan of securing labor. The soldiers are given a furlough and are sent where the agricultural need is pressing. But the American soldier will not be able to lend his skill in giving the home fields a rich seed time and harvest. The two needs, the field for the touch of the human hand, and the soldier for labor under calm skies, cannot in our case be coördinated.

Scarcity of labor is not only certain to grow, but the demands upon the United States for service are increasing by leaps and bounds. America must throw man-power into the trenches, must feed herself, must contribute more and ever more food to the hungry populations of Europe, must meet the old industrial obligations, and respond to a whole range of new business requirements. And she is called upon for this effort at a time when national prosperity is already making full use of man-power.

When Europe went to war, the world had been suffering from depression a year and more. Immediately on the outbreak of hostilities whole lines of business shut down. Unemployment became serious. There were idle hands everywhere. Germany, of all the belligerents, rallied most quickly to meet war conditions. Unemployment gave place to a shortage of labor sooner there than elsewhere. Great Britain did not begin to get the pace until the middle of 1915.

The business situation in the United States upon its entrance into the war was the antithesis of this. For over a year, depression had been superseded by increased industry, high wages, and greater demand for labor. The country as measured by the ordinary financial signs, by its commerce, by its labor market, was more prosperous than it had been for years. Tremendous requisitions were being made upon us by Europe, and to the limit of available labor we were answering them. Then into our economic life, with industrial forces already working at high pressure, were injected the new demands arising from changing the United States from a people as unprepared for effective hostilities as a baby in its cradle, into a nation equipped for war. There was no unemployment, but on the contrary, shortage of labor.

The country calls for everything, and all at once, like the spoiled child on suddenly waking. It must have, and without delay, ships, coal, cars, cantonments, uniforms, rules, and food, food, food. How can the needs be supplied and with a million and a half of men dropping work besides? By woman-power or coolie labor. Those are the horns of the dilemma presented to puzzled America. The Senate of the United States directs its Committee of Agriculture to ponder well the coolie problem, for men hesitate to have women put their shoulder to the wheel. Trade unionists are right in urging that a republic has no place for a disfranchised class of imported toilers. Equally true is it that as a nation we have shown no gift for dealing with less developed races. And yet labor we must have. Will American women supply it, will they, loving ease, favor contract labor from the outside, or will they accept the optimistic view that lack of labor is not acute?

The procrastinator queries, "Cannot American man-power meet the demand?" It can, for a time perhaps, if the draft for the army goes as slowly in the future as it has in the past.

However, at any moment a full realization may come to us of the significance of the fact that while the United States is putting only three percent of its workers into the fighting forces, Great Britain has put twenty-five percent, and is now combing its industrial army over to find an additional five hundred thousand men to throw on the French front. It is probable that it will be felt by this country in the near future that such a contrast of fulfillment of obligation cannot continue without serious reflection on our national honor. Roughly speaking, Great Britain has twenty million persons in gainful pursuits. Of these, five million have already been taken for the army. The contribution of France is still greater. Her military force has reached the appalling proportion of one-fifth of her entire population. But we who have thirty-five million in gainful occupations are giving a paltry one million, five hundred thousand in service with our Allies. The situation is not creditable to us, and one of the things which stands in the way of the United States reaching a more worthy position is reluctance to see its women shouldering economic burdens.

While it is quite true that shifting of man-power is needed, mere shuffling of the cards, as labor leaders suggest, won't give a bigger pack. Fifty-two cards it remains, though the Jack may be put into a more suitable position. The man behind the counter should of course be moved to a muscular employment, but we must not interpret his dalliance with tapes and ribbons as proof of a superfluity of men.

The latest reports of the New York State Department of Labor reflect the meagerness of the supply. Here are some dull figures to prove it:--comparing the situation with a year ago, we find in a corresponding month, only one percent more employees this year, with a wage advance of seventeen percent. Drawing the comparison between this year and two years ago, there is an advance of "fifteen percent in employees and fifty-one percent in wages;" and an increase of "thirty percent in employees and eighty-seven percent in wages," if this year is compared with the conditions when the world was suffering from industrial depression. The State employment offices report eight thousand three hundred and seventy-six requests for workers against seven thousand, six hundred and fifty applicants for employment, and of the latter only seventy-three percent were fitted for the grades of work open to them, and were placed in situations.

The last records of conditions in the Wilkes-Barre coal regions confirm the fact of labor scarcity. There are one hundred and fifty-two thousand men and boys at work today in the anthracite fields, twenty-five thousand less than the number employed in 1916. These miners, owing to the prod of the highest wages ever received--the skilled man earning from forty dollars to seventy-five dollars a week--and to appeals to their patriotism, are individually producing a larger output than ever before. It is considered that production, with the present labor force, is at its maximum, and if a yield of coal commensurate with the world's need is to be attained, at least seventy percent more men must be supplied.