by Amy Stewart
mrs. winters (snappishly): Yes, I’m aware of Mr. Bielaski. That won’t be necessary.
miss kopp: Then I’ll look forward to a word from her when she’s released. I thank you for your service to the country.
At that, Mrs. Winters rang off. I await a telegram from a newly liberated Fleurette. If I don’t have one by morning, I’ll set off for Camp Sherman myself.
I can’t thank you enough for your intervention. You said on the telephone that you’d come to have some misgivings about these local committees, and now I understand why.
Will wire with news from Fleurette as soon as it arrives, but I’ll post this for now so you’ll have it for your records.
With everlasting gratitude,
Constance A. Kopp
Telegram from Fleurette to Constance
September 6, 1918
SHE TOOK HER SWEET TIME BUT I AM FREE LETTER TO FOLLOW
Maude Miner to Constance
September 7, 1918
Dear Miss Kopp,
It was with great relief that I received your wire informing me that Fleurette had been released, followed shortly by your letter, which told me all that I had suspected about Mrs. Winters and doings in Ohio.
I’m sorry to say that what happened to Fleurette is exceptional only in that she was so quickly set free. As you might imagine, any other girl in her circumstance would have been detained for whatever period of time the local committee deemed appropriate—and you know as I do that weeks can stretch into months, and months into years.
When I was first called to Washington to work with the War Department on a role for women, I had in mind exactly the sort of work your sister Norma is doing in France, or your service for the Bureau, or any of the more routine tasks, from stenography to switchboard, that women might capably perform.
But after the war commenced—just as you and I parted at the National Service School—it became apparent that the War Department had something else in mind entirely when they talked of women’s affairs. Mr. Fosdick took charge of the Commission on Training Camp Activities, and asked me to lead the women’s division. I did have hope that there would be something in the way of actual useful training for women in his plans.
That isn’t at all what Mr. Fosdick had in mind. His concern was centered entirely on the behavior of girls living and working near the men’s camps, and—more to the point—for the safety of the men themselves, who must be sent into war in fighting form, healthy of body and moral of spirit.
At first, I didn’t object. You and I have both done this sort of work with girls. We know that it’s no small task to keep them on the right path. It’s perfectly true that girls are drawn to a man in uniform. At a dance not long ago in New York, half the men were National Guardsmen and the other half were new draftees, attending in their civilian clothes. Those not in uniform hardly danced all evening, while the Guardsmen had their pick of dancing partners. Such is the glamour of the uniform.
What we must do is to give these girls an occupation. I proposed a division for women and girls that would include the training of women workers, a war service league for women and girls who wished to be of use, educational programs, an industrial division to support women who work in the camps, and—yes—a protective bureau staffed by local matrons, with houses of detention and reformatories.
Before you blame me for the proliferation of these reformatories, remember that the Army camps are mostly located away from large cities. The small towns nearby have no facilities of any kind for girls. Anyone arrested would be thrown in the town jail, with (most likely) no woman on duty. We had to anticipate that and be ready with an alternative.
I’m sorry to say that it was only the protective work and detention facilities that attracted any interest—and money—at all. Fear-mongering took over, particularly among the old-timers who still remember the War Between the States, and the moral degeneracy and disease that the camps fostered in those days.
We also battle endlessly against salacious rumors. A story circulated recently that fifty girls became pregnant within the vicinity of a training camp. I investigated myself and found no truth to it, but the rumors persist.
The punitive aspect of this program—which has taken over, and is now all that’s left—is directed entirely at the girls. No soldier receives punishment for his part in any illicit behavior. Isn’t it strange that it’s called a Protective Committee, when the entire emphasis is on the protection of the soldier? I’ve seen the interests of the girl subordinated entirely.
You asked on the telephone if I had any idea how many girls might’ve been detained since the war began. I should have the answer, but I don’t. These local committees are hardly accountable to me. They’ve taken on a life of their own. I tell you with shame that the number has to be in the thousands, and more likely in the tens of thousands, if you believe (as I do, as I must do), that some are detained only briefly and released, along the lines of what happened to Fleurette.
President Wilson has just approved an outrageous sum to build more detention centers and reformatories. States are passing laws making it explicitly legal to detain a suspected party until he or she can be shown to be free of social diseases—but in practice, it is of course never the men who are detained. Instead every woman arrested for any transgression is now subject to medical examination and testing against her will. If you can believe it, our own Congress has put a million dollars toward a civilian quarantine and isolation fund.
This is more than you asked to know. In writing to you I’ve unburdened myself, at least for the moment. The truth is that I don’t know how much longer I can put my name to an effort that I so wholly oppose, but if I leave, who will stand up for our girls?
Yours,
Maude Miner
Fleurette to Constance
September 7, 1918
C—
Please take this letter directly over to Helen when you’re through with it—I can’t bear to write out this tale of woe twice.
I don’t know what Mrs. Winters told you, but every word of it is untrue. I’ve never met a more mean-spirited, unreasonable woman. She looks at an unaccompanied girl and sees a prostitute—or, at best, a charity girl, who trades dinners and stockings for special favors. As if any of these soldiers have a nice dinner or a pretty trinket on offer!
Well, the girls in that detention center are not those kinds of girls, at least, not the ones I met. I spent two nights there, and had a chance to talk to everyone in my dormitory. I know you’ll believe me when I tell you that these are ordinary girls, many of them working in their families’ businesses—you know the little stalls that crop up around the camps, selling candies, cigarettes, and the like. Naturally the girls fall into the company of soldiers. There are thirty thousand men here—one can’t help but meet a few of them!
And there are romances—the girls confessed that readily enough. It isn’t easy to find a secluded place—you must imagine rows and rows of the most ordinary wooden barracks and tents, stretching all the way to the horizon, with nothing like a nook or a cranny in which to hide. Couples go out into the countryside, following the old roads at the edge of camp, but of course those places are well-known to the Mrs. Winterses of the world. Several of the girls here were rousted from some secluded love-nest behind a tree, as they scrambled to put themselves back together . . . well, you can picture the scene.
It hardly need be said that the man is never punished. The girl is forced into an auto and driven to a detention center, while the man is left to stroll back to camp, whistling a tune.
Call it immoral if you like, but is it illegal? And if it is illegal, when is the trial? What attorney defends the girl in court? A few of the girls were startled to even have the idea put before them like that. Everyone seems to accept that if a girl is caught, she’ll go away. Of course, a few of them are pregnant, or found to be diseased—but why must they be made to suffer either condition in jail?
And it is like a jail. The food is worse t
han what your inmates ate in Hackensack, the blankets are thin, and there’s nothing in the way of books or pictures or even a window to look out of. Everyone is sick and miserable: half the girls had a stomach ailment, or a cough, or something that looked awfully like the ’flu. A nurse comes but once a week. I picked up a sniffle myself, which is to be my souvenir of Camp Sherman. It’s settling into my throat now, and quite liking the accommodations.
You’ll naturally want to know what I did to get myself locked up, so I’ll stop putting it off and confess: It’s true that I was out after curfew, and that I was still in costume. The costume was only an ordinary dancing frock, and I had reason to be out late.
May Ward had another one of her nights that night—you know what I mean by that—and we were obliged to practically carry her out of the theater. She refuses to stay at camp. Usually there’s a man to drive her back to her hotel after the show. But we couldn’t find the man, and Mrs. Ward didn’t recall his name. We waited around for an hour, and asked everyone who passed by, but it was beginning to look like we’d have to smuggle her into the Hostess House for the night.
Just as we were about to abandon hope, the fellow came strolling up, easy as could be, having found himself a card game to wile away the hours. He seemed to have no idea that he had an obligation to collect Mrs. Ward promptly following curtain call. It’s entirely possible that she never told him. She’s not known for managing practicalities.
Never mind—we were happy to see him at all, and poured May into his back seat with great relief. I was by then so wound up after being on the receiving end of Mrs. Ward’s barbarism all evening (she is not a polite drunk these days) that I just wanted a few minutes to myself before retiring.
So I strolled—not far! Only a block or two, by city standards—and stopped to answer a question put to me by a soldier. We spoke in a friendly manner for just a minute. He’d been in the audience that night and asked the most ordinary questions—how do we find Camp Sherman, what other camps have we visited and do I prefer one over the other, where will we go next and when—that sort of talk was the sum of it. But along came Mrs. Winters with her walking-stick and her iron grip—and you know the rest.
The soldier, by the way, behaved honorably. He came to my defense, insisted that he’d stopped me, not the other way around, and that he was only offering to escort me back, as curfew had passed. (He hadn’t in fact offered to escort me, but I appreciated the lie.) In spite of his efforts, Mrs. Winters hauled me off to her detention house.
Charlotte passed a frantic night with no idea of my whereabouts. I convinced Mrs. Winters to send word to her and to let her visit, so that she could take down a note to my family. Charlotte ran right over, and dispatched the telegram to you immediately.
I suppose you must’ve telephoned or wired, but Mrs. Winters didn’t let on at first. She kept me another night, for good measure, and gave me reason to think she might transfer me to the state home (the implication being, I assume, that no older sister at the Bureau of Investigation could secure my release from a state home). I was left to worry and fret over this, and also to wonder what would become of me if the troupe moved on without me.
At the last possible second, Mrs. Winters told me that you’d intervened. She set me free under a barrage of stern warnings. I ran back to the Hostess House, to find that the troupe had in fact already left for Chicago. The lovely and loyal Charlotte stayed behind, though. Clutched in her hand were two train tickets, secured from Mrs. Ward only after the entire troupe threatened to quit if she abandoned me entirely. There’s a remarkable spirit that develops when you travel with a group of chorus girls. I suppose it’s not unlike a band of soldiers. I hope I never have to kill a German for one of them, but I would certainly try.
Charlotte had made all the arrangements, and we were spirited off to the train station. I was not sorry to put Camp Sherman behind me.
We’ve just arrived in Chicago, where we are at last housed in a decent hotel. It’s my turn for a hot bath, which I very much hope will tame the throbbing in my head and the scratch in my throat.
Don’t worry about me! I’m in the very best of company, and I’ll be entirely well in a day or two. You can be sure that I will not set foot outdoors after sundown, nor speak to a member of the opposite sex, as long as I live, or rather, as long as Mrs. Winters lives.
We have three more weeks of bookings at the eastern camps, then a break at home. I’ll send the date when I have it.
You know I’m just sorry sorry sorry for the trouble this might’ve caused and hope I didn’t worry you overmuch.
Love and home soon,
F.
Telegram from Constance to Fleurette
September 10, 1918
STAY IN BED OR COME HOME AT ONCE IF YOU ARE SERIOUSLY ILL YOU DID NOT EXPLAIN ABOUT THE BIRD HELEN KNEW BUT WOULD NOT TELL ME
Fleurette to Helen
September 11, 1918
Dearest Helen,
Greetings from what I once would’ve called a shabby hotel room, but that was before I spent weeks at a time living in Army camps. This place is the Ritz, as far as the Eight Dresden Dolls are concerned. We enjoy hot baths, tea brought up to our rooms, and the most delicious clean white sheets, changed daily if we demand it (and I do).
Did Constance show you my letter? I left out the worst part, because it concerned Laura. You didn’t tell Constance about Laura, did you, you darling discreet girl? And I know how she can trick one into telling the truth—I know it better than anyone! She won’t approve of my acquiring a parrot, so why bother her with it?
Laura, poor dear, had a more dreadful ordeal than I did at the detention center. At the time of my capture (I refuse to call it an arrest, for there was no police officer present), I had Laura on my shoulder. Our tiny room at the Hostess House is windowless and airless, and as I am obliged to keep her hidden from both Mrs. Ward and the ladies who run the house, I was afraid Laura was practically suffocating. She’s a bird—she wants the wind and the sky and the sun. I took her out that night so that we could both have a breath of fresh air, and so that she could stretch her wings and have a look around at the world.
The soldier who stopped me was, of course, intrigued by the bird—more intrigued by her than he was by me, which you will understand when you meet Laura—and when Mrs. Winters grabbed me, I thought at first to give Laura to him, and to ask him to sneak her into the Hostess House. But it was after curfew already. He’d never be allowed inside.
I did beg Mrs. Winters, during our brief struggle, to allow me to return Laura to my room before I was taken away. (I expected, at that moment, to be locked up in a little office as Bernice had been. I didn’t know that Camp Sherman was equipped with a detention house right on its grounds.)
Mrs. Winters refused. An inability to listen to reason is her chief personality trait. But when we arrived at the detention house, the problem became clear to her. She wasn’t about to allow Laura to stay with me, but where was she to keep a bird?
Now, why do you suppose Mrs. Winters didn’t simply open a window and set her free, the way George Simon’s aunt threatened to do? Would you believe that it was a legal argument, not a matter of compassion, that won the day? The detention center has very strict rules about the storage of girls’ property, and the return of said property to the girl upon release, or to her family if she is not to be released and is instead to rot in jail all her life. (That isn’t quite how Mrs. Winters put it, but rotting away for life was most definitely implied.)
I argued that Laura was property, and that she was quite a rare bird of some value, and that she was, in fact, not my property but the property of a young private just shipped off to France. I said that she had no authority to simply open a window and toss out the valuable possession of a soldier.
I won on that admittedly bureaucratic point, but at great cost: if Mrs. Winters didn’t hate me before, she hated me then. She agreed with a snort of resentment to turn Laura over to “my designated representative�
� at the earliest possible hour of the morning. I also insisted on being allowed to send a letter to my family, “so they don’t go to the police and report me kidnapped,” which is why I was allowed ten minutes to write a note to you and a telegram to Constance.
With that, Laura was put into a wooden crate in the storage room for the night. (Oh, that poor bird! How I suffered for her all those terrible dark hours!) In the morning, Charlotte came to fetch her, along with my hastily scribbled notes.
That took care of Laura, for the moment, anyway. But then, as the troupe was readying to depart Camp Sherman without me (and Mrs. Ward was threatening to leave me behind, with neither my wages nor a train ticket to anywhere), Laura’s cage was left uncovered and she gave a whistle loud enough to attract Mrs. Ward’s attention.
I wasn’t there to see it, of course, but I’m told Mrs. Ward turned every shade of purple and demanded that the bird be left behind, along with all of my things. That’s when the girls rallied and insisted that I be allowed to rejoin the troupe—and that Laura be permitted to stay with me—or they would all go home, and leave Mrs. Ward to finish her tour alone.
I’m told that she thought about that at some length, and very nearly took them up on their offer! Fortunately, we were booked in Chicago for three enormous charity concerts. She couldn’t possibly carry those shows on her own. The almighty dollar won the day, and Mrs. Ward relented.
But I’m not allowed on stage as long as Laura remains with me. I am to sit in my room and sew. I’m still nursing the most miserable sore throat, so for the moment, that suits me and Laura just fine. We spend cozy afternoons together, me with my sewing machine and a pile of costumes in need of mending, and her perched atop her cage, watching me curiously and whistling at me from time to time. I can hardly croak out a tune right now, but I do try to whistle back.
