Even when we work hard on our farms raising food to “feed the world,” we are making money for ourselves and the harder we work the more we make, so perhaps we do not deserve so very much credit for the extra effort after all. We are such complex creatures and our motives are nearly always so mixed, that it is easy to deceive ourselves. I know from experience that it is very pleasant to have duty and inclination run hand in hand and to be well paid in cash for doing right.
When we give to the Red Cross, however, it is entirely different. What we give then we do not make a profit on, at least in money. We get nothing in return except a glow of satisfaction and a knowledge that we are actually helping our soldiers at the front and the ill and destitute of the world.
By the sacrifice we make in giving we show our love for humanity; our pity for the helpless and our generosity toward those less fortunate than ourselves.
It is something of which to be very proud when one’s community goes over its allotment for the Red Cross as so many have done. It is another victory over the enemy, for this war is a battle of ideas and standards of life.
Disguise it as we may in concrete terms such as “the restoration of Belgium,” the “rights of small nations” and the “integrity of treaties,” this world war is a world conflict of ideas. This is why the fighting cannot be confined to the battle fronts; why every country is more or less in conflict internally. We are in the midst of a battle of standards of conduct and each of us is a soldier in the ranks. What we do and how we live our everyday lives has a direct bearing on the result, just as each of us will be personally affected by it.
We may have thought that a little selfishness and over-reaching on our part, a breaking of our promised word now and then if it was more convenient; a disregard of the rights of others for our own advantage, did not so much matter and were not so very wrong. Nevertheless it is these same things when done in mass by the German government and armies, that the remainder of the world abhors.
There is a connection between our motives, the way we live our lives here at home, and those vast armies facing each other in a death grapple.
In the thick of battle; under terrific bombardments that shake the earth; in the darkness of night when the poison gas comes creeping; our soldiers are fighting that right shall be the standard of the future instead of might; that the strong shall not take unfair advantage of the weak; that a pledged word and honor shall be considered sacred and shall not be broken.
Are we fighting bravely for these same things all down the line? When “Johnny comes marching home” victorious will he find that we also have won the victory on the home front?
If we are careless of our given word; if we take unfair advantage; if we are deceitful and lustful and cruel; if we spread false reports; if we are malicious and grasping and full of hate instead of kind, open-minded, fair and just, then the Prussian ideas, as insidious as their poison gas, will have vanquished in our own country those ideals for which our armies fight.
This is our battle and must be our victory, for if the standards of life approved by the German government hold the peoples of the earth then, in a different way than was intended but in a very true sense, Germany will have conquered the world.
New Day for Women
Great Responsibilities Will Be Ours after the War
June 5, 1918
How long has it been since you have seen an old maid? Oh, of course, one sees unmarried women every day, but it has been a good many years since I have seen a real “old maid” or “maiden lady.” Even the terms sound strange and lead one back and back into memories. There were old maids when I was a girl. Later some of the older girls protested against being called old maids and insisted on being called “bachelor girls.” There was some controversy over the question of whether women should be given such a title, I remember, but not having any special interest in the subject, I lost sight of it and awakened later to the fact that both old maids and bachelor girls had disappeared, how or when I do not know. In their place are simply women, young women, older women, (never old women), married and unmarried women, divorced women and widows, with the descriptive adjective in the background, but nowhere in the world, I think, are there any old maids.
As one considers the subject, it becomes plain that this one fact contains the whole story and explanation of the change in the world for women, the broadening and enriching of their lives. In the days when old maids flourished, the one important fact in a woman’s life was whether or not she were married and as soon as a girl child reached maturity she was placed in one of two classes and labeled accordingly. She was either Mrs.—or else an old maid.
THE WORLD IS OPEN TO US
As women became more interested in other things; as the world opened up to them its storehouse of activities and absorbing interests; when the fact that a woman was a doctor, a lawyer, a farmer or what not; when her work in and for the world became of more importance to the world than her private life, the fact of whether or not she were married did not receive the emphasis that it formerly did. To be sure, everyone knows that a woman’s most important work is still her children, but other interests enter so largely into her life today that she is not classified solely on the one count. Altho still a vital part of a woman’s life, marriage is not now the end and aim of her existence. There are in the world many, many other ambitions and occupations to take up her attention.
Women are successful lumber dealers, livestock breeders, caterers, curators, bacteriologists, pageant managers, cable code experts and besides have entered nearly every ordinary profession. They have learned and are learning the most advanced methods of farming and scientific dairy management while it has become no uncommon thing for a woman to manage an ordinary farm. The exigencies of the war have thrust women into many new occupations that otherwise they might not have undertaken for many years if ever. Thousands of them have become expert munitions makers and, while we all hope there will be no need for that trade when the present war is ended, still there will be use for the trained technical skill which these women workers have acquired.
Women are running trains, they are doing the work in factories, they are clerks, jurors, representatives in congress and farm help. By the time the war is over most of the economic and industrial systems of the world will be in the hands of the women. Quite likely, too, they will have, thru the ballot, the control of the political governments of the world.
If by an inconceivable turn of fate, Germany should conquer in the struggle now going on, women will be held in control by the military power and without doubt will be again restricted to the home and children, according to the rule laid down by Emperor William defining their sphere of activity, but this we will not permit to be possible.
When the democratic nations are victorious and the world is ruled by the ballot instead of the cannon, there is scarcely a doubt but what women will be included in the universal suffrage. Already the franchise has been given to 6 million women in England. A suffrage amendment to the constitution of the United States missed being brought before congress by only a few votes and there is no doubt but that the women of the United States will soon have the ballot.
In Russia when the revolution occurred, the women took the franchise with the men as a matter of course and without question. In France the old idea that women should rule thru their influence over men is still alive but growing feeble. More and more women and men are coming to stand together on terms of frankness and equality.
WOMEN SHALL RULE
Italy is far behind the other nations in the emancipation of its women, still the women of Italy have a great influence. It was the use of German propaganda among the Italian peasant women that weakened Italy and caused the late reverses there.
We all realize, with aching hearts, that there is a great slaughter of men on the battle fronts and with the sexes about equal over the world before the war, what will be the result when millions of men are killed? When at last the “Beast of Berlin” is safely
caged and the soldiers of freedom return home to settle quietly down into civil life once more, the women are going to be largely in the majority over the world. With the ballot in their hands, they are going to be the rulers of a democratic world.
There is a great deal of speculation about the conditions that will prevail after the war. Nearly all writers and thinkers are looking for a new order, a sort of social and industrial revolution and they all expect it to come thru the returned soldiers. No one, so far as I have found, is giving a thought to the fact that in a free democratic world, the power will be in the hands of the women who have stayed quietly at home working, sorrowing and thinking.
Will we be wise and true and strong enough to use this power for the best, or will we be deceived thru our ignorance or driven on the wrong way by storms of emotion or enthusiasm? We have been privileged to look on and criticize the way the world has been run. “A man-made world” we have called it now and then, implying that women would have done so much better in managing its affairs. The signs indicate that we are going to have a chance to remake it nearer to the heart’s desire. I wish I might be sure that we would be equal to our opportunity.
I suggested this idea of the coming power of women, to a liberal-minded man, a man who is strongly in favor of woman suffrage and he replied: “The women are no more ready for such a responsibility than the people of Russia were; they are ignorant along the lines of government and too uncontrolled in their emotions.”
I wonder if he is right! The majority vote in a Democratic league of nations will be a great power to hold in inexperienced hands; a great responsibility to rest upon the women of the world.
Do the Right Thing Always
June 20, 1918
“It is always best to treat people right,” remarked my lawyer friend.
“Yes, I suppose so, in the end,” I replied inanely.
“Oh of course!” he returned, “but that was not what I meant. It pays every time to do the right thing! It pays now and in dollars and cents.”
“For instance?” I asked.
“Well for the latest instance: a man came to me the other day to bring suit against a neighbor. He had good grounds for damages and could win the suit, but it would cost him more than he could recover. It would make his neighbor expense and increase the bad feeling between them. I needed that attorney’s fee, but it would not have been doing the right thing to encourage him to bring suit, so I advised him to settle out of court. He insisted but I refused to take the case. He hired another lawyer, won his case and paid the difference between the damages he recovered and his expenses.
“A client came to me a short time afterward with a suit worth-while and a good retainer’s fee, which I could take without robbing him. He was sent to me by the man whose case I had refused to take and because of that very refusal.”
Is it possible that “honesty is the best policy” after all, actually and literally? I would take the advice of my lawyer friend on any other business and I have his word for it that it pays to do the right thing here and now.
To do the right thing is simply to be honest, for being honest is more than refraining from short-changing a customer or robbing a neighbor’s hen roost. To be sure those items are included, but there is more to honesty than that. There is such a thing as being dishonest when no question of financial gain or loss is involved. When one person robs another of his good name, he is dishonest. When by an unnecessary, unkind act or cross word, one causes another to lose a day or an hour of happiness, is that one not a thief? Many a person robs another of the joy of life while taking pride in his own integrity.
We steal from today to give to tomorrow; we “rob Peter to pay Paul.” We are not honest even with ourselves; we rob ourselves of health; we cheat ourselves with sophistries; we even “put an enemy in our mouths to steal away our brains.”
If there were a cry of “stop thief!” we would all stand still. Yet nevertheless, in spite of our carelessness, we all know deep in our hearts that it pays to do the right thing, tho it is easy to deceive ourselves for a time. If we do the wrong thing, we are quite likely never to know what we have lost by it. If the lawyer had taken the first case, he might have thought he gained by so doing, for he never would have known of the larger fee which came to him by taking the other course.
Are You Helping or Hindering?
July 5, 1918
A “government of the people, for the people and by the people” can be no better nor greater than the people.
My friend had been telling me a tale of graft and injustice, in relatively high places and she concluded with, “And this is a government of the people, for the people, by the people.” If we could point to no such instances among those more or less in power, it would very plainly not be a government representative of the people, for there are good, bad and indifferent persons among the people and a few who make mistakes now and then.
From town constable to the chief executive, we find good officers, bad officers and those who are negligible, for the people are the government and the government is the people. If we want the one perfect, we must reform the other for I will venture to say that if there were no dishonesty, or grafting or self-seeking among the rank and file of the people, there would be none in any department of government.
I knew of one person in the recent Red Cross drive who bought as cheaply as possible at a Red Cross auction and resold at a profit. There were only a few dollars involved but there was the soul of a profiteer in a person with small means who, tho at the bottom of the social structure financially, is just as obnoxious as the man who makes millions out of the suffering of the world.
Not far from this man lives another who served in the U. S. army all thru the Spanish war and who has never been in good health since. He is entitled to a pension but never has applied for one because, in his own words, he “could make a livin’.” He told me the other day when we happened to meet, that just before the United States went into this war he had decided to ask for his pension but had not done so when war was declared. He said “Then I told my wife that the government would have lots of expenses without paying me a pension and we talked it over and decided that we would not ask for a pension until this mess was straightened out and government expenses were lighter. Then I’d be older if I was alive and I’d ask for a pension. If I was dead my wife could get one. Oh! I wish I could turn things back and be young enough, I’d go and fight!”
This man is just as much a self-sacrificing patriot as George Washington, tho just a humble wood cutter like the great Lincoln. Then between the two extremes of patriotism and slackerism are numbers of indifferently good patriots sacrificing a little, doing the greater part of their duty by their country.
I have heard people who have been inoculated with I. W. W. doctrine say “if this government don’t do right, we will turn it over.” If it were turned over, we would have on top what had before been the bottom and we would perhaps have in power both the man who made money from the Red Cross sale and the one who is going without his pension to help his country. Tho I’ll wager the moneymaker would scheme himself into some place where the graft pickings were good.
We have no king in a republic “who can do no wrong”, no kaiser whom we are bound to regard as infallible with the right to both our minds and our bodies, but from the lowest to the highest we are bound by the same standards; we are sworn to the same ideals and permeated alike with good and evil and all alike we are liable to make mistakes.
When we are tempted to be impatient and too critical of our leaders, we might think as I heard a woman say, “few of us would have their jobs.” Friendly, constructive criticism is one thing and unkind, nagging fault-finding is another quite different.
Imagine a man fighting, for his life and the lives of his friends, and while he is struggling to the limit of his strength his friends stand around and cry—
“Oh that was wrong! You shouldn’t have hit him on the nose; you should have landed on his jaw!” “Wh
y did you let him hit you? If you had been quicker you could have stopped him. You’re too slow!” “You ought not to have taken that drink this morning! Stop now and tell us! Will you be a teetotaler after this?” “Hey! This fellow in the crowd is stepping on my toes! Make him quit!” “You never can lick him for you weren’t trained. You should have been prepared for this!”
Wouldn’t that man fight better if he were encouraged by cries of, “That’s a good one! Hit him again! You’ve got him going now; keep after him!” and so forth? If the principle is good in a game of ball, why not use it in this bigger game? Let’s root for our leaders now and then!
I would like to read, for instance, that congress had called Secretary Baker into its presence and said to him, “Well done, Secretary Baker! It is a remarkable achievement to transport so many troops safely to France in so short a time and we honor you for it.”4
Instead of so much wailing because we must eat cornbread, I would like to hear someone say, “What a wonderful man Mr. Hoover is to be able to regulate the food supply of the world; to handle the food of our country so that we may not come to hunger and perhaps famine and still are able to feed other nations!”5
Let’s talk to each other about the ideals of life and government that President Wilson is putting before the world! If we, the people hold fast to and live by these beautiful ideals, they are bound to be enacted by our government for, in a republic the ideas of the people reach upward to the top instead of being handed down from some one at the top to the people who must accept them whether they like them or not.
Swearing Is a Foolish Habit
August 5, 1918
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist Page 20
