CHAPTER XXIV.
WAR SERVICE OF ORGANIZED SUFFRAGISTS.[1]
The response of the women of the United States to the call of their country as it entered the World War was as vigorous and eager as had been that of women of other more deeply involved nations. Although American women had little opportunity for giving first line aid in comparison with the women of the Allied countries they gave a second or supporting line service organization and conservation to which they applied their full energy. These efforts brought them close in spirit to the firing line long before the Stars and Stripes were carried to Chateau Thierry and beyond.
It is the province of this chapter to review especially the work of the organized suffragists in their loyalty to their government — a government which from the first had refused to women all voice and part in its proceedings. This work may best be examined under two headings: 1. War Service of the National American Woman Suffrage Association; 2. War Service of suffragists as a whole under the direction of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense.
On Feb. 5, 1917, the president of the association, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, issued the following Call to its Executive Council of One Hundred to meet in Washington on February 23-24 to confer upon the approaching crisis in national affairs:
"To Members of the Executive Council:
“Our nation may be on the brink of war. To those who live in the interior war may seem a long way off but in the East, where public buildings, water works, forts, etc., are now under military guard and where some of the regiments of the National Guard have been called to duty, it comes as a sad realization that our
- ↑ The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Katharine Dexter McCormick, first vice-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and general chairman of its War Service Department.
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