Helen Miller Moyes

“ And the greatest lesson of all is that women and men must work together in this new world. I count it an honour—being a man—to be asked to introduce Miss Fraser in this way to the American public. For my part I would have no separate women's division, except such as concerns the tasks exclusively for women. I would have women side by side with men in every division of labour, working out the task with equal fidelity, equal authority, and equal rewards. ”

“ A nation that has broken every international and human law is a nation that must be made to pay for its crimes as far as human justice can secure it.
Our six thousand murdered merchant seamen, the thousands of passengers they have killed, the civilians they have bombed, are marshalled against them, and the horrors of their frightfulness, deliberately planned and carried out against the peoples they have held in bondage, their refusal to even feed properly their prisoners and captive people—are we to be told to reconstruct a world without reparation for these and their other crimes? ”

“ The regeneration of the world cannot come from the sacrifice of our men alone, or even of some of us at home. The few may save countries and do great things, but the work of reconstruction rests on everybody. Nations are made up of individuals, and a nation cannot hope for moral and social regeneration except through individual self-denial, self-sacrifice and service.
It is in our own hearts and our own minds that the great task of reconstruction must be done. ”

“ And one wonders where the people are going to be found who are going to be so unjust to the workers as to provide any reason for such dangers to be feared, for we know one thing in the war, that in the trenches, on the sea, behind the trenches and carrying on at home, the workers have done the greater part—and they, in their turn, know all others have borne their share. Out of such common knowledge and the consciousness that the practical work of democracy is to raise its people more and more, we shall have not revolution, but evolution of the best kind. ”

“ Germany is the Fatherland, never, it is significant, the Motherland as our little Islands are, and its mad dream of militarism and Weltmacht is the dream of men who deny any constructive part to women in the great affairs of life. The hopes of all the democracies are bound up in this struggle and its issue, and there is no real place in the world for the true service and genius and work of women, any more than for that of the mass of men, save in democracy. We mean so much in these days by democracy. ”

“ The transmutation of the struggles of mankind from the physical to the spiritual, the solution of national and international problems, the solution of all the riddles of life that demand an answer or man's conquest, cannot be done by man alone. It is our task also and to the great work of building up a new world after we emerge from this crucible of fire in which the souls of the nations are being tested, the spirit of women has much to bring. ”

“ From myriads of homes they pour forth to their daily toil, carrying on the work of the country, educating the children, taking the place of their men on the railways, the factory, the workshop, the banks and offices. In the munition works, in the shipyards, in the engineering shops, in the aeroplane sheds, they work in tens of thousands—risking life and health in some cases, but thinking little of it, compared with what their men are doing, knee-deep in snow and mud and water in the trenches. ”

“ There are people who declare that the winning of this war depends on organization alone. That is palpably untrue. Good organization can do much. The greatest thing in all organizations is the living flame that makes grouping real—the selfless spirit of service that the fighting man possesses and that is beyond all words of praise.
Talk to a soldier or a sailor, realize how he thinks and feels about his ship, his battalion, his aircorps. He is subordinated—selfless—disciplined. ”

“ When one has said everything there is to be said of schemes and hopes of reconstruction—about the schemes for better homes, and a great housing scheme is wisely one of the foundation schemes of our reconstruction, for which plans are now being prepared, about schemes for the care of children, about schemes for endowment of motherhood, which are exercising the minds of many of our women, you are back again to the individual. ”

“ A wondrous union of strength and tenderness, of courage and sweetness, she remains for us a bright and noble memory of high devotion and stainless honor.... Especially today, in the presence of representatives of the land for which she died, we think of her as an immortal link between Serbia and Scotland, and as a symbol of that high courage which will sustain us, please God, till that stricken land is once again restored, and till the tragedy of war is eradicated and crowned with God's great gifts of peace and of righteousness. ”

“ We mourn silently, and with a sure faith that our men's supreme sacrifice is not in vain. "Greater love hath no man than this, [pg 26] that he lay down his life for his friend." The little white crosses of our graves symbolize the faith for which they die.
The message of our soldier poets who have been created by this war and have written immortal verse, and many of whom have died, is the message of men who have seen through the veils of time into eternity, who are free of life and death, whom nothing can hurt, "if it be not the Destined Will." ”

“ At the Training Camps, in France, in every field of war, we have the Y.M.C.A., and there is no soldier in these days and no civilian who does not know the Red Triangle. There are over 1,000 huts in Britain and over 150 in France. It is the sign that means something to eat and something warm to drink, somewhere cozy and warm out of the cold and chill and damp of winter camp and trench, somewhere to write a letter, somewhere to read and talk, somewhere that brings all of "Blighty" that can come to the field of war. In our Y.M.C.A. huts, 30,000 women work. ”

“ The dear old Victorian dugouts grow fewer and fewer in number, but we never must forget that the great powers of women have not come in a night, miraculously, in the war. They are the result of long years of patient work before, and we women, who have had these great opportunities, must see to it that we nobly carry on the traditions of teaching and training and qualifying ourselves for service, bequeathed to us from older generations. ”

“ The purposes being worked out are so great, that it is difficult for us to see them with our limited human vision, but in great moments of insight we do see, and having seen, go back to our tasks in the light of that vision, knowing that though now we fight in dim shadows with monstrous and awful evils of mankind's [pg 284] creation, the day is coming nearer and the light will come.
An age is dying and a new age comes, and what it shall be only the men and women of the world can answer. ”

“ Finding the money by saving finds everything, releases men for the army, finds labour and money for munitions, finds labour for ships and relieves the demands on tonnage, finds supplies. It is the fundamental service of the civilian, and no good citizen wants luxuries while soldiers and sailors need clothes and guns and ships and munitions.
Everybody, man, woman, and child, can join the great financial army and march behind our men, and women have done with us and can do everywhere a great work in this. Women are on our National Committee and doing a great deal of its organization. ”

“ There are enough secret dark hours, but in our work we carry on cheerfully, the women know the soldiers' slogan, "Cheero," and to Britain and to "somewhere on the fronts," the same message goes and comes.
Of the great spiritual worths and values, it has brought to women very much what it has brought to men. All eternal things are more real, all eternal truths more clearly perceived. When the whole foundations of life rock under us, in where "there is no change, neither shadow of turning," the heart rests more surely in these days. ”

“ The sub-conscious mind of Germany, filled with these dominating ideas of power and Weltmacht and militarism, goes on, once set free, to its logical end, and it seems clearer and clearer that there is no real end to this struggle till we make the mind and soul of Germany realize its crimes and mistakes, till they are sane again and talk the A, B, C of civilization. The real reconstruction of the world begins there. ”

“ The spirit of our women shows, like that of the French women who tend their farms, keep their shops, work ceaselessly everywhere, most clearly and wonderfully in their work. In our hundreds of hospitals night and day, they care for the wounded and the sick and the dying, bringing consolation, love, skill, heroism, patience and all fine things as their gift. ”

“ We live partly in France and Flanders, in Italy, in the Balkans, in Egypt and Palestine and Mesopotamia, in Africa, with the lonely white crosses in Gallipoli, with our men who guard us sleeping and waking, going down to the sea in ships and under the sea, fighting death in submarines and mines, and with those who in the air are the eyes and the winged cavalry of our forces. ”

“ The greatest task of reconstruction for most of us is to make all our actions worthy of our highest self—to bring to the problems that confront us, not one detached and prejudiced bit of us, but the whole mind and spirit of ourselves—the best of us always in unity. ”

“ The women of all the allies are one in this great struggle. Our hopes and our fears, our anxieties and our prayers, our visions and our desolations, are the same.
Our work is the same task of supporting and sustaining the energies of our men in arms and of our nations at home. ”

“ Our homes, our industries, munitions, the land, hospitals, Government service and the Waac's are absorbing us in our millions. Britain could not have raised her Army and Navy and could not now keep her men in the field without the mobilization of her women and their ceaseless, tireless work behind her men, and as substitutes for them, in the working life of the community. ”

“ There was also in these great camps of men—let us realize that quite clearly—great good for the boys and the men—good that far outweighs the evil. All the good of discipline, all they gained by their coming together for a great cause, all they gained in that great comradeship and service for each other, and in their self-sacrifice for their country and the world. ”

“ If the nation really wishes to be freed from the consequences of prostitution it must deal with the sources of prostitution by a long series of social, educational, and economic reforms. The ultimate remedy is the acceptance of a single standard of morality for men and women, and the recognition that man is meant to be the master and not the slave of his body. There are thousands of men both in the army and out of it who know this, and for whom the streets of London have no dangers. ”

“ The war has done a great service in drawing women of all the Allied Nations together—a service whose greatness and magnitude it is not easy to fully realize. French and English men and women know so much more of each other now. Our hospitals in France, our Canteens for French Soldiers, as well as our own, our women and the French women working side by side in our army clerical departments and ordnance depots in France, the Belgians and French who are among us in such large numbers, make us known to each other. ”

“ Our men come in on the leave train straight from the trenches, loaded up with equipment, with their rifles canvas-covered to keep them dry and clean, with Flanders mud caked upon them to the waist, very tired, with that look they all bring home from the trenches in their eyes, but in Blighty and trying to forget how soon they have to go back. The buffets are there for them, and those who have no one to meet them in London and who have to travel north or west or east to go home, are met by men and women who direct them where to go by day and motor them across London to their station at night. ”

“ It is impossible to overestimate the value of all this work in industry. The Prime Minister, speaking last year on this subject, said, "It is a strange irony, but no small compensation, that the making of weapons of destruction should afford the occasion to humanize industry. Yet such is the case. Old prejudices have vanished, new ideas are abroad; employers and workers, the public and the State, are all favourable to new methods. The opportunity must not be allowed to slip. ”

“ Our medical women have won rich laurels and have established themselves in their own profession permanently and thoroughly. Behind the Hospitals, we have the thousands of women who every day are working at the Hospital Supply Depots of our country. These are everywhere and nothing is more wonderful than the way in which our voluntary workers have gone on faithfully working, conforming to discipline and hours and steady service as conscientiously as any paid worker.
The organizing ability displayed by our women in this amounts to genius. ”

“ In our great task of reorganizing industries, of renovating and repairing, of building up new works and adding to our productiveness, [pg 296] finance is all-important. We shall need large sums for the development of our industry, for the transferring of war work back to peace pursuits, for the opening up of new industries and work, for the development of trade abroad and the selfish using up of resources that could be conserved, makes the work harder—might even, if extravagantly large, cripple us seriously at the end of this struggle. ”

“ Those who are working and saving in our War Savings Movement are so convinced of its value, not only to the state, but to the individual, and for the character of our people, that they have expressed the very strongest conviction that it should go on after the War, and it will probably remain in our reconstruction. ”

“ Its quarrel with our enemies, who would impose on the mass of men cast-iron systems, and would set up state idols to be worshipped as higher than the Conscience and spirit of man, is so profound and goes so deeply into knowledge and feelings that are too big for words, that the soldier who never tries to express it but goes out and drills and works and disciplines himself that he may present his body as a living shield for the faith that is within him, and the woman who works with him and behind him, healing and giving, silently, are perhaps wisest of all. ”