Ladies' Aid Society

“ Women who had rendered service in hospitals and elsewhere during the days of the civil strife, representatives of the old Soldiers' Home or- ganization, members of the Woman's Relief Corps and of other organized charities in Massa- chusetts, have united their efforts in promoting the work of the Ladies' Aid Association. ”

“ In war time she was especially active in the Women's Soldiers' Aid Society, going south as far as Memphis, and looking to the right distribution of the provisions sent to the hospitals there, and she was one of the leaders in the women's temperance crusade. ”

“ We have had the help of about 60,000 V.A.D.'s (Voluntary Aid Detachment of Red Cross) in Hospitals in England and France, and on our other fronts, in addition to our thousands of trained nurses.
The women in our homes carry on—no easy task in these days of shortages in food and coal and all the other difficulties, saving, conserving, working, caring for the children, with so many babies whose fathers have never seen them, though they are one to two years old, and so many babies who will never see their fathers.
Some of our women have died on active service, doctors, nurses and orderlies. ”

“ You’d see a girl behind the walls of the Northwestern University Building, over there on Dearborn Street, telling her story of deception, or of outrage, or of error, to the superintendent of the Legal Aid Society. It used to be the Women’s Protective Association till it was merged with the Bureau of Justice a few years since. It was initiated by the Chicago Woman’s Club a generation ago. It has ministered to thousands of young women cursed with that curse both of God and of man which gives them, however wronged, almost all the burden and almost all the shame of the event. ”

“ At the close of the war, the Sanitary Commission comprised seven thousand aid societies scattered over the country, and it had raised over fifteen millions of dollars. Those women who remained at home, in the absence of fathers and sons for four years, faced all the problems of practical life. Who can estimate the value of training in coöperative work and organization which the Civil War gave to the American women?
In the Civil War, women directly served men; but in the great industrial reorganization which came afterward they served mainly women and children. ”

“ In her days of Hospital work, she wrote hundreds of letters for the soldiers, and in the organization of the Women's Branch, of which she was one of the most active promoters, she took upon herself the burden of such a correspondence with the Auxiliaries, and the persons whom she desired to interest in the establishment of local Aid Societies, that when she was compelled by ill health to resign her position, a Committee of nine young ladies was appointed to conduct the correspondence in her place, and all the nine found ample employment. ”

“ Our efforts to ensure women equal rights must include the protection of women from violence and equal access to justice. This is particularly vital for women who face geographic, cultural, and other barriers to social justice services. Women victimized by crime should receive equitable and compassionate care, including access to advocacy, emergency shelter, law enforcement protection, and legal aid. ”

“ Of all the problems which confront the average charity
organization, possibly the most perplexing is the one of the family where the mother must be wage earner. The kindergarten and the day nursery have done something to solve the problem, but the Chicago Women's Aid, an organization of Jewish women for literary and philanthropic purposes, has thrown much light on the most creditable way of helping these women. This society has for three seasons supported a workroom for women. ”

“ Everywhere the girl in America strove with helpful earnestness to do "her bit." Every strata of society called out its members in a wonderful plan of feminine preparedness. Besides the thousands of women members of the Red Cross some of the most prominent organizations officered and planned by women include The National League for Women's Service, which has branches in every large city in the United States. They enrolled women as motor car drivers, telegraphers, wireless operators, agriculturists and skilled mechanics. ”

“ The failure of health interrupted her efforts, yet, with a very limited inquiry, more than a hundred women of appropriate spirit and qualifications were immediately found, anxious to avail themselves of such aid ”

“ Alas! those thousands and millions of neglected little ones in our land, they know not their wants or their danger, or they would raise their supplicating hands. Is there anything more appropriate than that gentle woman should be invoked to their aid? Is there anything more beautiful, more heavenly, than that she should spend her time, and thoughts, and means to rescue them? ”

“ Whatever may be the solution of poverty, whatever be the future status of the family, it seems certain to me that some way will be devised whereby motherhood will cease to be a privately supported profession. In some way society will pay its own account. If producing citizens to the State be the greatest service a woman citizen can perform, the State will ultimately recognize the right of the woman citizen to protection during her time of service. The first step towards solving the problem is for women to learn to support themselves before the time comes for them to serve the State. ”

“ There are hundreds and thousands of benevolent women in the land, who would rejoice to spend and be spent in this service, but who have neither the opportunity to qualify themselves, nor the assistance necessary in finding the proper location when prepared. Why is it not time to turn some of the charity of woman, which so long has clothed and educated young men for their benevolent ministries, to aiding their own sex in as important and more neglected service?
Some can interest themselves in the schools in their vicinity, and aid the teacher by sympathy, counsel, and lending suitable books. ”

“ It has also made women work diligently until they secured forms of help from the public purse to subsidize such mothers and give them state aid until the children were able to earn something for themselves. ”

“ Go and look at the legislation initiated or supported by women in every country where women vote—and you will see one unbroken line of social service. Not self-interest—not mercenary profit—not competition; but one steady upward pressure; the visible purpose to uplift and help the world.
This world is ours as much as man's. We have not only a right to half its management but a duty to half its service. It is our duty as human beings to help make the world better—quickly! It is our duty as Women to bring our Motherhood to comfort and help humanity—our children every one! ”

“ If any one could question the existence of this reserved power of society to call the force of woman to the common defense, either in the hospital or the field, it would be woman, who has been deprived of participation in the government and in shaping the public policy which has resulted in dire emergency to the state. ”

“ Universal beneficence never hinders anybody's usefulness in any particular field of duty. Therefore, woman's sphere should not be limited to the household. The public welfare requires that she should have a thought of affairs outside of the household, and in the whole community.
III. Woman brings to public affairs peculiar qualities, aspirations, and affections which society needs. I have had persons say to me, "Would you, now, take your daughter and your wife, and walk down to the polls with them?" ”

“ In addition to the 50 trained nurses for a base hospital, there are 25 hospital aids, who serve without pay. America has 8000 registered Red Cross nurses and scores of thousands are in training for aids.
The effective and helpful work of women in all lines of endeavor, aside from home and family life, has never before been shown so impressively as now. Their energy, willingness, faithfulness and capability in every activity are unsurpassed. ”

“ A just and common-sense argument extends special legislative protection to women, because of their generally exploited and handicapped position; but the one strong plea used in their behalf has been health and safety, the health and safety of the future mothers of society. ”

“ That the answer to the cry for help was so quick, so hearty, so satisfying, was in large degree the work of our womanhood, whose ears were ever attuned to the voice of suffering. This was so almost from the birth of America as a nation; but only of late has the answer from our women to such cries for help been organized and, therefore, really effective. ”

“ In the larger associations of our cities, day after day, and year after year, women served in summer's heat and winter's cold, at their desks, corresponding with auxiliary aid societies, taking account of goods received for sanitary supplies, re-packing and shipping them to the points where they were needed, inditing and sending out circulars appealing for aid, in work more prosaic but equally needful and patriotic with that performed in the hospitals ”

“ The health of the mass of educated women is a matter of serious national concern. These women form the heart of the nation, they mould its family life, they create society, they exercise an unbounded influence on the lower classes. If the health of the mother breaks down family happiness is destroyed; so if the health of this class of a people is deteriorated the welfare of the nation is imperilled both in the present and the future. ”

“ The wounded and sick of an army were indebted to the chance aid of friend or stranger, or were left to perish from neglect. Nothing has ever been held so cheap as human life, unless, indeed, it were human rights. But even from times of antiquity we read of women, sometimes of noble birth, who followed the soldiers to the field, treating the wounds of friend or lover with healing balms or rude surgical appliance. To woman is the world indebted for the first systematic efforts toward relief, through the establishment of hospitals for sick or wounded soldiers. ”

“ The aim is to enable women to take their part legally and practically, in social and legislative reforms. Since the war this club has started first aid courses and others to prepare women for their tasks. ”

“ Many women, whose energies would have been, under former conditions, inevitably monopolized by home-keeping duties, are to-day giving their strength and special gifts to social service. They are the true mothers—not only of their own little brood—but of the community and the world. ”

“ The importance of the aid American women gave to the Red Cross was beyond computation and was so varied in kind and enormous in quantity that anything more than the merest outline of it is impossible. Volunteer women workers, nearly all of them doing the work at odd moments in addition to their home or other duties, knitted and sewed so busily that they made nearly 300,000,000 articles, valued at $60,000,000, for the Red Cross, to be used in training camps, by our fighting forces, in hospitals at home and abroad and by the refugees and sufferers in the war ridden countries of Europe. ”

“ To afford women the opportunity to learn how to protect their own health and that of their families.
It must be distinctly understood that this course of instruction for women is only intended to prepare them to render emergency assistance in case of accident, to give more intelligent care to their own families under competent direction, and, in exceptional cases, to assist in relief work under the supervision of the Nursing Service of the American Red Cross. ”

“ The fate of all the unfortunate, the suffering, the criminal, is daily forced upon woman’s attention in painful and intimate ways. It is inevitable that humanitarian women should wish to vote concerning all the regulations of public charities which have to do with the care of dependent children and the Juvenile Courts, pensions to mothers in distress, care of the aged poor, care of the homeless, conditions of jails and penitentiaries, gradual elimination of the social evil, extended care of young girls, suppression of gambling, regulation of billboard advertising and other things. ”

“ What we have to think of is the necessity,—in all justice, in all honour, in all humanity, in all prudence,—that every girl's faculties should be made the most of, as carefully as boys'. While so many women are no longer sheltered, and protected, and supported, in safety from the world (as people used to say) every woman ought to be fitted to take care of herself. ”

“ It is bravely fighting our battle for us and doing the public work among men. As it attacks what is especially the sin of the moneyed classes, it is unpopular, men resenting its interference with what they call their private life, and it is always in peril for want of funds. The White Cross league admits women associates for intercessory prayer—and what mother will not be thankful for that?—for any work where women's aid is needed, and for raising funds for what is so emphatically our own cause. ”

“ State help will be extended all the more to women, especially the more the principle comes to be recognized that the disabled must be maintained by the collectivity, and that those without work must be furnished with adequate occupation by the State. ”

“ Just last week, we awarded grants to organizations in 16 different States to assist in their efforts to stop the violence and support the victims. And soon we'll establish an 800 number where women facing abuse can get assistance, counseling, and shelter. ”