the one who brings into the world the greatest number
of sons; they also remember that he said that a boy could stop a bullet
as well as a man, and that God is on the side of the heaviest
artillery. From these three statements they get the military idea of
women, children, and God, and the heart of the knitting woman recoils
in horror from the cold brutality of it all. They realize now
something of what is back of all the opposition to the woman's
advancement into all lines of activity and a share in government.

Women are intended for two things, to bring children into the world and
to make men comfortable, and then they must keep quiet and if their
hearts break with grief, let them break quietly--that's all. No woman
is so unpopular as the noisy woman who protests against these things.

The knitting women know now why the militant suffragettes broke windows
and destroyed property, and went to jail for it joyously, and without a
murmur--it was the protest of brave women against the world's estimate
of woman's position. It was the world-old struggle for liberty. The
knitting women remember now with shame and sorrow that they have said
hard things about the suffragettes, and thought they were unwomanly and
hysterical. Now they know that womanliness, and peaceful gentle ways,
prayers, petitions and tears have long been tried but are found
wanting; and now they know that these brave women in England, maligned,
ridiculed, persecuted, as they were, have been fighting every woman's
battle, fighting for the recognition of human life, and the mother's
point of view. Many of the knitting women have seen a light shine
around their pathway, as they have passed down the road from the heel
to the toe, and they know now that the explanation cannot be accepted
any longer that the English women are "crazy." That has been offered
so often and been accepted.

Crazy! That's such an easy way to explain actions which we do not
understand. Crazy! and it gives such a delightful thrill of sanity to
the one who says it--such a pleasurable flash of superiority!

Oh, no, they have not been crazy, unless acts of heroism and suffering
for the sake of others can be described as crazy! The knitting women
wish now that there had been "crazy" women in Germany to direct the
thought of the nation to the brutality of the military system, to have
aroused the women to struggle for a human civilization, instead of a
masculine civilization such