to have her do less.

The woman for ages has been the war nurse, but the American woman has
gone a step further and qualified as the war physician. When the war
clouds first hovered over America more than 200 women physicians
formally offered their services to the Government. At the graduation
exercises of a women's medical college, when America first entered the
war, a prominent official made the statement that 3,000 women physicians
could find unlimited work of mercy behind the first line of firing in
Europe.

The surgeon general of the United States army did not await an actual
call to arms to notify a physician that the proffer of the services of
women physicians would be accepted when the need came.

"When I spoke to the women," said this physician, "I asked them this
question:

"'Can I tell the Government that it may count upon each and all of you
for any work within your power?'

"Their answer was unanimous. It was 'Yes.'"

There is a law prohibiting women from going aboard battleships when they
are under way, but such an obstacle has not stood in the way of woman's
desire to help where she can when her country calls, and so Miss Loretta
Walsh became a member of the United States navy--the first woman
enlisted in that branch of the service, with the exception of the
nurses' corps. Her title was chief yeoman.

Women announced their readiness to assist in another way--in
economizing--one organization having adopted the following resolutions:

RESOLUTION ON ECONOMICS.

"Resolved, That all patriotic women be urged to use their influence on
fashions in dress to keep them as economical as possible, and to
register their disapproval of such styles as the melon and peg-top
skirt, or any other styles that imply extravagant changes in the
wardrobe, to the end that the time and money thus saved from clothes may
be devoted to the needs of the nation."

How often have we heard: "When war comes, when our homes are threatened,
when peril stalks abroad in the land, who shoulders the musket and goes
out to fight? The man! The man!"

But woman, knowing better than man the impulses of her own heart, only
awaited the opportunity to show what she could do, though, much more
than man, she loves peace, detests strife. But she did not await an
actual call to arms to show the patriotic spirit with which her soul was
fired. Whatever her Government was willing she should do, to that was
she prepared to give her best effort