and fight in the trenches. It is an order of
the Government that the women's war work of the country shall be
coordinated, that women shall keep their organizations intact, that
they shall get together under directed heads. I said to the gentlemen
here in Washington, when at first they feared our women might not be
willing to cooperate: 'If you put before them an incentive big enough,
if you appeal to them as a part of the Government's life, not as a
by-product of creation or a kindergarten but as a great human, living
energy, ready to serve the country, they will respond as readily as
the men.'"

We must remember that more and more sacrifices are going to be
demanded but I want to say to you women, do not meekly sit down
and make all the sacrifices and demand nothing in return. It is
not that you want pay but we all want an equally balanced
sacrifice. The Government is asking us to conserve food while it
is allowing carload after carload to rot on the side tracks of
railroad stations and great elevators of grain to be consumed by
fire for lack of proper protection. If we must eat Indian meal in
order to save wheat, then the men must protect the grain
elevators and see that the wheat is saved. We must demand that
there shall be conservation all along the line. I had a letter
the other day giving me a fearful scorching because of a speech I
made in which I said that we women have Mr. Hoover looking into
our refrigerators, examining our bread to see what kind of
materials we are using, telling us what extravagant creatures we
are, that we waste millions of money every year, waste food and
all that sort of thing, and yet while we are asked to have
meatless days and wheatless days, I have never yet seen a demand
for a smokeless day! They are asking through the newspapers that
we women shall dance, play bridge, have charades, sing and do
everything under the sun to raise money to buy tobacco for the
men in the trenches, while the men who want us to do this have a
cigar in their mouth at the time they are asking it! I said that
if men want the soldiers to have tobacco, let them have smokeless
days and furnish it! If they would conserve one single cigar a
day and send it to the men in the trenches the soldiers would
have all they would need and the men at home would be a great
deal better