Life — August 9, 1917 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

**Let the Belgians Die’’ They Said HOSE are a very dangerous lot of women who got themselves in jail in hington by obstreperous law-breaking in behalf of suffrage legislation. They are quit of all restraints of propriety, dead to all considerations of patriotism. They selfish women, obsessed with one purpose and crucl and remorseless in their pursuit of that. In December, 1914, when our sympathy for Bel- gium had started relief efforts, almost the only voi York members are purely in opposition came from two of the Woman's Political Union. Both these women, as quoted at the time in the Evening Post, “ declared themselves as whole-heartedly against any efforts for relief of the Belgians, the soldiers, or any per- sons suffering from the war.” Both agreed, as quoted, that if warring nations could not look after the sufferers by war, combatants and non-combatants, it was better to let them and so end the war more quickly. One of them said: di “We have only a certain amount of time and money to it to the one sive; therefore, we both believe in devotin cause that, more than any other, will make such inhuman wars impossible in the future—votes for women.” The Post printed the names of these two women. The one quoted above is among the women sentenced to a fine in Washington and who did time in jail, and on the front pages of the newspapers. She is doubtless delighted to lave got to the extreme front in the suffi war. She is a fair type of these extreme suffrage fanatics, whose tivity is based, as a rule, on a neurotic inheritance, and is as little governed by mercy of any sort as it is by dis- cretion. The idea of abolishing war by giving votes to furics of that sort is obvious! Behind such women in their private lives one finds a wake of distress, disorgan- ized families, disordered lives of hus- bands, children and relatives, In so p t their hands on absurd, far as they ever public affairs, similar consequences may be expected to follow. Suffra- gists, as a mass, ere not in sympathy with these fighting fanatics and cannct them, but work with seem willing enough to aecept any advan: © cause that their fe- scity may win. To fight women is a ge 10 Ub ARE. Coys) relatives. Remember that one among them declared three years ago, for publication in a newspaper, that it was better to let the Belgians die and so end the war the sooner. Sh! HIS is an age of efficiency. When the demand for an thing becomes strong enough, then the proper thing is to appoint a committee to manage it, and to create a de- partment to contain it Why, then, has our government neglected to create a regular Department of Scerecy, with a Secretary of Secrecy and a Committee of Silence? The deaf and dumb asylums ought to be mobilized at once. Our crop of secrecy has never been larger, and it is grow- ing all the time. At present, however, it must be confessed that things do leak out. The shameful manner in which it has been stated by thoughtless people that our troops are actually somewhere in France, shows that even our active adminis- tration is sometimes caught napping. If rumors ¢ permitted to prevail—who knows ?—somebody in Amer- ica might learn just how many troops we actually have on the Western front. That would be very terrible. We hear also an occasiot band of mus ng loose with reckless disregard for the stern dictum from Washington that nobody must allow any inspiration or sentiment to betray him into foolish outbursts. To be cheerful, to be spontancous, to be tuneful, to be candid and open With ourselves that we shall know even a f much of what we are doing as Germany knows every all this is, or ought to be, the foundation of our latest democracy—a democracy builded upon minimum informa- tion and maximum taxes. The first thing our Department of Secrecy will do, of course, is to suppress all military bands. we could sce our loys marching by in broad daylight, and hear a band playing, and actually know what is being done, we might lose our heads with patri- otic joy, and quite pos- sibly win the war much sooner than is absolutely necessary. sh! ¢ this bre: ction as Salesmanship ALESMAN (as spin- ster comes to the bad job, men, ind we should be especially for sorry for anyone who is trapped into it. But as for these women who took jail sentences rath- {4 er than pay a small fine, 4 waste no tears on them! Be sorry rather for their door): Ah! I heg your pardon. I am selling a hook of beauty hints, but | can see that you don't need a copy. Srinster: Well— ahem!—you may let me have a copy for a friend of mine. comicbook eu