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Show H 0 , H WOMEN AS SOLDIERS. B ' It was recently reported that 1200 women of Texas B ' and Oklahoma, mostly wives of soldiers, had volunteered , J form a regiment which, if necessary, would fight in the H trenches. Their suggestion was, however, that they might H S 01 UBeful behind the lines in signal and patrol work. , UilIS fme manifestation of patriotism was no doubt BbI ( , BBBBH bBbBBBBBBbIbBBBBBF prompted by the superb heroism of the Russian female "Battalions of Death." Women are fast developing more physical strength, and many of them would put men fighters to flight. In the early clays following the discovery of the American continent, there were many tribes with women "Amazon" fighters. The explorers were afraid of them, as they fought with tremendous tenacity and fearlessness of death. Also the day has gone by when you can get any particular par-ticular limits to the things women should do. They will make their own limits. They are entering the work formerly form-erly closed, and in a few years will be all through our factories. But this does not mean that it would be wise to let a regiment of them go into the front line trenches. Such a use of their devotion would be accepted as a sign of weakness by our foes. They would say that our men refused re-fused to fight, therefore the women had to, as was the case in Russia. Fortunately our men are no slackers. They still claim fighting as their business, and they will attend to that end of it. They would not willingly expose women to the special perils arising from their sex. There are however a multitude of tasks behind the firing lines that women can perforin, and thousands are doing these things now. Volunteer effort has its own unique quality and enthusiasm. enthusi-asm. If women feel like enlisting and forming groups for war service, there are plenty of tasks they could very well assume. |