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Show FOR THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN. In New York a committee of women has been formed which has for its object ob-ject the protection of women during war. Women are non-combatants, yet in the fighting which was brought to an end on November 11, their rights were not respected by the Germans. Women and girls -were set upon, abused, whipped, whip-ped, outraged, murdered. An end to offenses of that kind is aimed at. The American women have begun to take up the cause in response to the follow ing appeal received last February from the women of France: "Among the solemn protests which the whole world is making against the deportation of Belgian and French women, French w omen wish to make their voices heard. "Hero- can they help trembling with indignation as they learn that under the German yoke there disappears dis-appears all respect for the family and its ties? They learn that the -women of France, of Belgium and Serbia and others have been, or are, to be torn cruelly from their husbands and children whenever the invader needs them for serVice of his officers or mills or trenches. "Among all the enemy's crimes not one so chokes with anxiety the heart of woman. Is it not round the woman that every civilization has grouped the family? Is it not the long patience of woman that, through the centuries, has defended defend-ed the intimacy of home, the weakness weak-ness of childhood, the morality of youth? "This is why we invite women all women to join in our protest. All are enlightened; not one can be ignorant of international laws slowly wrought for the safety of non-combatants, and none can be ignorant that, by the very avowal of those responsible, such laws have been trampled under foot. "Why is the woman who will refuse re-fuse to hear our appeal and judge savagery? "Let all whose . homes are respected re-spected unite in one movement of justice and compassion. From the height of their anguish and sorrow our sisters victims of force, can now hope for help only from the conscience of the world' Now that peace is about to be declared de-clared in an official manner and new rules of civilized warfare are to be proclaimed, the women ask for a hearing hear-ing at the peace conference. If the editor of the Standard were a member of the conference at Vcr- be heard that some one of the preeminent pre-eminent German statesmen, closely Identified with the conduct of the war, be allowed to appear before the delegates, dele-gates, first, to present the German view and then to be questioned, and one of the questions the editor would ask would include a recital of tho outrages inflicted on the women and girls of Belgium and northern France, with the query: "Why did you sanction those crimes against the home, and how do you propose pro-pose to atone for those atrocities?" The reply, of course, would be an evasion on a plea in ignorance and then we would summon witnesses, and, finally, we would require the German statesman before he could be received back into the council of nations to havo the testimony of outrages, in printed form, circulated in every German Ger-man home so that If the German-mothers have womanly instincts above i I their devotion to Prussianlsm, thoy would bow their heads for the shame of Germany and condemn their own soldiers of lechery and brutality. |