Wars have almost invariably in the past meant an enormous increase in venereal diseases on the return of the army in the civil population.  Armies lose large numbers of men by them, and every person must feel it is their plain duty to leave no means untried and no measures unused that could help.

The woman who lives by her immoral earnings is, like the man who is immoral and uncontrolled, a serious danger and menace to her country and to generations yet unborn.

The problems that arise from the existence of these two groups are the business of all men and women.  The problems are those of providing decent and wholesome recreation and surroundings, of helping men and women to meet under right conditions, of giving the right kind of information and guidance to the soldier and the girl, of realizing what drink does in this traffic, and the fundamental task of working to create better social, economic and moral conditions.

There is no need nor is it desirable to have masses of people suffer unnecessary misery by a knowledge of the exact nature of this disease—­which leads sometimes to morbidity and often to a frenzied desire to do something at once, before they really know anything about the question and what has been done.

There are three questions that ought to be answered in the affirmative before any legislation or preventive treatment is decided on.

Will the proposed action apply equally to men and to women, to rich and to poor?

Will it tend to increase and not undermine the powers of self-control?

Will it improve morals in the nation and elevate them?

Repressive measures by themselves achieve nothing.  Preventive measures of every practical and sound kind we want, but most of all we need to inculcate the truth that “Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead man to sovereign power.”

It is not enough to prevent and teach.  We should be willing to help up, to save, to love, and we should never be self-righteous in our help.

Who among us has the right to cast the first stone?

WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN

“Give her of the fruits of her lands and let her own words
praise her in the gates.”

—­PROV., Chap 31.

CHAPTER XIII

WHAT THE WAR HAS DONE FOR WOMEN

The war has done already, with us, such great things for women, so many of them so naturally accepted now, that it is almost difficult to get back in thought, and realize where we stood when it broke out.

General Smuts, in one of his speeches, said, “Under stress of great difficulty practically everything breaks down ultimately, and the only things that survive are really the simple human feelings of loyalty and comradeship to your fellows, and patriotism, which can stand any strain and bear you through all difficulty and privation.  We soldiers know the extraordinary value of these simple feelings, how far they go and what strain they can bear, and how, ultimately, they support the whole weight of civilization.”