Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/148

Counter-Currents of peace above the sacrifices entailed by war, to refuse by word or deed their share of a common burden.

It is absurd to suppose that these brave and suffering women do not feel a moral revolt against the cruelty and the waste of war quite as sharply as does Miss Addams, or any Hague delegate, or any one of Mr. Ford's tourists. The "basic foundation of home and of peaceful industry" is as dear to them as to the American women who talk so much about it. As a matter of fact, it is their devotion which holds together the shattered homes of France, their industry which preserves economic safety, and gives food and shelter to the destitute. And through terrible months of pain and privation, we have heard from the lips of Frenchwomen no wild and weak complaints. Never once have they assumed that they were better and nobler than their husbands and sons who died for the needs of France.

When the late Justice Brewer said 132