Page:Women Wanted.djvu/332

 front about food control or the regulation of school hours in Paris or London or New York? And when there are decisions like that to be made, "I'd like to leave it to Her," the soldier is beginning to conclude. Why, war time is the time for women to be free! The whole world is athrill with the new ideal.

See the lines of women arriving before the government houses. Theresa Labriola voices the demand of the National Federation in Italy: "Women," she says, "form the inner lines of defence for the nations. We need the ballot to make our lines strong." Yes, yes, agrees her country. You shall begin right away with the municipal franchise. And Premier Boselli and the Italian Parliament are proceeding to get it ready.

In France, Mme. Dewitt Schlumberger and Mme. Charles LeVerrier for the Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes, present the "unanswerable case." The senate on the Seine, looking out, sees many women wearing long crêpe veils in the delegation before its doors. "Let us give them," says a member of the Chamber of Deputies in a burst of poetic chivalry, "the suffrage de la morte: every soldier dying on the battle field shall be permitted to designate the woman relative he wishes to have carry on his citizenship for him." Very gently the women of France declined the suffrage of the dead. Presenting a carefully prepared brief that was the review of their war work, they said, "We can vote for ourselves, please." And who else shall? There are whole communes with most of the men