Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, July 18, 1915, Page 19

Tare OMAHA SUNDAY BEE MAGAZINE PAG @;lacly Warwick’s A stonis (ol © GY REUTLINGERp - PAR'S. Mile. Greuze, “the Daintiest Beauty in Paris,” Only One of the Horde" of Society Women and Actresses Who Have Rushed Into the Nurs- ing Profession to Torment or Cheer Up the Wounded Soldiers. Who Seek ) 4 U Butterfly Sisterhood Sensa.- tion and Gossip and Sit on the Bed Smoking Cigarettes” TIE Countess of Warwick, who is uni- versally regarded as the foremost woman leader of England, has writ- ten a remarkable article for this news- paper criticising the hords of society and theatrical women who have taken up .war nursing for the sake of notorfety or, in frivolous spirit. \ The Countess does not give mames, but many people in England know to whom she refers. Some of the “war nurses” at whom she is aiming are so highly placed and influential that it would be difficult for the authorities to remove them. Prob- ably the Countess expects that by her severe criticlsm she will shame them Into retiring or reforming. Nevertheless, much of the war nursig done by prominent women appears to be giving satistaction. While it is of course outrageous that a woman should be frivolous in the presence of suffering, it is a positive benefit to the wounded sol- dier if an attentive nurse is handsome and attractively dressed. The handsome Duchess of Westminster, who was rather frivolous before the war, is condncting a pretty hospital for wounded soldlers at Le Touquet, néar Paris. Strange to say, her sister, the Princess of Pless, who 18 married to one of the richest noble- men of Germany, is conducting an equal- ly successful hospital for German soldiers near. Berlin. ‘The picturesque dancer, Ida Rubinstein, adored by Gabrielle d’Annunzio, has estab- lished a hospital in Paris. There she gratifies her dramatic instinet by wearing her nurse’s uniform most effectively, while she cheers up the wounded soldiers by her graceful poses, By Frances Evelyn, Countess of Warwick. nacles to a ship, and every aspect of war has its own peculiar abuses, While milliong do their duty with quiet herofsm, there is always a minority that takes advantage, that corrupts others—or itself. Some believe that fraud and fool- ishness stay at home, that they cannot approach the field of arms, but this is far - from being the case. My thoughts turn back to the Soath African war, when certain scandals were supposed to have reached their zenith; I look around me to-day, listen to the well- authenticated storfes brought to me by relatives and friends, and know that South ‘Africa did ‘not' tithe the possibilities of folly and excess. For once I am not plead- ing for my own sex. I.plead for one part of it against the other, for a majority against & minority, for those who are doing what they are paid to do, against those who are voluntary workers. The position comes a little strangely to me when I look at it in this light, but the highly-trained, conscientious, painstaking hospital nurse whose patient heroism pro- claims her a true followed of Florence Nigntingale is being exposed to scandalous annoyance for no good purpose and to no useful end, and T feel that T must plead her cause, since she is in the last degree unlikely to plead it for herself. Soclety women of a certain class made themselves so notorious in the military M’plull and elsewhere during the South Aftican war that at least one General threatened to send them home and another refused to allow any more to come out. As soon’as the greatest struggle of our his- tory started, in August last, certain women of means and position proceeded as silent- Iy. and unostentatiously as was possible under the circumstances to equip hospitals and to set about their self-appointed work. They labored conscientiously and sought no more publicity than was necessary to ensble them to collect money from philan- thropistd and friends. They did their best; some were already qualified by previous experience, others acquired their knowl- edge under the most trying conditions possible. They have worked since war began, well content to “scorn delights and live laborious day: some who are near and dear to me have said that they have |well-pigh forgotten the old life and the ‘comforts they deemed indispensable only ‘a little while ago. I think it may be claimed for them that they have played a good part, and that.in |beiping others they have not sought to |{draw attentfon to themselves or minimize {tke credit due to the trained zisterhood ! BUSES cling to a crisis as bar of love and pity that cheers the wounded and comforts the dying, as “The Lady With the Lamp” taught them fo do in the far-off days of the great Crimean struggle. They have made many R friends and no ene- mies; the hero of the trenches and the as- saulting party has not glven more to his country, for both have given their all: the man his strength, the woman her practical sympathy, and both a high degree of physi cal and moral courage. Unfortunately there is in London to-day a very large company of young women to whom war is little more than » new sensa- tion. They are not old enough to under- stand or young enough to be restrained. In normal times they must be “in the movement,” however foolish that move- ment may be, and a war that staggers the 0ld World and the New leaves them very much where they were before. Under the rose they have not diminished their afore- time galety; dances and dinner parties have been the order of the Winter season. They have been trumpeted by the section of the press that delights in re- cording vain things, but those who view the ourrents of London's social life know that T am writing the simple truth. There is nothing to be said; let those laugh who may and can at such a season; their laughter proclaims them what they are, Unfortunately the people I have in mind have not been content to devote them- selves to brainless frivolity, because they must sample every sensation that the sea- sons provide—they have invaded the sanctuary of ghe hospital nurse. Scores have found their way to the great London hospitals in town to face what they are pleased to regard as training. - I have known some who have danced till § a. m. and bave presented themselves at the hos- pital at 8 o'clock! Everybody knows that the training of a real hospital nuree is a very serious mat- ter; that it makes full demand upon phys- fcal and mental capacity, and that a long period is required to bring the seed of efficiency to flower or fruit. The socie' butterfiies have made no such sacrifice They have acquired a trifling and superdl- cial knowledge of & nurse's work and have then set their social influence to work in yrder to reach some one of the bace hot pitals where they may sample fresh ex- perience. It they were really useful there it would * be unkind to offer a protest, but the gen- eral opinion is that they do more narm than good. They subvert discipline, they are a law to themselves, they are too highly placed or protected to be called to order promptly, they have neither the in- «clination nor .the capacity for sustained usefulness. To sit at the end of a bed and smoke cigarettes with a wounded officer does not develop the efficlency of a hospital. One hears repeatedly . that this girl or that has gone to the front and one imagines devotion, self-sacrifice, self-re- straint and a dozen kindred virtues. Un- fortunately it is chiefly in the realm of imagination that these virtues exist. For the rest, the interlopers waat limelight, and plenty of it; their pictures flood the fllustrated papers, and to read what is written of them the experienced person might imagine that they are bearing the heat and burden of the day, the solitude and anxlety of the night, while in very truth they do no more than search for fresh sensrations in an area that should be sacred. The type of mind that can seek refuge from self and boredom in such surround- ings cannot be stricken into serious -ess; tragedy. cannot reach it. To do a very minimum of work, to attach themselves to the most “attractive” cases, to carry small talk, gabble and gossip into places where 80 many come to die, these are the main efforts of the young soclety nurses, and all these outrages are being carricd on from day to day. The real nurses and sisters are, I am told, bitterly indignant. They ask no more than to be left alone to do their best, tut they know how hard it is to make am effective protest and they have little or no time to do so. They recognize by reason of their training the full motive of t' excursion into the region of suffering, the Farmneny onishing Attack. r Nurses. ¥ B Russ stei CluvIng 1or wa citement, and, in ® bad cases, the erotomania that is the motive power, They find their work im peded by the sis terhood of Im postors that re- sponds so readily to a fashion of its own making, and their chief hope is that this sensa tion may pass as 80 many others have passed, and that the brain- less, chattering, t houghtlese, . empty companyy tired of blood an: wounds, may find some paramount attraction nearer home. If there are any who are prepared to think I have overstated the case or traduced the young women who are at present “somewhere in France,” let them find out from their particular heroine how much time she gave to training, how she received her appointment, and how much real hard work she does day by day That & few have striven hard and nobly 1 would be the last to deny, but these are not enough either to leaven or purify the mass or to elevate the action of a clase that might be better employed. Let us remember, too, that suffering is always with us and that even when war is over there will be far too much in all the grpat centres of our own country. Are these butterfly nurses prepared to remember in the future the profession they bave invaded to-day®’ Will they respond to the calls that are made to help, not young, attractive and.vallan® men, but ts Reserve ¢+ Britafn Rin On the Left Is the Pi ian D-:-ur.. lde:‘n. i ;i:.r,"l:rd on the Right You Wounded She Is Conductivg in Paris. The Once Rather Frivolous Duchess of Westminster, Who Is Conducting a Soldiers’ Hospital Near Paris. as La Gandara Painted in the Hospital f Soldiers . Which men, women and children in every phase of helpless- e nd hopel ness? 1 do think so. s neither riety mor not There noto- lme- light in the sober, serious life of the hospital nurse and sister; above all, there is a hard and neces- sary discipline that calls for much moral cour- age to render it tolerable, Physical oeurage is seMom lacking either in men er women whe are well-bred, and it may be freely gramed that & certain measure is demanded of the butterfly nurses, but there is ne re demption in this. To savor the full sense of life without courage Is Impossible; one might as readily make an omelette with- out breaking egge. In this case it is courage misdirected, energy misspent. I feel very strongly about this scandal, s0 strongly that I have not hesitated to write what s bound to offend some of my own friends, but there are times when it is impossible to be silent if one would live on tolerable terms with oneself. 1 feel that in these days woman is called upon to make supreme sacrific that what she is giving ever now is less than will be required of her later on; that her war record and her record when peace is about d The Princess of Pless, Sister of the --D'ichelo of 85 Westminster, with the German Wounded She Is Nursing Near Berlin. ' to return will be scanned..closely and critically by generations of -really free women yet unborn, { | To know of & blot upon woman's war- time service record, and to make no at- tempt to erase it, is impossibl¢. The rec- ord of the real nursing. sistgrhood is brilliant in the extreme, Why showd it ba obscured for the sake of @ .few. Righly- placed and foolish young women who seel with the minimum labor ta make the maxi. mum of effect? It 1s unjust, ungenerous and altogether unworthy - of : the ‘pepre- sentatives of families that in many cases have carned their ample honors legitimate- ly enough. Great Britain owes more than it can ever repay to the nursing sisterhood, and it is intolerable that while their silent herolsm passes with so little recoguition, any girl of good family who assumes a uniform she has not won the right to wear should pose ag the representative of a sisterhood she is not werthy to assoclate with, of whose tradition she is ignorant, of whose high discipline and compléte restraint she s intolerant There are three classes of women in ous midst. The first earns reward and claime it, the second earns reward and does net claim it, the ldst claims reward and does not earn it, Of these classes the real nurse belongs to the second and ‘the. butierfly sisterhood to the third. At such.a seasen as this there is no‘room in’our midst fer the last and it would be well for us all it authority could spare a moment from manifold activities firmly and ruthlessly. suppress it. The hardship lnwl!fl"‘fl be of the slightest, the benefit serious and