William Cox Redfield to Woodrow Wilson

There lies before me a dispatch to the State Department from JB Jackson, American Consul at Aleppo, now here, suggesting that the agricultural needs of France are such that we should help them. He says:

"As there are great numbers of volunteers from the American Army who are rejected on account of minor physical disability, but who would be entirely serviceable for this work, it is thought that some two or three hundred thousand or even more if necessary thereof might be utilized therefor, forming an auxilliary branch of our Army."

It is, I suppose, quite impossible to do anything of the kind suggested for our own shortage of labor on our farms is such that I presume we have not the men to spare even if the plan were otherwise feasible. The interest serves, however, to introduce the thought which I wish to present:

Has not the time come when in order to sustain the industrial and agricultural activities behind our armies to the full, we ought not only to mobilize any unused forces of the kind available, but to call upon the womanhood of the country definitely to come forward and do what they can to relieve men for the sterner occupations? To illustrate unused forces, I have a friend who is a draftsman of unusual quality but who is lame. He wishes to work and is well able to work at a task but the organization is such in places where he applies that a lame man is not taken. There must be many men in our country who could do something to the gain of the land and to the uplifting of their own sense of manhood if there were some sort of provision made to provide conditions under which they could work. There are also many places in the country occupied by men which women could well fill. It hardly seems as if in the present pressure men ought to be used to run elevators. For many years past fine tool making in factories in Europe has been in the hands of trained women and the work is nothing like as physically severe as the task of the ordinary domestic servant. If the matter were looked into, I think there are many occupations filled by men in department stores which women could fill just as well. I know there is a movement in this general direction but it seems that it should be accelerated. If the matter were to be definitely taken up as a program, possibly the Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense would be able to start it. I think there are probably many thousand women in this country eager to take a productive part. Ought we not to get at the matter definitely?

I am venturing to send a copy of this to the office of the Secretary of Labor. I am sure you will realize that it is not written in any thought of criticism. Factories and farms are calling for men and in so far as women may be able and willing to do some work suited to them which men now do, it seems as if it is our duty to get a readjustment made.