insists upon better treatment being accorded her, the results may so
react upon the whole field of industry that men too may be sharers in
the benefits.

But there is a mightier force at work, a force more significant
and more characteristic of our age than even the awakened civic
conscience, showing itself in just and humane legislation. That is the
spirit of independence expressed in many different forms, markedly in
the new desire and therefore in the new capacity for collective action
which women are discovering in themselves to a degree never known
before.

As regards wage-earning working-women, the two main channels through
which this new spirit is manifesting itself are first, their
increasing efforts after industrial organization, and next in the more
general realization by them of the need of the vote as a means of
self-expression, whether individual or collective.

Thus the trade union on the one hand, offering to the working-woman
protection in the earning of her living, links up her interests with
those of her working brother; while on the other hand, in the demand
for the vote women of all classes are recognizing common disabilities,
a common sisterhood and a common hope.

This book was almost completed when the sound of the war of the
nations broke upon our ears. It would be vain to deny that to all
idealists, of every shade of thought, the catastrophe came as a
stupefying blow. "It is unbelievable, impossible," said one. "It can't
last," added another. Reaction from that extreme of incredulity led
many to take refuge in hopeless, inactive despair and cynicism.