in nine cases out of ten she resents the interference of
the leisure class in her affairs as much as she would charity. The
leaders of every class should be its own strong spirits. And the term
"class consciousness" was not invented by fashionable society.

There is another problem that women, forced imminently or
prospectively to support themselves, must face before long, and that
is the heavy immigration from Europe. Of course some of those
competent women over there will keep the men's jobs they hold now, and
among the widows and the fatherless there will be a large number of
clerks and agriculturists. But many reformes will be able to fill
those positions satisfactorily, and, when sentiment has subsided,
young women at least (who are also excellent workers) will begin to
think of husbands; and, unless the war goes on for many years and
reduces our always available crop, American girls of the working class
will have to look to their laurels both ways.

III

Here is the reverse of the picture, which possibly may save the too
prosperous and tempting United States from what in the end could not
fail to be a further demoralization of her ancient ideals and
depletion of the old American stock:

No matter how many men are killed in a war there are more males when
peace is declared than the dead and blasted, unless starvation
literally has sent the young folks back to the earth. During any war
children grow up, and even in a war of three years' duration it is
estimated that as against four million males killed there will be six
million young males to carry on the race as well as its commerce and
industries. For the business of the nation and high finance there are
the men whose age saved them from the dangers of the battlefield.

There will therefore be many million marriageable men in Europe if the
war ends in 1917. But they will, for the most part, be of a very
tender age indeed, and normal young women between twenty and thirty do
not like spring chickens. They are beloved only by idealess girls of
their own age, by a certain type of young women who are alluded to
slightingly as "crazy about boys," possibly either because men of
mature years find them uninteresting or because of a certain vampire
quality in their natures, and by blasee elderly women who generally
foot the bills.

Dr. Talcott Williams pointed out to me not long since that after all
great wars, and notably after our own Civil War, there has been