by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

The headlines from the Oregon Statesman:

WAR PARTY OF GERMANY MUST BE WIPED OUT
Peace Terms of Great Britain Are End of Prussian Militarism
LORD HALDANE BITTER
Berlin Newspapers Vitriolic in Attacking England

BATTLE FRONT IS ENJOYING A BRIEF RESPITE
Opposing Armies Are Content With Shelling Each Other’s Positions
DUELS FOUGHT IN AIR
Aviators Fight to Death over Entrenched Troops

REDUCTION OF ANTWERP TAKES JUST 11 DAYS
World’s Strongest Fortress Unable to Withstand Modern Artillery
DEATH TOLL IS HEAVY
Conquerors Sacrifice Many in Crossing Belgian Rivers

The British government attributed the war to Prussian militarism. Speaking before Parliament, the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Haldane, stated “The terms of peace will be that the dominant spirit of militarism which has perverted every talent of the German nation will be crushed and broken so that those who come after us shall be free from such terror.” This would be a major issue for the victors drafting the Versailles treaty after the war.

The dispatches reporting events earlier in the month convey a sense of calm as the front gelled into trench warfare:

“Comparative calm on our front has continued through the fine and considerably warmer weather. The last six days have been slightly misty with clouds hanging low and condition have not been very good for aerial reconnaissance.”

“On Saturday, October 3, practically nothing happened except that each side shelled the other. Towards evening on sunday there was a similar absence of activity. Opposite one portion of our line the enemy’s bands played patriotic airs, and the audiences which gathered gave a chance to our waiting howitzers.”

“Not only do their regimental bands perform occasionally, but with their proverbial fondness for music, the Germans have in some places gramophones in their trenches.”

The Oregon Statesman in an editorial, “Are Mothers Fit to Teach” commented a case from New York:

A married woman is permitted to teach in the New York city schools. But if she becomes a mother, she is discharged.

Child-bearing, usually considered the highest and most sacred function of the race, is held to be incompatible with the teaching profession. Every pupil, of course, is the child of some mother, but it takes a spinster or a childless wife to teach that pupil.

Motherhood on the part of professional teacher is “gross neglect of duty.:” That is what the board of education has called it, and the highest court of the state has upheld the board.

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Motherhood intensifies a woman’s love and understanding of children. It broadens her sympathies. It makes her the comprehending friend of the parents of the boys and girls entrusted to her. It gives her moral poise, strength and vision and serious purpose.

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Where can a good, wise mother be more useful to society than in a school room, mothering and instructing the children of less capable members of the great lodge of mothers?

Not necessarily in Salem, though more for straightforward gender-based reasons. At this time there was discussion as to whether married female teachers were taking jobs away from men, the proper breadwinners.