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MAGAZINE    CHICAGO SUNDAY HERALD   FEATURES
PART FIVE   JULY 22, 1917.
IF THE PRESIDENT SAID TO ME "GO GET THE KAISER!"

[image of President Woodrow Wilson]

By RUTH LAW
The World's Greatest Aviatrix.

I HAVE an ambition, and that is to fly a battle plane on the allied western front-a dueling airplane. Having seen the French and English aviators in their maneuvers and having flown with some of them in their practice flights, I have no hesitancy in believing I could handle one of the fragile machines in the twisting, climbing, falling combats of the air.
There is no doubt that people generally look upon a woman as...

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[Image]
[caption under picture between article columns]

Latest photo of Ruth Law in her aviatrix uniform. (Photo by Moffet.)
I Would Fly Through the Foe's Guarding Planes to... [page cutoff]

...far into the enemy's country, and it may be recalled that a fleet of German airplanes dropped bombs on English cities and then, some of them at least, returned home.
I doubt if women can as a class be made successful flyers. Some of them undoubtedly have been trained in athletics to such an extent that they could steel themselves to air travel, but on the whole they cannot stand the strain. It seems likely to me that physical and not moral factors make them unfit for killers from the sky. The average woman would perform almost any act of legitimate warfare to being this conflict to a close. But she is not prepared for the intense nervous strain of flying and fighting.
American girls of the type of Eleanor Sears, the tennis expert, might become expert aviatrices. Their nerves have been injured to crises and unexpected climaxes. Their hardihood of body, their long practice in gaining complete command of their muscles has made their minds steady. Some dozen of this class might be found in America capable of doing airplane fighting should the occasion arise.
But where women might fly to advantage would be in supply and messenger work, far back of the lines where the Fokkers never come. This would demand plain, unspectacular flying, merely errand work. Hundreds of women could be trained to this sort of flying, for once the principles are understood the danger is slight and course uneventful. The planes are slower and heavier than the battle machines and are not so easily upset in the wind. Placing women in these "truck-horse" airplanes would release scores of men for the more perilous work up ahead. 
Women also could become excellent primary teachers of aeronautics instructing young men in the first stages of flying...

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