A year as a government agent (1920) by Vira Whitehouse.

 What experience could a woman have had to fit her for such work in so delicate a situation? The mere fact that a woman was chosen was in itself enough to cause comment. Of course, sex had really nothing to do with the fitness of the choice. The time had come when liberal men recognized that there is no sex inability, and when conscientious men wanted their country's work done by the people they thought most capable to do it.

 Whether I was the most capable person is quite another question, and that question was one for George Creel, the Chairman of the Committee on Public Information, to decide. Mr. Creel is a liberal man and free from the usual prejudice against placing women in positions of responsibility. He knew my ability to work hard, because he had worked with me in the 1915 New York State Women Suffrage campaign. In fact, when he asked me to go he said it was because he remembered how hard I had made him work, I had slave-driven him, he said. 

On my part, when the position was offered to me I accepted it without hesitation, and I shou|d have done so even if I could have foreseen the loneliness, the difficulties, and the strange obstacles I was to meet. I had learned in the suffrage campaigns in which I had worked that one of the great stumbling blocks to the advance of women in our very general reluctance to accept responsibility. Since the beginning of By Appointment 3 the world we have been h3rpnotized and have h3rpnotized ourselves into doubt of our ability. I

 had talked to other women so often about the necessity of assuming responsibility, and accept- ing other people's judgment as to our own ability, that I could not hesitate on that score. I had also taken the war very seriously from the beginning. Every phase of suffering for which it was responsible had pictured itself vividly to my imagination. I had longed to join the women who were doing their share directly to help toward the final victory, although I had never had any dreams of being a heroine, of nursing at the very front under shell fire, or of inspiring others to deeds of bravery. 

I knew that my part at best would be only hard, picturesque work at an office desk in safety. But I wanted to do what I could. During the first years of the war, there was no question of it. I was working with every ounce of energy I possessed for democracy at home — ^to pass the suffrage amendment in New York State. I felt comparatively free when the amendment was adopted in November, 191 7. The following month, after having finished a thousand and one details left over from the campaign, having helped make and put into operation plans for educational and patriotic work for the suffrage organization, 

I went to a National American Women Suffrage convention in Washington, and while there I saw George Creel. 

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