the other was right as to method, for at the end of forty years we find the National Council of Women little more than a name, while the General Federation is dizzy with What is still more interesting, the Federation no longer admits pursuit of culture as its main object but its eight departments of work follow almost to the letter the program laid out for women by the feminists in 1888.

Were the Federation leaders right? Were women unable to bear too much light flooding through the doors and windows of their souls all at once? Were forty years of training necessary to socialize their thinking and bring them to the point where the suffragist leaders thought they should start? That the National Council languished while the Federation grew, cannot be denied. To quote Mrs. Sherman, the national president: "Nothing ever succeeded like the success of the club movement in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Every woman joined some club and some women joined every club, as long as their finances permitted the payment of dues. There were big clubs and little clubs, inclusive and exclusive, for every purpose under the sun."

The simple and inescapable truth is that organized women have at last got back to where they started forty years ago. But is it going to take them forty years longer to develop a technique adequate for their work? I believe they will seek and find a short cut to service through smaller and more specialized groups composed of men and women. The State organizations are far more efficient and more effective than the

national organization of which they are parts.

I dare to prophesy a clubless woman's world by 1950, in the face of reports of increasing numbers of clubs joining the General Federation and their increasing number of members. It is this very bigness of which it constantly boasts and the hopeless multiplicity of its interests, that render the Federation of Women's Clubs an unresponsive, inefficient organization, despite the unquestioned ability and zeal of its leaders. It is being consumed by fires kindled by its own energies, and no genius of leadership can save it from itself. The larger it becomes the more unwieldy it is. The Federation itself is beginning to feel a kind of hardening of the arteries, and its greatest danger lies in enlargement of the heart. It is so big and so complicated that it is easily clogged; and it is so kind-hearted that it warms up to every cause from feeding the birds to international relations, forming committees and passing resolutions endlessly in their interest. Its latest contribution in the field of international relations was a pageant, presented with great success at the Atlantic City Biennial. It handles the most ponderous questions with a light and cameo-like touch. One example of the Federation technique will, I think, prove my point.

One of the eight departments of work is "Public Welfare," a comprehensive topic of vast importance. This department they have divided neatly into six divisions-Child Welfare, Public Health, Problems of Delinquency, Problems of Industry, Indian Welfare and Narcotics. In

each of these such highly specialized agencies as the Children's Bureau and the Women's Bureau are functioning effectively. If any appreciable results are to be obtained in any one of these fields, it will require the undivided attention of the entire organization for a generation, and at best, the effort would be amateurish. Yet a chairman of Public Welfare, working without pay or expense money, is expected to make a showing at every convention.

Though the present chairman of Public Welfare is one of the ablest and most experienced women in the country, she was helpless before the task. She reported that within the two-year period she had written 2600 letters. Now that is a great many letters for one woman to write when so many other things are pressing in on her, but it is an average of only one letter a year to each 100,000 of the population-hopeless, utterly hopeless as a measure of education or reform. "The study of health laws," continues the report, "has assumed national importance," and yet we are told the only project of importance "was made possible by the generosity of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company."

The question of narcotic control is considered to be important enough to justify a division devoted to the subject, and yet the chairman's report filled scarcely a page of the small pamphlet covering the whole field of Public Welfare. To quote: "Illness in the families of two chairmen of the Western Division has handicapped the work which has had to be carried on by the States without regional assistance. Nobody has heard from the regional chairman

The only widespread response to the chairman's efforts on behalf of three million club women in the interest of the welfare of a hundred million people, was in regard to a suggested May-day celebration which was carried off enthusiastically in thirty-four of the forty-eight States. If evidence were needed of the futility of much of the well-meant effort of national organizations to do worth while things, it may be found in the final paragraph of the report of the chairman of Public Welfare: "Summing up the situation, it would seem that a subject that is purely educational is not as arresting as one that provides more entertainment, and if each year shows an increase in interest, one must be satisfied." But the point is that women of intelligence are not satisfied with May-day parties and such once-a-year frills, when vital and all-the-year-round problems are crying for attention.

Having within the past year observed club women in action in forty States, I am convinced that the majority is weary with the inertia and ineptitude of the old-fashioned women's clubs, and in many States and in many individual clubs, the program has been completely socialized by leaders who are not willing to waste their time in futile efforts.

Notably in North Carolina, club women are facing the realities of public welfare work, and are meeting

new issues in a new way, without a suggestion of the cumbersomeness and the overlapping characteristic of the national organization. Alabama club women are working directly with the State officials and have gained the respect of these officials. These and other like signs point to a merging of the interests and activities of men and women that seems to me inevitable.

Though the Federation has pushed and pulled with all its might in an effort to help many a great cause on its way, it has never initiated an important campaign nor started a great movement in the interest of human welfare. It was nearly a quarter of a century old before it accepted the principle of equal suffrage, and it was years later that it began in earnest to develop a social consciousness. It has invariably waited until things have been done or half done and then "indorsed" them. It has given assistance to such measures as the SheppardTowner Act, but it did not originate the idea back of that act, nor the Children's Bureau that did the actual technical work in its behalf. The greatest organization of women in the world boasts of but one single concrete accomplishment, as a national organization, during the World War. The Federation sent to France a unit of one hundred girls to "do social service work"; and when the war was over, it found it had about $70,000 in the treasury, and for years it seemed that this money could be used for nothing but to send girls to France, though there was no longer any earthly reason why they should go. Only recently, I believe, this money has been released.

And how many splendid opportunities the Federation has had to put the full force of its power back of great movements of national significance! There is the crusade against illiteracy that is beginning to stir the heart and fire the imagination of America-the only great movement for human welfare that has ever been inaugurated and carried on by an American woman. Starting with the now celebrated "Moonlight Schools" in the Kentucky mountains a few years ago, Cora Wilson Stewart has sounded the battle-cry against ignorance until it now rings around the world. Mrs. Stewart says that the progress she has made would not have been possible without the effective assistance she has had from a number of State federations, but a study of national programs seems to show that the great National Federation of Women's Clubs has only played around the subject. Here indeed was a chance for a fine and challenging piece of constructive work for America-human in its appeal and national in its scope-but the Federation failed to accept the challenge. It allowed the American Red Cross to recognize the merit of Mrs. Stewart's work and the practicability of her plans by giving headquarters to the National Illiteracy Commission in its building in Washington. Mrs. Stewart has worked heroically and almost alone as far as national organizations of women are cerned. It is gratifying that such people of importance in their respective fields, as William Allen White, Dr. John H. Finley, and Ida Tarbell, have rallied to her support.

That the Federation itself is dimly

conscious of the changing psychology of women as well as of its own limitations, is quite evident. Its leaders are wise and experienced women. Mrs. Winter, as war president of the Federation, displayed rare ability in carrying the Federation through the period of its greatest difficulties. Then came Mrs. John D. Sherman, different in type and temperament, but apparently capable of coping with the new problems and the new-woman psychology developed by the war. Furthermore, the Sherman administration has a "Colonel House" in the person of Mrs. Robert J. Burdette, of California, a "good angel" to this and other worthy causes. Mrs. Burdette gives lavishly of herself and her means, wishing nothing in return but the satisfaction of seeing the work go forward. But unless these clever women can find some job for organized women to do -some one big challenging job worthy of their intelligence and the enormous spiritual power they have generated-the women of coming generations are sure to seek outlets for energy and opportunities for personal service through other means and by other methods.

23

It is unfortunate and it may be significant, that the motto carved in an antique cabinet in the Federation Headquarters in Washington is: "Welcome now within my gates; sit down and be at peace." That is a motto for the aged-not for youth.

Two emergency measures have been suggested for rejuvenating the Federation. One is a saline lifestirring solution in the form of "Junior Memberships," and there is an unmistakable note of ecstasy in

the latest report of the Chairman of Junior Membership. It is clear that the Federation is quite upset with enthusiasm over the Juniors, but how do the Juniors feel about the Federation? Once upon a time some generous people built a fine “Neighborhood House" in a tenement district of New York. It really was a wonderful Neighborhood House, but as some one said, the only trouble with it was the neighbors didn't like it. The Chairman of Junior Membership said in her report to the National: "The Juniors are the pride, joy and potential power of the Women's Club. They are the dynamic force to awaken enthusiasm for the best things in life. . Let us give the Juniors a chance to work and play under our guidancein the club-house . . . almost every State rushes to the contest with the appeal of pronouncement that 'we were the first State to organize young girls for sweet charity's sake,' or for 'self-improvement,' or for 'recreation,' or for 'life work."" Now this indicates that the Juniors are being treated just as little girls were treated fifty years ago. Then the report continues: "Each State, in fact each club, has its own sweet way of directing Junior work."

It does sound very sweet and lovely, but it is a middle-aged attitude toward the very young. When the New York League of Women Voters met some time ago, the "New Voters Section" was represented by Margaret Hatfield of Barnard College, and Dorothy Day, of Skidmore College, and these Juniors told the Seniors how they felt about things. Here is what Margaret is recorded to have said:

"You want us to become part of the League of Women Voters and you won't even let us vote. You invite us to meetings and all we are asked to do is to pour tea and pass cake. The girls of my generation are not interested in pouring tea or passing cake. All of the reforms you are working at really affect our generation more than yours. We are the ones who would be most affected by another war, and who have to live under your child-labor laws and your marriage and divorce laws." The other suggestion for stimulating Federation life is a project for raising an endowment fund of $5,000,000. This would be a wonderful idea if the money could be raised by the professional money-raisers to whom the delicate task is to be intrusted, and if somebody could think of something to do with the money if and when it is raised.

If the Junior injection fails to rejuvenate, and if the $5,000,000 fund dribbles away through three hundred committees working at three hundred causes, then somebody simply must think of something else to do very quickly, or the great structure built up with so much enthusiasm by the women of my generation and yours, will be forgotten by the women of the coming generations.

Impossible, you say? Well, I am

About two generations ago women built in Chicago with much enthusiasm, a great memorial

building to Frances E. Willard. It was one of the finest and tallest and one of the most beautiful and useful buildings in the world, and was erected at a cost of $2,000,000. The other day they began to tear that building down. They said the city had outgrown it in these thirty-five years, that it was old-fashioned and ugly; that the equipment was out of date, the architecture antiquated and bad, and that the structure was utterly useless. But the land upon which it stood-oh, that was priceless! So they are going to erect a fine new building on the old site to meet the new demands of a new generation.

If every one of the sixteen thousand women's clubs composing the Federation were to go out of existence in one day, the three million women members would miss the club meetings and the committee meetings for a time, but every single important activity of the clubs of to-day would be continued, and newer and better ways would be found for doing the things that women think should be done. The foundations women have built upon are priceless and indestructible. But why go on living in a superstructure that is hopelessly out of date, and whose walls are crumbling? Why keep patching the roof and stopping leaks and adding rooms? Why not let the new builders build the new structure since they, and not we, will have to live in it?