The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-10-11
THE CONVENTION AT MANKATo.

on Tuesday morning at Mankato vii!
convene notable body of women rep
resenting the federated clubs of the
state of Minnesota. Once a year the
delegates come together for resume
ofzthe years work and to consider ways
and means of charging their labors
and widening their field of endeavor.
Smile as some persons may at these
organizations, the development of clubs
among women, what they do and what
they aim at, are not lightly to be dealt
with. Even those who regard the ac-
tivities of women in organizations as
pernicious and froWn upon them, must
admit their existence and realize that,
for good or evil, they are power.
Women themselves are not one f1ar-
monious body on the subject Of clubs;
there are many intellectual women who
keep aloef from them and are inclined
to think that individual work Of all
kinds is better than cooperative
With these feminine reasoners many
other women take issue, and point to
some of the good things accomplished
by organized women. Cooperative
work, far from being against the spirit
of the age, Is directly In line with it;
and the merging of women's clubs into
| one state organization, and again into
national body, in order 70 bring
greater energy into individual projects.
| is the result Of knowledge Of the latest
| and best thought Of all labor organiza-
| lions. In truth any federation of wom-
en- banded together for certain phi
lanthropic and intellectual purposes,
is but a feminine trust, woman's la
Dor union, at which the wise and
thinking man will not sneer.
If clubs have done nothing else, they
have broadened feminine minds and
taken away a certain provineialism
which was rampant among American
women of the smaller towns a genera
ton ago. While in cities clubs have
done good work, in country districts
| and to the wives of isolated farmers
their value has been inestimable
Formerly cut off from communication
with her kind, condemned to an endless
round of domestic life in a rural COM
| mnuity. the farmers wife has found
in clubs and in the state declarations
an outlet for her social and intellectual
energies which has had much to do
n fol hot ctiA
which was once inevitable for country
women.
1t would seem now that the club
women of this and other states have
come to the parting of the ways. They
have devoted years to self couture,
| and it can no longer be said that wom-
en- are uneducated or uncultured. The
question is, can the vast bodies of or
ganized women in every state in the
Union continue for the same reason?
Is reading and study a sufficient ex-
cuse for their continued existence?
These state declarations which are
| again merged into a national body for
greater strength and cohesion are a
vast power, and it might be made eff
fective for the ameEoration of the hui
man race. For the real work of or
ganized women should be philanthropic
and sociological The world needs, as
it never needed before, the ministra-
tons of trained women to help the
poor, to put hope into the detected, to
| better slum conditions, to establish
homes for girls. and to keep the chill
dren out of the streets.
There are signs that women's organi-
cations are gradually working toward
these greater duties which need femi-
nine hands to soften rough places.
| What is needed Is organizations of
| women inabued with a desire to raise
the standard of living and to solve those
| great human problems which faca 11s