The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-02-09

| however. from $500 to $3.50 a year has
been expended for a salary for q paid
organizer; in Alabama, women have free
ly given such labor, expecting and re-
ceiying no reward save the joy of service
Other states are expending, in some in
stances, as much as $1,000 annually in
prizes TO stimulate this movement. Ala
bama has never received more than one
prize OF 800 year from the Alabama
Federation, and it is now reduced to $50.
Yet in the final showing Alabama has not
Jared so badly, never having been ex-
celled in territory covered associations
formed or expenditures effected, save by
one Mississippi. whose expense
fund more than quadruples ours
Nevertheless, this handicap of limited
funds is most serious, especially with the
state association, an organization that is
fighting for existence upon an empty
treasury. The STATE School Improvement
association was formed to provide body
in which presidents of country associa-
tions could meet give reports of their
work and receive that stimulation which
follows the reports of others. The casual
observer naturally asks why after several
years existence it is not self-supporting,
but a short examination will enlighten
him. For the treasury of any organiza
ton is supplied with funds by dues re-
ceived from the units IN which it is di-
vlded The unit of the state association
is the county organization; this latter to
possess funds must rely upon its unit, the
local organization. But as a county as
sociation is pre-eminently an organizing
body, pure and simple, how can it tax an
organization before it exists, and from
what source is it to derive financial aid
while it is organizing associationsY 1t has
none. and the expense of such an educa-
tional campaign has to be betrayed from
, the Individual purse of the county presi-
dent. And who are these county presi-
dents? Women of wealth and position,
the natural leaders? Nay, not one. With
very few exceptions they are wage earn
ers, three of them widows, supporting
by their labor minor children, and who.
although weary from daily toll are sutfi-
ciently Interested in the educational de-
velopment of their state to spend them
! selves conducting educational campaigns
planning, advising, appealing and to spend
portion of their earnings as we'll Rich
they are, in altrusm; position they have,
of those who serve, and leaders they are,
on the road to sacrifice. How often do
we find women of wealth and leisure who
| consider their duty fulfilled when they
have devoted SIS to $50 to scholarship
Where in the final showing will they stand
with such as these?
| Again, even at the expiration of three
years required by experts TO organize ell
\ ficiently a county, in many instances the
local associations are composed Of mem
| bers to whom the idea of compensation
with and obligation to an outside body Is
absolutely strange-and by whom 1t is
met with positive antagonism and it takes
| time tact. and patience to win them to
| the wider view. Furthermore, even with
| associations Of enlightened personnel and
that effect expenditure running into the
4 l4a. -
/ paid by them into the treasury of the
/ county association and only % cents of
this to the state association. The hasty
thinker is not acquainted with these de-
tails and therefore misunderstanding has
arisen even in the mother of this work.
the Alabama Federation of Women's
Clubs, some few of its members having
! thoughtlessly stated, that the stimula-
ton of the federation prize was no longer