What eight million women want

can be when nobody loves it. The railway station is a long, low, rakish thing of boards, painted a muddy maroon color. Around it is a stretch of bare ground strewn with ashes. Beyond lies the mai

to have a park, when the city gets around to it. At present it is a convenient spot wherein to dump tin cans, empty bottles, broken crockery, old shoes, and

r hands, and the latter occupy a portion of their leisure by belonging to a club, organized for the study of the art of the Renaissance, Chinese religions before Confucius, or the mystery of Browning. The club meets every second Wednesday, and the members read papers, after which

d a place where there was going to be a park. One windy second Wednesday the club members arrived with their eyes full of dust, soot on their white gloves, and indignation in their he

he streets to be dusty. What I object to is having a city dump-heap at my fro

menacing to the health of her neighborhood, and that of

do something about it? The next time we meet we might at least adopt resolutions,

"I think," she said, "that we will come to order and do it now.

wners and business men, and before long an astonished city council found itself on its feet, receiving a deputation from the woman's club. The wom

t long ago but for the fact that there was no park board in existence, and could not be one, beca

. The city attorney was visited, and somehow was coaxed, or argued, or bullied into giving a favorable opinion, after which the election of a park board followed as a matter of course. The town suddenly be

tation, paved streets, cement sidewalks, public playgrounds for children, a high school set in a shaded

fer action on any suggested reform, and it is harmless because of the seeming impossibility of ascertaining what all the women of the country really want. The women of the United States and the w

ional body, they did not dream that they were going to express a collective opinion. Indeed, at that time not very many had opinions worth expressing. The immediate need of women's so

e habit of women, to do things for themselves alone. They have served for so many generations that they have learned to like serving better than any

hey began to talk about the stegomyia mosquito, and what a pity it was that the annual danger of contagion and death from the bite of that insect had to be faced all over again. Pools of water all ov

ne of the club women. "Let's buy a whol

il-cans and set forth. They visited the schools, got teachers and pupils interested, and secured their co-operation. The study of city sanitation was soon put into the school curriculum, and oiling pools of standing water in ev

s, soon added to the original object a department of philanthropy, a department of public school decoration, a department of child labor, a department of civics. The day a women's club ado

ion of three streets with names almost identical, she lost her way to the reception whither s

like that. A stranger is bound to go wrong. I'll tell you what you do, ma'am: you go straight to Mrs. Lovell White,

. In the intervals of studying Browning and antique art, the club found time to discover to

a flower market,"

Council. "Besides, where i

lower market and show

cut flowers. Prices are moderate in outdoor markets, and nothing else so stimulates in an entire community the gardening instinct, usually co

ic playgrounds for children began as a women's club movement. For a dozen years before the Playgrounds Association of America came into existence, women's clubs all over the country

en; not beautifully clean, well behaved, curled and polished children, but just children. Children attracted Miss Kennard to such a degree that she couldn't bear the sight of them wallowing in the grime and soot of Pittsburg streets and alleys. Often she st

ive dollars, and with this money the women fitted out one schoolyard, large enough for sixty children to play in. There was no trouble about getting the sixty together. They came, a noisy, joyous, turbulent, va

d as women have had considerable experience in taking care of children at home,

summer of 1899, three years after the first experiment, Pittsburg children had nine playgrounds and Allegheny children had three, all gifts of the women. By another year the committee was handling thousands of dollars and managing an enterprise of considerable magnitude. A

ors, and supplied from their own membership the volunteer workers, without whom the enterprise would have been a failure from the start. The Boa

tsburg and Allegheny children were not only playing in a dozen schoolyards, but they were attending vacation schools, under expert instructors in manual training, cooking, sewing, art-crafts. Several recreation centers, all-the-year-round playgrounds, have bee

llowing it the chairman of the meeting appointed a committee to consider the possibility of playgrounds for Detroit children. The committee visited the Board of Education, explained the need of

on playgrounds. The committee went to the Common Council this time and asked permission to erect a pavilion and establish a playground on a piece of city land. This was a great, bare, neglecte

absurd, such an unheard-of use. A few of the men were indignant. One Germanic alderma

aintained that playground, holding their faith against the opposition of the janitors, the jeers of the newspapers, and the constant hostility of tax-payers, who protested against the "ruin of school property." After two yea

ve vacant lots flooded to give children skating ponds in winter. Of course the Council refused. Fire plugs were for water in case of fire, not for children's enjoyment. In fact there was a city ordinance forbidding the opening of a fir

have different needs from the country or village children of a generation ago. Men remember their own boyhood, and scoff at the idea of organized and supervised play in a made playground. Women have no memories of the old swimming-hole. They simply see the conditions before them, and they instinctively know what must be done to meet them.

s of over ten thousand inhabitants shall vote upon the question of providing adequate playgrounds. The act provides that every city and town in the Commonwealth which accepts the act shall after July 1, 1910, provide and maintain at least one public playground, and at least one other playg

forgotten that the women's clubs ever had anything to do with the movement. The Playgrounds Association has not forgotten, however. Its pr

women attempt, how difficult they find their task, how much opposition they encounter, and how certain their success in

ngle principal street, as a test of the value of improved highways; nor is it necessary longer to strive for a pure water supply, a healthier sewerage

ss. It still keeps fairly busy with schoolhouse decoration, trave

osed of the women living in each block, and the mayor has invested them with powers of supervision, control of street c

billboards removed, public dumps removed from the town, in having all outside market stalls covered, and

ing and fall municipal house-cleaning. The club women got a photographer and went the rounds of streets and alleys and private backyards. Wherever bad or neglected conditions were found the club sent a note to the o

from destruction and inaugurated the movement to turn them into a public park. As for the Colorado club women, they saved the Cliff D

eir interests local. Once a year they travel, hundreds of them, to a chosen city in the State, and there they hold a convention which lasts a week. And every second year the club women of Minnesota and Texas and California, and every other State in the Union, to say nothing of Alaska, Porto Rico, and the Canal Zone, thousands of them, journey to a cho

of Women's Clubs, holding in common certain definite opinions, and working harmoniously towards certain definit

udy life. Leaders developed, women of intellect and experience, who could foresee the immense power an organiz

er of old-fashioned clubs still devoting themselves to Shakespeare and the classic writers. Mrs. Decker, a voter, a

ied several centuries ago, and a great many things have happened since his time. Let us d

ir national program shows the modernity, the liberal character of organized women's ideals. The General Federation has twelve committees, among them being those on Industrial Conditions of Women and Children, Civil Service Reform, Forestry, Pure Food

gs banks, or other improvements have not been introduced by the clubs. In almost every case the clubs have purchased the equipment and paid the salaries until the boards of education and the school superintendents have been convinced of the value of the innovations. In the South, where

New York University, paid a deserved tribute

ast few years, made a study of schools and school conditions throughou

rm movements in elementary education within the past twenty years have been

n this work was extended, but the object of the libraries was diverted. Instead of collections of books on special subjects to assist the club women in their studies, the t

have been coming to a town for a year or two, people wake up and agree that they want a permanent place in which to read and study. Ohio has over a thousand libraries in circulation, having succeeded, a few y

ntion and cure of tuberculosis, are included. This library, with a pretty complete tuberculosis exhibit, is sent around, and is shown by the local clubs of each town. Usually the women try to

re exists a Council of Women, a central organization to which clubs and societies of women with all sorts of opinions and objects send delegates. In the United States the council is made up of the General Federation of Women's Cl

the councils send delegates, represents more than eight million women, in countries as far apart as Australia, Argentine, Iceland, Persia, South Africa, and every country in Europe. The council, indeed, has no formal organization in Russia, because organizations of every kind are illegal in Russia. But Russian women attend ev

of every country, race, creed, or party who are associating themselves together in altruistic

ruistic women in the world believe, what they think the world needs, what the

decision until the opinion of the delegates is practically unanimous. It commits itself to n

ll nationalities, religions, and temperaments are agreed on at least four questions. In the course of its twenty years of existence the Interna

the controversial stage, even with women themselves. That is true in the United States and in England. It is true, in a sense

arty. I said to him that I had been informed that the conservative reformers, as well as the radicals, included woman suffrage in their p

first general election. Talking with one of the nineteen women returned to Parliament a few months later,

em. There was simply no opposition. One of the demands ma

overnment, with the consent of the governed, is considered by the In

ndencies, but the large organization is absolutely democratic. If the President of the International Council is an English peeress, one of the vice-presidents is the wife of a German music teac

l pageant of women's trades and professions. An immense procession of women, bearing banners and emblems of their work, marched through streets lined with spectators to Albert Hall, where the entire orchestra of this largest auditorium in

been blackened by smoke and coal dust until they can never be washed white.... To these women, the hardest workers in the land, were given the seats of hon

the precarious Panama situation. At a moment when social discontent threatened literally to stop the building of the canal, the Department of Commerce and Labor employed Miss Helen Varick Boswell, o

h was beginning to engage the attention of the clubs. Within an hour after he left the platform Mr. Mills had been engaged by a dozen state presidents to lecture to clubs and federations. As soon as it reached the Governm

beginning to fear it. The president of the Manufacturers' Association, in his inaugural address, told his colleagues that their wives and daughters invited some very

ing in mills. The women go on working for child labor and compulsory education laws, unconvinced by the arguments of the mill owners and the votes of the legislators. The highest court in the State of New York was powerless to persuade New York club women tha

traditions of what the founders of the Republic intended,-the sacredness of state rights, or the protective pa

mothers, the eight hundred thousand American women whose collective opinion is expressed through the General Federation of Women's Clubs. For the most part they are mature in years, these club women. Their children are

en, the club movement might have taken on a more cultural and a less practical form. As it was, the women formed their groups with the direct object of educating themselves and, being practical women used to work, they readily turned their new knowledge to practical ends. As quickly as they found out, through education, what their local communities needed they were filled with a generous de

ives, and mothers. Their program contains nothing especially radical. And yet, what a revolution would the world witness were that program carried out? Peace and arbitration; social purity; public health; woman suffrage; removal of all lega