Girls' Friendly Society in America, National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations, National Consumers' League, National Council of Jewish Women, National Council of Women, National Federation of Business and Professional Women, National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, National Women's Trade Union League, National Board of the Young Women's Christian Association, Service Star Legion. The committee is a clearing house for legislation of particular interest to women. It does not separately endorse legislation, but promotes measures which have received the endorsement of member organizations. When as many as five of the group have endorsed a bill, a sub-committee consisting of those organizations is formed to further its passage through Congress. This committee has its own officers, meets on call of its chairman, outlines its own course of action and is responsible for its own publicity. Some seven or eight sub-committees have been created, but the Maternity and Infancy group has been most active, having held some two hundred meetings before the bill became an act. The subcommittees now functioning are those supporting The Towner-Sterling Department of Education Bill, The Fess bill for increased appropriation for instruction The Fess-Capper bill for physical education, The Sterling-Lehlbach reclassification bill. No organization joining the committee is committed to any policy except that of cooperation wherever possible. The committee has found that its strength depends to a large extent upon the support of its constituents at home, and upon the care taken in endorsing legislation. Unless you inform your Congressmen that you desire to have a bill passed or defeated and keep constantly before them your serious purpose, the influence of the Joint Committee is limited. We are your watchtower only. When Congressmen are told that when we say the General Federation of Women's Clubs has endorsed a bill it means that two million women have carefully considered it, have had it presented to the club and discussed thoroughly before action was taken and endorsement given, at once they give heed to your letters and telegrams and to our appeal. A club can not be too careful in its endorsement if it would continue to bring influence upon Congress. The Joint Committee holds monthly meetings at the headquarters of its member organizations. Its success has been due in large part to the leadership, tact and judgment of its chairman, Mrs. Maud Wood Park, whom I have asked to share my time and to speak to you of the value of careful endorsement of legislation. STATE AND LOCAL LEGISLATIVE COUNCILS MRS. EDWARD FRANKLIN WHITE Chairman Department of Legislation Nearly every State in the Union has a legislative council of some sort working under different plans for pushing State legislation, as a survey made by your Chairman of Legislation shows. The findings of the survey have been printed in chart form and can be had on application to Headquarters or to your chairman, as well as the pamphlets, "Constitution Suggested as a Model for Legislative Councils When Formed in Various States," "Outline of Progress of Legislation Through a State Legislature and Demonstration for a Program," and "Discussion of Pending Federal Legislation." WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 21 AN EVENING OF WELCOME FROM CHAUTAUQUA AND FORMAL OPENING OF THE CONVENTION Mrs. Thomas G. Winter, President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and Mrs. George Thatcher Guernsey, Presi dent of the Local Biennial Board and Trustee of Chautauqua Institution, presiding. Invocation. Rev. J. B. Horton, Chautauqua. Voice: Boat Song-Harriet Ware. Lindy Lou-Lily Strickland. Robin, Robin, Sing Me a Song-Charles Gilbert Spross. Mrs. F. H. Nichols at the Piano. (Courtesy Brunswick Co.) Addresses of Welcome: Mrs. George Thatcher Guernsey, Honorary President Gen- Mrs. Ida B. Cole, Executive Secretary Chautauqua Literary Response to Addresses of Welcome: Mrs. Thomas G. Winter, President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Voice: Will-o'-the-Wisp-Charles Gilbert Spross. Song of the Chimes-Lola Worrell. April Morn-Robert Batten. Miss Virginia Rea, Coloratura Soprano. Mrs. F. W. Nichols, State Chairman of Michigan, at piano. Address: "The Old World and the New." Dr. Arthur E. Bestor, President Chautauqua Institution. ADDRESS OF WELCOME ON BEHALF OF CHAUTAUQUA MRS. GEORGE THATCHER GUERNSEY Chairman Local Biennial Board It is my great pleasure, as Chairman of the Local Biennial Board Committee, as a Trustee of the Chautauqua Institution. and a summer resident of Chautauqua for many years, to welcome you as delegates and visitors to the 16th Biennial Convention of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Chautauqua is honored tonight by the presence of the representatives of the General Federations of Women's Clubs of America. These grounds, this vast amphitheater and this unparalleled platform, could welcome no gathering of women representing more vital interests than are united here tonight in this national convention. I count it an unusual and highly prized honor to perform the delightful task of speaking a few words of welcome to the choice spirits here who think and act in their representative character for two million of the leading women in the United States. Chautauqua may well regard itself as honored beyond compare in opening its hospitable gates and unique conveniences to such a company of intellectual leaders. This platform has been graced by the presence and this amphitheater has caught the voices of the masters and mistresses of assemblies as they have spoken on the most thrilling themes which can engross the mind of the civilized world. The world embracing spheres of influence which have been broadcasted from this, America's most lofty and dynamic aerial station, never before sent out into the far-stretching spaces such intellectual, social and moral waves of enlightenment and uplift as will flash from the cultured brains and throbbing hearts of those who will stand here during the coming ten days of this great convention. What glorious days these will be! What an incomparable privilege is ours who are thus favored to sit at the feet of such teachers and leaders as they speak to us out of their ripened experience and world embracing observations. These addresses will not be uttered by those who speak as they may happily be inspired by chance, luck, or general information. Each will bring to this platform a message which will be as "beaten oil." To change the figure, each will bring the flashing steel which has been tempered in the fires of a cultured brain, and beaten on the anvil of deep meditation, wide observation and an experience enriched by high and unselfish living. What shall be said here will take on a peculiar significance because of the hour in which it is spoken. Never was the world in such chaotic upheaval. New civilizations are in the making. Nations are being born in this day. International Relations were never so charged with electric possibilities and volcanic potentialities. The whole civilized world is one vast tinder-box. One spark may any moment produce a world conflagration. There are no living prophets who dare attempt to foretell what sort of a world we will be living in one decade hence, or even in one year. This is an hour which demands solemnity and poise. We women are not unaware of the place of enlarged and almost staggering responsibility which has been placed upon us. We ought to bring to the consideration of such great interests, as the convention program presents, calm judgment, unwarped by partisan prejudice; a human interest such as God has peculiarily endowed the womanhood of the race, and an impartial justice which is untrammeled by political affiliations and unfamiliar to the leading-strings and cracking whip of self-appointed leadership. The women leaders of this day must not be "The slaves of custom and established mode, With pack-horse constancy to keep the road, Crooked or straight, through quays or thorny dells, True to the jingling of their leader's bells." We all know the temptation to listen "To a nurse's tale, which children open eyed and mouthed, devour, and thus as garrulous ignorance relates, to learn it and believe." We are not here to be entertained. There are others than we who love to view the movies. We shall not indulge in the spectacular. We are not running for office. We shall not seek to be dramatic so that our proceedings may get space on the front page of the daily paper. But we shall calmly seek to weigh in the scales of an impartial Judgment, those loudly claimant interests involved in American citizenship. We shall endeavor to bring woman's experience to bear on the question of applied education in its relation to the conservation of God-given resources, the training of youth, and home economics. We shall aim to employ our woman's instincts and intuitions as they are related to the fine arts, and thus lend our powers to such programs as will contribute to the purity of the arts, the elevation of literature and the culture of the most lofty and refined music. |