WOMEN IN HUMANE WORK Women have figured for many years and are prominent today in service in The American Humane Association, Albany, N. Y. and its six hundred federated societies for the protection of children and animals. Notable among them is Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, a Vice-President of the Association and Honorary Chairman of its Humane Trapping Committee. In her tours of leading American cities Mrs. Fiske invariably finds an opportunity to deliver a public address, demanding that the steel-jawed trap, which secures pelts by slow and hideous torture, be outlawed; and that, failing the introduction of humane methods of capture, women should insist upon their furs being obtained from fur farms where animals, whose pelts are to be taken, are humanely destroyed. Mrs. Fiske has also been a leader in the movement to stop the loss of millions of cattle and sheep by starvation on the stock ranges of America, and is vigorously opposing the use of cruel sports for man's entertainment. Miss Alva C. Blaffer, New Orleans, has given splendid service as a pioneer of the humane cause in Mexico and in Spain. In Cuba Mrs. Jeanette Ryder for years stood almost alone for the protection of dumb beasts. A great work, corrective and educational, has been undertaken in the Philippines, by Mrs. von Piontkowski, with the backing of Mrs. Leonard Wood, Mrs. Douglass MacArthur and other American women having at heart the interests of the islands and their population. Many years ago Mrs. Huntington Smith started the Boston Animal Rescue League and is still its President. She started out to care for the stray and homeless small animals in a cottage on Carver St. Today the League has a well appointed shelter and refuge, cares for thousands of animals, gives free veterinary service for the sick and injured animals of those who are not wellto-do, operates a rest farm at Dedham where rundown horses can find rest and recuperation, and has established a cemetery where the pets of notables lie side by side with the animal favorites of the poor. Mrs. Huntington Smith's methods have been copied in many other cities. In Cleveland Miss Stella Hatch and Mrs. Edith L. Dustin fourteen years ago founded the Cleveland Animal Protective League. For five years they gave service in an entirely personal way, sheltering homeless animals in their basements and garages. Today they have a magnificiently equipped shelter, and maintain a fleet of four ambulances with a day and night service. Mrs. Richard Hardy for years maintained an uphill struggle in Chattanooga, Tenn. Today her society has a beautiful shelter on a five acre plot which is a model of its kind. In Jacksonville, Fla., Mrs. R. Fleming Bowden has established a splendid shelter on a ten-acre tract given by her husband. The shelter was opened last spring. Mrs. Mary F. Lovell has long been an active leader, with Miss Ashbridge and others, in the Women's Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals which was founded by the late Caroline Earle White. On the Pacific Coast Mrs. F. W. Swanton, is Manager of the highly successful Oregon Humane Society with headquarters at Portland. In New Hampshire Mrs. Jennie Powers, of Keene, has been humane officer for many years and has never hestitated to leave her bed in the dark hours to go to the aid of child or animal in distress. Humane education is being furthered in many parts of the country, notably by Mrs. Clay Preston who is director of this branch of service for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, New York. PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES Most of the nation-wide organizations of American women have some purposes in common, and for the pursuit of these common purposes, insofar as federal legislation can further them, twenty-two such national ogranizations have set up a clearing house committee at Washington. This is known as the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, and it functions as the cooperative agency of constituencies in every State of the Union; functions by conveying to members of Congress the sentiment of the women voters back home; and to those women in turn it conveys the news of what their repre sentatives do at Washington. Nothing just like this joint committee exists for any other group of voters; certainly nothing like it representing men's organizations as such. Men have organizations and combinations which could function the same way, but men's organization methods and technique are different. The Women's Joint Congressional Committee is a piece of machinery through which at first ten and now twenty-two national organizations of women execute their programs of federal legislation. Not all of them endorse the same legislation, and the Women's Joint Congressional Committee itself, being merely a clearing house, and a cooperative machine, endorses no legislation, proposes none. Whenever any piece of legislation is called for by five or more organizations, however, a sub-committee, composed of the legislative representatives of the supporting organizations is formed for the promotion of that bill. At present sub-committes of the Women's Joint Congressional Committee are at work in behalf of ten different measures-namely these: A constitutional amendment enabling Congress to legislate for the prevention of child labor. Entrance of the United States into the World Court, according to recommendations of Presidents Harding and Coolidge. Amendment of the Civil Service Classification Act to provide for administration of the Act through the United States Civil Service Commission. Adequate appropriations for the United States Children's Bureau and the United States Women's Bureau. Continuance of federal work for social hygiene. Action by Congress creating a federal department of education and providing federal aid to the states for eradication of illiteracy, for Americanization, and for the equalization of educational opportunities. Promotion of vocational home economics by increasing funds and facilities under the Vocational Education Act. A sub-committee is opposing the blanket constitutional amendment ("Lucretia Mott Amendment") for so-called "Equal Rights" because these organizations consider the amendment self-defeating as to equality, and destructive of valuable existing laws. Five Acts of Congress already passed in the last three years have beer. due to the efforts of these women's organizations. They are a statutory provision for the maintenance of the Women's Bureau in the U. S. Department of Labor-which is a bureau created for the purpose of studying and advising the public upon the working conditions surrounding the women who work for their living; the Sheppard-Towner Act, which was adopted as a means of reducing the unnecessarily high mortality of mothers and babies by providing federal aid to the states for the development of preventive methods through the state health authorities; The Cable Act, providing independent citizenship for women irrespective of marital status; a compulsory education law for the District of Columbia, increasing the school attendance period: and provision for a federal institution for women prisoners. In addition to these, Congress has passed and submitted to the states for ratification the child labor amendment to the federal constitution. The 22 organizations now belonging to the Women's Joint Congressional Committee are these: American Association of University Women President, Dr. Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, American Federation of Teachers American Home Economics Association American Nurses Association President, Miss Adda Eldredge, Council of Women for Home Missions General Federation of Women's Clubs, President, Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman,, Girls' Friendly Society in America President, Miss Frances W. Sibley, Detroit, Mich. Institute Fraternity, Medical Women of the American Institute of Homeopathy President, Dr. Cornelia Chase Brant, Medical Women's National Association President, Dr. Kate Campbell Hurd Mead, National Association of Colored Women President, Mrs. Mary MacLeod Bethune, National Committee for a Department of Education National Congress of Parents and Teachers National Education Association Field Secreatry, Miss Charl Williams, Washington, D. C. National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs Cleveland, Ohio. National League of Women Voters President, Miss Belle Sherwin, National Women's Christian Temperance Union National Women's Trade Union League President, Mrs. Maud Swartz, New York City National Board of Young Women's Christian Associations New York City Service Star Legion President, Mrs. J. Fenimore Baker, Baltimore, Md. COMMITTEE OF ONE THOUSAND FOR BETTER NEWS A group of women under the Chairmanship of Ida Clyde Clarke have organized а Committee of One Thousand for Better News. The slogan of the organization is "more readers of better newspapers". Members so far secured include: Grace Abbott, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. J. W. Algeo, Barrington, R. I.; Judge Florence E. Allen, Columbus, O.; Mrs. Herbert M. Backus, Columbus, O.; Miss Isabel Craig Bacon, Washington, D. C.; Miss Anne I. Baker, Paducah, Ky.; Mrs. R. E. Barrett, Warrenton, Ore.; Mrs. John H. Booth, Plattsburg, N. Y.; Miss Minnie L. Bradley, New Haven, Conn.; Miss S. P. Breckenridge, Chicago, Ill.; Mrs. Mary C. Love Collins, Cincinnati, O.; Mrs. Edward P. Costigan, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. R. P. Crump, Nitta Yuma, Miss.; Miss Ada B. Cummings, Santa Paula, Calif.; Mrs. Effie L. Cunningham, St. Louis, Mo.; Mrs. Haryot Holt Dey, New York City; Mrs. Anna M. DeYo, San Francisco, Calif.; Mrs. Kara A. Dickinson, Minot, N. D.; Mrs. Anne Dallas Dudley, Nashville, Tenn.; Mrs. Katherine Philips Edson, San Francisco, Cal.; Miss Edith Edwards, Woonsocket, R. I.; Dr. Blanch Epler, Hatteras, N. C.; Mrs. Nannie G. Faulconer, Lexington, Ky.; Helen G. Fisk, Pasadena, Cal.; Miss Vida Hunt Francis, Philadelphia, Pa.; Dr. Christine Ladd Franklin, New York City; Mrs. Susa Young Gates, Salt Lake City, Utah; Mrs. Pearl M. Gay, 258 Myrtle St., Atlanta, Ga.; Blanche Geary, New York City; Judge Mary B. Grossman, Cleveland, O.; Miss Winifred M. Hausam, Los Angeles, Cal.; Dr. Gillette Hayden, Columbus, O.; Mrs. Giles Emory Hunter, Berkeley, Cal.; Sally Lucas Jean, Forest Hills, L. I.; Mrs. Luke Johnson, Atlanta, Ga.; Mrs. Harriet C. Jones, Lisbon, N. D. Frances Parkinson Keyes, Washington, D. C.; Marie Leonard, Urbana, Ill.; Mary A. Lindsay, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Esther Lovejoy, New York City; Katherine Ludington, Ardmore, Pa.; Mrs. Alice Foote MacDougal, New York City; Icie G. Macy, Detroit, Mich.; Theodora March, Nogales, Ariz.; Mrs. Bruce W. Maxwell, Indianapolis, Ind. Judge Virginia Henry Mayfield, Birmingham, Ala.; Helen B. Montgomery, Rochester, N. Y.; Dr. Sarah Graham Mulhall, New York City; Mrs. H. E. Pearce, Birmingham, Ala.; Rev. Jane Priest, Chicago, Ill.; Mrs. Maud E. |