GENERAL PAPERS 83 
The High School Conference at the State University pub- 
lishes its transactions and pays the expenses of most of the 
speakers on its program out of State funds. In the same House 
Bill No. 853 in which our illfated appropriation was included 
when it passed both houses of the legislature, were included the 
following allowances for somewhat similar organizations: to 
the Bee-Keepers’ Association, $2,000.00; to the Dairymen’s 
Association, $5,000.00; to the Poultry Association, $2,000.00; 
to the Live-Stock Breeders’ Association, $3,000.00, and to the 
State Horticultural Society, $11,000.00. It may be that we are 
not exactly in the same class with these organizations. It may 
be that the services that we could render to the State would be 
a little less direct, or a little farther to seek than those rendered 
by these other organizations, but they are surely none the less 
certain, and of no less magnitude. It only remains for us to 
convince the Authorities at Springfield that this is the case. It 
is my understanding, however, that Governor Lowden vetoed 
our item in the bill, not because he deemed our cause unworthy, 
but simply because it happened to fall in the class of new 
requests, and under the conditions of great national stress, he 
had determined to draw the line at that point. So, so far as 
the worthiness of our cause is concerned, in the judgment of 
the present State government, our battle has been already won. 
Of course, many good things must wait on the outcome of the 
present international crisis, and on this account we may be 
compelled to wait, but I can see no cause, at the present time, 
for ceasing to persist in our efforts to make the Academy what 
it should be, with firm confidence that if normal conditions do 
return after the war we shall succeed. 
When we consider how faithful the original members of the 
Academy have been in clinging to the idea thru eleven years of 
discouragement and disappointment; when we consider how 
willing they have been to contribute valuable papers to our 
programs, only to have them tide up for two or three years, 
before being published, and then finally published in so small 
an edition as to give them no adequate currency, there seems to 
be no grounds whatever to doubt the abiding faith which the 
membership has in the value of the organization. But we are 
now put to a new and more severe test. We must meet this 
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