STATE AND NATIONAL FEDERATIONS 243 



problems may go unsolved, or, on the other hand, that 

 rural women's interests will be swallowed up in those of 

 urban women in a city-controlled organization, such as 

 the Federation of Women's Clubs. This would be as in- 

 jurious to the movement as to have allowed the chambers 

 of commerce to have continued to dominate the men's 

 work. 



The Grange has set a good example of what ought to 

 be done, in its recognition of women with equal rights, 

 privileges and functioning in that order, although even 

 here the initiative of women is not usually sufficiently 

 encouraged to lead women to function in Grange work as 

 fully as the men. In only two or three states, however, 

 is this principle yet accepted and practiced. In New 

 York, where the home department or home bureau ia 

 recognized as fully coordinate with the farm department 

 or farm bureau in the county association, this principle 

 is applied to the state also, and a state federation of home 

 bureaus, constituted substantially like the farm bureau 

 federation, has been organized. As yet this state group 

 has no organic relation to the farm bureau federation, as 

 it logically should have if the county plan were to be fully 

 applied to the state, although the same end is secured by 

 mutual understanding and cooperation. Thus the women 

 in this state have the fullest opportunity and exercise 

 it to apply their united efforts in a state-wide way to 

 their own problems and to aid the men in the solution of 

 problems common to both. 



One of the real difficulties in securing a complete func- 

 tioning of women in this movement, as in others, lies in 

 their inability to finance it properly themselves. The 

 fact that she does not usually hold the pocketbook seriously 

 handicaps the farm woman from doing her share. The 

 woman's work is usually inadequately financed in the 



