191R. 
T M RURAL NEW-VORKKK 
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THE HOUSEWIVES’ LEAGUE. 
A Letter from the President. 
Objects of the League. —I deem it a 
great pleasure to tell the good women of 
the farming homes something about the 
Housewives’ League. One of our great 
aims is to bring the producer and the 
consumer together, and this privilege is 
certainly one long step in that direction. 
It is doubtful if any other subject has, 
during the last quarter of a century, 
caused such a stirring of thought among 
the whole mass of our people as the 
recently increased high cost of living. 
This subject has shaken to the bottom 
our national complacency and satisfaction 
with the way we were doing things, and 
to-day we are searching our hearts and 
asking ourselves what we can do individ¬ 
ually and collectively to cure the evils 
that have come upon ns. and to avert the 
greater dangers that threaten us. From 
this stirring of heart and minds the 
greatest good has undoubtedly come. 
Woman has awakened to a realization of 
her responsibilities and power as a house¬ 
keeper, and for all time in the future she 
must be reckoned with as a factor in the 
affairs of the world. It was the abnor¬ 
mally high cost of living and the consid¬ 
eration of the causes thereof which awak¬ 
ened woman to her responsibility as the 
dispenser of the family income. 
A Working Organization. —The story 
of the Housewives’ League is already 
familiar to city women generally, and in 
some degree to the women of the country. 
The housewives of the whole country are 
united in one great body to study and 
control conditions that affect the home. 
More than 700.000 women throughout the 
country are banded together for this pur¬ 
pose. Briefly, the objects are to uphold 
the enforcement of laws which affect food 
supplies, family health and the cost of 
living. The members are expected to 
insist on full weights and measures and 
cleanliness in the handling of food sup¬ 
plies. They are expected to protest 
against the exposure of food to contam¬ 
ination from dirt, flies, or other infec¬ 
tion, and to refuse to purchase such food. 
They make personal investigation into the 
sanitary condition of such markets, gro¬ 
ceries, bakeries, dairies, delicatessen and 
confectionery stores, and they are ex¬ 
pected to discriminate against cold stor¬ 
age poultry, fish, butter, eggs, fruit, etc., 
in favor of fresh products, especially 
when the goods have been held to the 
detriment of condition and for speculative 
purposes. 
The Consumers’ Awakening. — At 
some other time I hope to have the pleas¬ 
ure of telling our good women of the 
farm something of the work that the or¬ 
ganized housewives are doing for the bet¬ 
terment of the city food supply, which 
must ultimately work to the benefit of the 
country producer. At this time, how¬ 
ever, l want to dwell more upon what 
I believe to be the important phase of the 
whole movement, and that is the awak¬ 
ening of the consumers to the fact that 
their interests and the interests of the 
producer are one. We have heard much 
about intensive farming and more pro¬ 
duction, but it is only recently that the 
American public has given much thought 
to marketing conditions, which are really 
the keynote to the whole situation. Pre¬ 
vious to the organization of the consum¬ 
ers, almost the only persons who seem 
to have done anything along the market¬ 
ing lines were the wholesalers, retailers 
and the jobbers. They studied produc¬ 
tion. made their conclusions and combina¬ 
tions and controlled the shipping and 
marketing conditions to suit themselves. 
The producer accepted these conditions 
as inevitable, and when they left him no 
margin to live upon he abandoned the 
farm. As for the housewife, the repre¬ 
sentative of the consumer, all she did was 
to go to the corner store, or to an occa¬ 
sional huckster, and buy the things of¬ 
fered her at the price demanded. It 
was not until the prices of the necessities 
of life became abnormally high that the 
consumer made any effective protest. The 
city housewife knew little about the pro¬ 
ducer or his problems, and at first 
thought, I am afraid, was inclined to 
blame the producer for the advance in the 
cost of table supplies. So long as prices 
were low at the farm, and the middleman 
was in a measure reasonable, the middle¬ 
man’s undue share escaped the notice of 
the consumer. So long as prices were 
not abnormally high the consumer did not 
stop to inquire what percentage of her 
expenditure went to the middleman and 
how much to the producer; but when 
large numbers of persons, formerly in 
easy circumstances, began to find it diffi¬ 
cult to make ends meet, and many of the 
less well-to-do class felt the actual pinch 
of want, it became necessary to think, 
and as soon as people began to think 
they saw that something was wrong with 
our methods of food distribution. The 
producers’ 35-eent dollar became an eco¬ 
nomic proposition. 
Eliminating tiie Middleman, — At 
the very beginning of our work the 
Housewives’ League came to the conclu¬ 
sion that if the high cost of living was to 
be reduced, producer and consumer must 
be brought closer together, and this con¬ 
clusion was startlingly confirmed by sub¬ 
sequent investigations. To this end the 
Housewives’ League has for the past 
three years held conferences with pro¬ 
ducers. advocated public markets, and di¬ 
rect connection between producer and 
consumer. We have to our credit the 
establishment of not less than 22 public 
markets and numerous club markets in 
suburban districts. Members of the 
Grange and producers’ organizations are 
now becoming acquainted with the House¬ 
wives’ League in the various parts of 
the country. The consumer through this 
League has played a large part in the 
marketing of food products. The city 
housewife for the first time is learning 
market conditions, and she has studied 
production, transportation and distribu¬ 
tion. She is learning to buy things in 
season in order to take up the surplus 
of the produce markets. If the middle¬ 
men can be induced‘to give up these sur¬ 
plus products at a price commensurate 
with the returns to the producer, the 
surplus products ' would soon disappear 
and better prices would be realized by 
the producer. With proper marketing 
conditions the producer would get more; 
the consumer would pay less; there would 
be less waste, and the middlemen would, 
of course, receive less. It is the ambition 
of the Housewives’ League to bring this 
to pass. It is not so much more produc¬ 
tion that we need at this stage of the 
problem as better marketing facilities and 
decreased number of needless middlemen. 
The Housewife’s Influence. —The 
success of this great movement depends 
primarily on the housewives of the coun¬ 
try, both country and urban. We need 
the influence of the housewives not only 
of the city but of the farm and of the 
town and the village. We invite every 
woman at the head of the family to join 
us in this great study of the economic 
conditions for feeding the people of this 
country. It is vitally important that the 
country producer should understand the 
conditions and requirements of the city 
consumer. It is equally important that 
the city housewife, going out with her 
basket for her daily supplies, should know 
something of the condition of the people 
who are producing the foods for her 
table. This great organization of a 
Housewives’ League affords facilities for 
this information through the association 
of one with the other, and the women of 
the city reach up their hand in sympa¬ 
thetic greeting to their sisters of the farm 
and invite them to a membership in the 
Housewives’ League. 
Jennie Dewey Heath, 
National President. 
Organization for Farm Women. 
To one who delights in the benefits of 
organization there comes an hour when 
courage fails. That hour is when he 
looks from a car window upon the lone- 
standing farm and ranch houses of one 
of our great agricultural States, and re¬ 
flects that in each home lives a farm 
woman. It is difficult then to escape 
the query “How can organization attempt 
to bind these separated women together?” 
Yet that organization has dared even this 
seemingly impossible task was evidence 
in October last when, in Oklahoma, was 
held the third annual International Con¬ 
gress of Farm Women. That such a 
congress is still experimental goes with¬ 
out saying. That its motive for exist¬ 
ence is worthy is beyond question; for 
it seeks to promote “the spirit of home 
uplift in the farming communities of the 
world.” The congress is, in reality, an 
effort to federate the various organiza¬ 
tions in which rural women are found 
into one great world club. .Arm and arm 
with it goes the international press asso¬ 
ciation of writers for farm papers which 
aggregate over seven hundred million 
readers. The congress conducts a cor¬ 
respondence of encouragement along the 
line of starting rural neighborhood clubs, 
and sends on request a helpful leaflet of 
suggestions for farming and running such 
a club for the first six months. It aims 
also to raise the standard of women’s 
departments in farm papers, carries on 
library extension work and distributes 
information concerning farm women 
movements through its secretary, Mrs. 
Eleanor L. Burns, Wichita, Kansas. 
The roots of such an inclusive organ¬ 
ization as the congress run back for a 
lifetime, and are interesting to trace. A 
typical case may be found in the account 
of one actual beginning in this direc¬ 
tion—beginning which took place at 
scattered points all over the country. 
This one began when five women, who 
lived on farms six miles from a railroad, 
met at the district school house and 
formed a “Home Culture Club.” They 
chose first the study of physiology, 
as but one of them had ever had it in 
school, and as all of them were mothers. 
Next year they selected botany as the 
main study, with current events and now 
and then a fine quotation or favorite 
poem thrown in for sentiment. It meant 
taking out their school books, putting 
the dictionary and atlas on the living- 
room table, and cultivating interest in 
things out of their daily routine. Their 
children felt the change, and the dining¬ 
room table talk was tinged with things 
heard at “Mother’s Club.” Life, some¬ 
way. was different. 
About this time organization had come 
to be a common word among common 
people everywhere. On the crest of this 
popular impulse rode the Grange and the 
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Cir¬ 
cle, which two did more to touch people 
in farm homes into activity and longing 
for cooperation with those of their kind 
than any other educational or associa- 
tional movement of their day. 
Slowly and almost without notice or 
comment these and very similar organi¬ 
zations made a powerful contribution to 
community culture which previously had 
depended chiefly upon an occasional Good 
Templars’ society or a country Sunday 
school. Imperceptibly the emphasis of 
their efforts shifted from the financial or 
literary to social phases. The great good 
that was being done where they existed 
was that people came to know one an¬ 
other. They came to realize that they 
were very much alike, with similar am¬ 
bitions. disappointments and many mu¬ 
tual daily experiences. Barriers, that 
had separated none the less because they 
were imaginary, were dissipated." To 
find people with like tastes and work is 
always to farm people an experience to 
count time by. This is peculiarly true 
of women. Thousands of instances can be 
cited where a farm woman has, through 
organization, been led to discover not only 
genuine friends among her neighbors but, 
what is far more to the purpose, she has 
found a new self within her own being. 
This new self proves to be a woman with 
latent possibilities of action, dormant at 
fections and unmined depths of enjoy¬ 
ment. It is a something, made to de¬ 
velop under the gonial sunshine of sym 
pathetic association, that lures her for¬ 
ward along the lines of her best woman 
liuess. 
Especially is it true that woman comes 
into her own in those rural organizations 
where men and women meet and act upon 
an equal footing, as in the Grange. Here 
women appreciate that their part in home 
and community welfare is truly equal 
and does not usurp man’s part. A farm 
woman is accustomed to working and 
planning with husband and sons, and she 
falls naturally into doing the same on a 
community scale. 
An excellent example of men and 
women working together for a public 
measure lies in what the Massachusetts 
Grange did for bird protection. Besides 
assisting in bringing about stringent 
State laws, they worked in season and 
out to help pass the law which prohibits 
the importation of birds for other than 
educational and scientific purposes. This 
matter probably appealed to the think¬ 
ing farm woman from two standpoints; 
first, because birds protect farms from 
insect pests, and, also, because of her 
revolt against the sacrifice of bird life 
for the vain adornment of women's hats. 
Quite similar to this is the work which 
one local Grange of the same State did. 
