Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/330

324 of a purely local bearing. These proceedings should be freely exchanged with other local societies and with the state organization.

But the important question is, How may cooperation in the threefold direction hereinindicated be made possible and practicable? The answer is. Through the affiliation of the local historical societies with the state historical society. This affiliation may take the form of auxiliary membership, as in Iowa, where the provisions for such membership are as follows:

"Local historical societies (such as county historical societies, city or town historical societies, and old settlers' associations) may be enrolled as auxiliary members of the State Historical Society of Iowa upon application of such local historical societies and upon the approval of their applications by the board of curators of the State Historical Society of Iowa.

"Auxiliary societies shall be entitled to membership in the State Historical Society of Iowa and shall have one vote at the annual meeting of this society. Each auxiliary society shall be entitled to receive all the publications of the State Historical Society of Iowa issued during the period of its affiliation as an auxiliary member."

Franklin L. Riley, of the Mississippi Historical Society, thus described the condition of affairs in that State:

Although the writer worked out the details of the existing historical organizations in Mississippi and drafted the legislative bills which put them into active operation, he finds it rather difficult to say where all of their features came from. He spent much time studying the organization in Wisconsin, where the State Historical Society has control,of all the necessary machinery for carrying on the work in the State, and in Alabama, where the historical society lost its appropriation in the establishment of the State Department of Archives and History. The constitution and workings of several other historical organizations were also studied in this connection.

The primary object he had in view was the establishment of two permanent, coordinate agencies with clearly defined spheres of activity, which would perform all of the necessary local historical work in the State. There seemed to be a place for an agency controlled and permeated by university influences, also for an agency which would be in more constant contact with the citizens of the State of all ranks and occupations. He therefore planned for the reorganization and perpetuation of the historical society and for the establishment of a new State Department of Archives and History.

The newly planned department was expected to undertake work in fields which it was very difficult, if not well-nigh impossible, for the society to develop satisfactorily. There are comparatively few his-