Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/11

Rh Oregon in all that makes for a commonwealth is surprising unless explained under the same hypothesis. Admiral Dewey, recently at a banquet in Chicago, in speaking of the enlisted men in the navy, said: "These men come largely from the West, and are the finest specimens of manhood that America can produce."

Here in the West, by all evidences, is a peculiar field for organized bodies dedicated to lofty ideals under consecrated leadership.

Miss Fawcett says when the Albemarle, the first woman's club in England, was started there were gloomy forebodings as to its effect "on the foundations of society," and its harm to the womanliness of women. The forerunners of the federated clubs in America were the New England Woman's Club of Boston and the New York Sorosis. The work of these clubs was the study of social questions and their recreations were from art and literature. The Sorosis called the first convention of woman's clubs. This convention has grown into a federation which binds together in common purposes the women of a vast domain, from the New England farms of Vermont to the frontier boundary of Texas; from the gentle, academic environs of Wellesley and Bryn Mawr to the hillsides about the little schoolhouse on the slopes of the coast mountains.

It is indicative of the enlightenment of the West that our own State, great in its distances, great in its growing consciousness of responsibility and in its sure future, has many organizations of women; women interested in literature, art, economics, public health, government, philanthropies; women advocating the higher life, the house beautiful, and whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure and of good report. And, at this auspicious moment, the Oregon women of all these organizations are facing an opportunity hitherto granted to no federation.