June, 1901.
To the Finance Committee of the Pioneer Club:
I hope I shall not be considered as taking a liberty in presenting a
subject of some importance for your consideration.
There is a feeling in some clubs and among some clubwomen that the
time has arrived for expanding the club idea and at the same time
drawing closer the ties which unite women in the form of organized
fellowship, which the modern clubwoman recognizes as a potent and most
valued element of her club life. It is believed, in short, that the
time has come for the initial steps to be taken for the formation of a
European Federation of Women's Clubs.
There are many reasons which seem to make it eminently proper that the
Pioneer Club should be the one to take these initial steps. It is the
oldest and best known woman's club in London. It was founded upon the
broadest human lines by a woman who possessed in the highest degree
that sixth sense which the nineteenth century contributes to the
twentieth--the sense of the Universal. This led her to affiliate the
Pioneer Club in the beginning with the General Federation of Women's
Clubs in the United States, and should inspire it to progressive life
and work.
The initial step is not formidable. It is, if thought desirable,
simply to address a circular letter to women's clubs on record,
wherever they may be known to exist, proposing a basis of federated
affiliation, and inviting them to unite in forming a grand Federation
of organized bodies of women capable of realizing any purpose upon
which they might bring their united forces to bear.
If it is said, "Of what use is such a Federation?" I might point to
many instances of educational and municipal progress, and social
reform in America effected by this combined effort. But details are
as nothing compared with the one great, glowing, ultimate aim of the
solidarity of thoughtful, high-minded, intelligent, progressive women.
It is written in the stars. It will surely become an accomplished
fact; and there are other clubs willing to take the initiative; but it
is fitting that the Pioneer Club should lead, and by its wisdom and
judgment lend an added dignity to noble endeavor.