I bring to you an accurate and complete history of the course adopted by
the club women of my state in securing library legislation, as I
personally participated in the work with other members of the Woman's
Columbian Club, the organization that had the direct and immediate
charge of the subject.
It is a somewhat embarrassing confession to make that Idaho, with its
area of 87,000 square miles and a population of 164,000 souls, and its
sobriquet of "The gem of the Mountains," has not a free circulating
library. I make this statement, however, to emphasize the virgin field
in which we had to labor and the munificence of our legislators when we
consider the various tax burdens are so many and the number so few to
bear them.
Boisé City, the capital of our state, with a population of 10,000, is
the home of the Woman's Columbian Club of 200 members. This club, among
its many achievements, established and almost wholly supports a public
library of 2750 volumes at Boisé; and its members stand in the vanguard
and do yeoman's service as leaders and in the ranks in all causes to
advance the moral, intellectual and material good of all the people of
the state that has granted women equal suffrage with men.
The club strongly urges the formation of other woman's clubs throughout
the state, and encourages at all times the organization and development
of free libraries.
The first really effective and aggressive step of the club in this
direction, and which led to important results, was the adoption of the
free travelling library scheme. Its zealous members, by united action
and individual effort, accumulated sufficient funds to put into
circulation 15 travelling libraries with a total of 800 volumes, and
invited discussion of this work in the public press.
At the 1899 state teachers' meeting representatives of the club, on
invitation, espoused the cause of the travelling library and libraries
generally. The demand for library cases soon exhausted the Columbian
Club's ability to respond, and then an appeal for legislative aid was
determined upon, and systematic methods, principally through the press,
were pursued to awaken public sentiment favorable to the election of
friendly legislators.
After the election of the legislators in 1900 the Columbian Club sent
circular letters to each one, setting forth the merits of the two bills
the club had prepared and upon which its energies were concentrated,
namely: a bill creating a state library commission, and a bill
authorizing common councils of cities and governing bodies of
communities to levy a tax not to exceed one mill on the assessed
valuation of property for the establishment and maintenance of free
reading rooms and libraries.
Similar circular letters were sent to each of the 75 newspapers
published in the state. All women's clubs were importuned to co-operate,
and also all public school officials, teachers and educators of the
state. The press responded right royally with one single exception, and
book lovers and educators of high and low degree lent their willing
assistance. Representatives of the club again appeared before the 1900
annual state teachers' meeting, and secured an official endorsement from
that body for the proposed library legislation. The state teachers'
association, in addition, advocated a law requiring that three per cent.
of all school moneys be set aside as a fund for school libraries, to
which the club women gave their aid and which also became a law.
At the convening of the legislature in January of this year the leaven
had begun to work, thus paving the way for the successful lobbying by
the official representatives of the Columbian Club.
The first step was the selection of a conspicuous legislator to stand
sponsor for our bills. In this we encountered an embarrassment of riches
in capable legislative material, but finally selected Senator S. P.
Donnelly, who cheerfully assumed the duty, and exerted the full force of
his wide popularity and marked ability from the time of his introduction
of the bills until the final vote upon them.
The club members held frequent conferences with the educational
committee of both houses of the legislature and other legislators
specially interested in educational matters, and made plain to them the
inestimable benefits of the bills we championed.
And in this connection I desire to make graceful acknowledgment to the
library workers of Wisconsin, as it was while a resident of this state I
received from them my first library inspiration; and particularly do I
desire to acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. F. L. Hutchins, whose
personal communications and generous supply of library literature
enabled us to fully present our subject and to meet all objections
raised by some of the legislators.
Every member of the legislature, with the exception of one in the lower
house, was buttonholed, and the consequence of that oversight was
manifested on the final voting day.
In the meantime the club requested the home papers of the legislators to
continue to urge favorable action; and the club women from all parts of
the state, by letters, personal visits and petitions to the legislators,
did likewise.
The instinct of partisanship, a peculiarity of all legislative bodies,
was not manifested in the least.
On the day for the final action in the Senate Committee of the Whole the
Columbian Club was notified and attended in a body, the courtesy of the
floor being extended to us.
Imagine our consternation, when the question was submitted to an aye and
nay vote, at not a voice being raised in its favor save Senator
Donnelly's. For a few moments silence so profound that it was almost
palpable prevailed, when presently Senator Kinkaid, who was in the
chair, without calling for the nays, solemnly announced, "The ayes have
it"; and delight supplanted our agonized distress as the pleasantry at
Senator Donnelly's expense and ours dawned upon us.
The bill was then placed upon its final passage, and the senators, who
hesitated in their support on the ground of economy only, announced that
they would vote in favor of the bill, but desired it expressly
understood that they did so because they were intimidated by the
presence of the Columbian Club. The best of spirits prevailed, and our
bill providing for a state library commission of five members, two at
least to be women, passed the senate unanimously, the president of the
state university and the superintendent of public instruction to be _ex
officio_ members and the other three members to be appointed by the
governor; and the law appropriated $6000 for the purchase of travelling
library books and the maintenance of the commission for two years.
The bill was sent to the lower house to take its course in that body,
but we were denied the privilege of practicing intimidation there.
Immediately upon its arrival in the house a member moved that it be made
a special order of business and be immediately placed upon its final
passage, and that a polite message be sent the president of the
Columbian Club that the house would perform its solemn duties without
the assistance or coercion of that club.
The bill passed the house unanimously save for the solitary negative
vote of the member whom, by an inexplicable oversight, we failed to
interview, and who announced he so voted for that reason.
This library commission bill was by all odds the most conspicuous matter
before the legislature, and the enrolled bill submitted to the governor
for signature was elaborately prepared and adorned with the club colors
by the attaches of the legislature.
The commission has been in existence three months, or more properly
speaking, less than two months, for the necessary preliminary work did
not enable us to get before the public until May. Already we have been
invited to assist and direct the formation of six libraries and to
select books for the penitentiary library, have placed in circulation 10
new travelling library cases in addition to the 15 cases donated to the
state by the Columbian Club, and have 20 more cases in preparation.
While the law provided for the appointment of at least two women on the
commission, the governor appointed three, two of whom are members of the
Columbian Club; and our superintendent of public instruction being a
woman, we have four of the five members, and what is more especially to
the point, they are all club women.
Woman's clubs may with propriety, I think, lay claim to some credit for
library laws in Idaho, and yet it is significant that the reason for
their power lies in the fact that the women of our state have in their
hands the wand of progress and civilization, the most powerful and
bloodless offensive and defensive weapon on earth--the ballot. In the
hand of the frailest of our sex this powerful weapon can strike as
deadly a blow at evil or as strenuous a blow for good as it can in the
hands of the brawniest of fighting men; no moral wretch of whatever size
and strength but what the very gentlest of our number can cancel his
registered will on election day; for an aspiring public servant to dare
oppose a righteous cause means sure defeat--for womanhood inevitably
arrays itself against the hosts of error.
The women of our state, marshalled under the leadership of women's
clubs, stood in an unwavering and united array for all our library laws
and every other law that stood for good; and there were, all told, 15
bills affecting education enacted into laws at the last session.
Whatever of inspiration and encouragement the success of women's clubs
in Idaho may give our sister clubs in sister states, the success of
woman's suffrage there at any rate will help to silence the scoffers'
sneers and help put this ballot-sword, forged in the workshop of right
and justice, in the hand of every woman.
In the absence of Mr. John Thomson Miss Neisser read Mr. Thomson's paper
on