Letter from Benjamin S. Parker to May Wright Sewall.

PARKER, BENJAMIN S. FEB 6, 1894

New Castle Ind Feb 6" 1894 Mrs. May Wright Sewell

Dear Madam

I am this year Chairman of the Program Committee of the Western Association (the names above are those of last year's officers, Gov Will Cumback is President this year and Judge Redding chairman of the executive committee). The Association is anxious to cultivate friendly relations with the Federation of Women's and other literary clubs. Their work being in some respects on parallet lines and yet to distinct that there is no ? room for rivalry. But both have this common end in view, i.e. the cultivation of a wider and more general interest in better and hight thought, and consequently the advancement of the general good. We should be greatly pleased to have some member of the Federation read a paper or deliver an address before our coming annual meeting upon clubs, their purposes and

(2) Invludences and the best methods of organizing & sustaining them in cities, towns and country places. Or upon such modifications of this rather comprehensive subject as might best harmonize with the aurthors thought and convenience, and I need to add, that we should be gratified if that person could be yourself. We should give time for the discussion of the paper and the number of bright people usually present at those meetings is sufficient [?] that the discussion would be both racy and valuable.

The demand, or rather the places that need the presence of a demand for literary clubs most surely now are the smaller towns, villages and country neighborhoods, when I was a boy and young man, I lived on a farm, but in a neighborhood where we kept our literary Society going year after year and so kept down, to a large extent, those neighborhood feuds that grow out of the wagging

(3) of idle, uneducated tongues, and there we also laid the foundations for many lives that have since been highly honorable and useful. But the wild eyed, so called religious revival has to day pretty nearly extinguished all the country and town literary societies that once flourished almost every where in these Eastern Indiana Counties, and the first places to suffer both morally and intellectually by the [?] are the country neighborhoods. Goody, goodys on the one hand and rowdyism on the other usurp the places once held by an inquiring thought however ackward and [?] they may have been, still tended upward. The same thing is largely true of the county seats and smaller towns and villages. I sincerely hope that a general movement of all who are interested may be made along the line indicated and great good accomplished. But enought of this & I will

close by asking you to write me at your earliest convenience whether such an appointment can, in your opinion, be made by the Federation of Clubs, and whether you will not accept the invitation in person.

And greatly oblige Yours Respectfully Benjamin S. Parker