INTRODUCING OURSELVES
The State Historical Society of Wisconsin is now in the sixty-eighth year of its existence. Quiescent during its first few years, with the coming of Lyman C. Draper to the secretaryship of the Society in 1854 it immediately entered upon a period of aggressive activity which has continued without interruption to the present moment. During the sixty years of the remarkable leadership of Dr. Draper and Dr. Thwaites the Society deservedly acquired the reputation of being one of the leading historical organizations of the country. Our library, if not the largest, is one of the best of its kind and in many respects its collections are unique. In other fields of activity, too, the Society’s achievements have been no less creditable to it and to the state it represents.
No sadder disaster could befall the Society, however, than the development on the part of its members of a feeling of serene satisfaction with the record of its achievements. As with all living organisms, we must go forward or retrograde. Only dead ones are static. The manifold life of our state and country is constantly changing. If our Society is to fulfil its proper function, it must constantly strive to adjust itself to the current developments of the world to which it belongs. With the passage of time the ancient good becomes uncouth and it behooves us to assume the new duties which new occasions teach.
In this spirit, after much thought and planning, we launch the Wisconsin Magazine of History. The problem of our historical society differs materially from that of many others, particularly those in the older-settled sections of the country. It must justify the support which the taxpayers so liberally accord by rendering to the public the fullest possible measure of service, and to this ideal it has long subscribed. Equally important is it, however, that the public should be aware of the facilities for service which the Society possesses in order that these may be utilized. It is believed that the publication of a quarterly magazine, devoted to the historical interests of the state will afford a better avenue of communication with the Society’s members and the general public than has been possessed heretofore. Without sacrificing in any way the scholarly ideals of the Society, it is hoped to make the magazine as interesting as may be to the ordinary reader. As our immediate constituency we have in mind the seven hundred members of the Society, whose tastes and interests, we have faith to believe, are shared by thousands of other citizens of Wisconsin. The historical interests of the professional scholars among our membership are catered to by numerous historical reviews, but no publication meets the needs of the far greater proportion of our members who are not included in this group. To this constituency, primarily, it is hoped the magazine will appeal. If this hope shall be realized we will account the magazine a success. If it shall be disappointed, on the contrary, the energies of the Society’s working force will be directed to more fruitful ends as soon as this fact shall have been established.
OUR STATE FLAG
How many, we wonder, of those into whose hands this magazine may come are aware that the beautiful banner represented on its cover is the official state flag of Wisconsin? That the number is much smaller than it should be is certain. When we set out in quest of an example of our state flag, our first application was at the nearby armory, but the officer in charge confidently assured us that Wisconsin has no state flag, and appealed to Webster’s New International to support his assertion. Notwithstanding the evidence of both soldier and dictionary, for over fifty years Wisconsin regiments have carried the state flag, although its legal definition and precise present design date back only to 1913. That our beautiful banner, hallowed on many a bloody battlefield, is so little known to our citizens is not at all to our credit. Nor is it creditable that the service flags in the hands of the custodian of public property at the capitol fail in almost every respect to conform to the official specifications for the state flag as set forth in the statutes.
THE SOCIETY AND THE LEGISLATURE
Members and friends of the Society may congratulate themselves, on the whole, on the treatment accorded it by the state legislature of 1917. In view of economic and political conditions generally, and of the local political situation in particular, it was to have been expected that the legislators would scrutinize our budget estimates with care, and that enthusiasm for new advances, whether in work or in appropriations, would be conspicuous by its absence. It is gratifying to record that the members of the joint finance committee of the two houses accorded the representatives of the Society an appreciative hearing and manifested a desire to provide for its activities during the coming biennium with enlightened, albeit prudent, liberality. Since the task of presenting the Society’s needs to the legislature devolves chiefly upon the writer of these lines, the occasion is gladly improved to acknowledge in particular the broad-minded attitude of Senator Platt Whitman of Highland, and Assemblyman E. A. Everett of Eagle River, chairmen of the joint finance committee.
From one point of view, however, the present financial situation of the Society is far from gratifying. It is running on substantially the same budget as was first laid down in 1912, and this will, of course, continue to be the case at least until July 1, 1919. No one who is mature enough to be reading these lines, need be told that the purchasing power of a given sum of money has shrunk alarmingly since 1912. In effect, therefore, the Society’s income has decreased in recent years in proportion as the cost of living generally has steadily increased. To take a single illustration, the cost of heating the library building in the year ending June 30, 1916, was (in round numbers) $5,500; for the succeeding fiscal year it was $7,400; while the estimates for the year just entered upon call for an expenditure of $11,000 for this purpose. Obviously the library building must continue to be heated. It follows, therefore, with the total income of the Society stationary from year to year, that the additional sum required for coal must be gained by curtailing other activities of the Society, which constitute its real excuse for existence. The importance of this subject is such that a suitable occasion will be sought later to lay it before our readers in fuller detail.