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.