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  I believe in the right to free speech for everyone, including Communists and fascists. I think that our constitutional guarantee in this case is wise and that the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing. But my own right to say what I think does not give me the right to barge into a Catholic church while the priest is saying mass, interrupt him, and make a speech for

  atheism. If I should happen to want to make such a speech (I don't) I should hire a hall of my own, or find a soap box. I have no right to interrupt others in the orderly pursuit of their business to spout my own views.

  We have come a long way from our first organization meeting of a new political club to the rude manners of our pinko citizens, but all has been pertinent to the conduct of a club and was intended to show why it may be necessary to take the gavel yourself unless you can find an experienced and tactful presiding officer. You need no experience yourself if you follow these hints; later on you may be able to train someone to preside. It is not to your advantage to preside yourself if you can find another able person.

  Two more hints and we will drop parliamentary procedure: Most motions come before the house improperly worded. If it is a matter you think should cool off, you can point out to the member that he has not formulated his proposal in such a fashion that it can be debated and voted on and then recommend to him that he consult the resolutions committee in order to whip it into shape. He may take your suggestion, or he may put it into motion anyhow. In the latter case this is a cue for your unofficial floor leader to move to refer to committee. If the matter is unclear, involved, or the facts are not all available (these are usually the reasons why you want the matter postponed), the body of the club will be happy to postpone the action.

  On the other hand a member may make a suggestion from the floor which seems to you wise, but you can't handle it since it is not a motion. You may then put words in his mouth by rephrasing it as a motion, in the form that seems best to you, and ask him if that is what he meant He will gratefully agree, or perhaps suggest some change. You can then open it to debate as a motion.

  A chairman can usually get a meeting adjourned or keep it from being adjourned, without violating any of the rights of any of the members, if he handles it carefully. A mere suggestion from the chair that the hour is late will produce the motion to adjourn, having priority and undebatable; a motion to adjourn almost always carries. On the other hand a spontaneous motion to adjourn usually comes from someone who is annoyed at the way things are going; this annoyance will usually lead him to shout his desires without waiting to be recognized - like this:

  "Mr. Chairman, I move we adjourn!"

  You can recognize him if it suits your purpose - after all, the house has to vote on it; it's not a "railroad." But if you think the business at hand must be finished, there is always someone standing behind him, out of his sight, who wants the floor. Tell him that he will be recognized in turn and recognize the other party.

  Perhaps someday someone will invent an electronic device with all of Roberts' Rules of Order built into it which will be an automatic and infallible chairman - if so, politics will lose a lot of its zest. Until that day presiding will remain an art in which a sensible chairman may have a great deal to do with the outcome of any body's deliberations while retaining the respect of all - simply by remembering that the final arbiter is the assemblage itself. A word of caution - in the two cases in which I have recommended the maneuver of referring to committee, the intention must not be to bury or sidetrack. You have only thereby created an opportunity to have a word in private with the interested parties in order to clarify a confused issue or in order to smooth over a row. You can probably settle out of court -but if you can't, then you must permit a full and open hearing at the next meeting, come what may. That's democracy.

  If you can't find a chairman for your club who can conduct meetings along the lines described above, then

  you must accept the gavel, but continue to search for such a person. You can do more from the floor where your latitude is greater. But let us suppose that you have managed to select a fair group of provisional officers at your first meeting. Your remaining business is to plan for your first public meeting.

  CHAPTER V

  The Practical Art of Politics (continued)

  Club Meetings and Speech Making

  Pick a date for the first public meeting of your baby dub at least two or three weeks later than the organization meeting. This will give you time to insert notices in the local papers, send out postcard invitations, arrange for extensive telephone follow-up, and, if you can afford it, print and distribute handbills. You can do none of these things until you arrange for a hall; you'll need the time.

  Make the hall small. Not only is it cheaper, but, more important, it is much, much better to have standing room only in a small hall than to rattle around in too large a hall. I know of nothing more dispiriting than to face a meeting in which more than half the seats are empty. Twenty people can have a rip-snorter of a meeting in a small room and build up to a fine campaign; a hundred people can be overcome by contagious melancholia in a hall which would seat five hundred.

  Plan to get there early in order to fold up and hide most of the folding chairs, then don't get them out until you see that you need them. People always slip into the rearmost vacant seats at a political meeting (I don't know why - but I do it myself). This habit makes a half-filled hall still more gloomy. So if you must accept a hall with lots of floor space, go easy on the chairs and fill up some of the rear with refreshment tables, or card tables covered with literature, signs, or registration forms.

  About chairs - the local undertaker usually owns several dozen folding chairs of the more comfortable and unnoisy variety and he can usually be persuaded to lend them, rent-free for good will, even if he is of a different political party, if you will pick them up after business hours and return them the same night or earlier than any scheduled funeral the next day. A couple of dozen make one automobile load.

  The loan of chairs may solve your hall-rent problem for your first meeting as it will permit the use of space not ordinarily used as a hall, such as a retail store owned by one of the members (set up chairs between the counters).

  In many states the use of school buildings is permitted for public meetings. I have used them fairly successfully but do not ordinarily recommend it. You are likely to have to choose between an auditorium much too large, or a classroom in which adults feel silly in the little seats and can't sit chummily together. Smoking is usually prohibited and you are likely to have to agree to get out by 10 p.m. Furthermore, regulations frequently prevent taking up collections and collections are necessary to a political club which is not to be a burden on a few. But many a fine meeting with worthwhile results has been held in a school building. It is your problem, with local factors.

  A lodge hall is a best bet, with a small American Legion hall a close second. You will find if you poke around that there are many little halls concealed above store buildings and in back of restaurants which are available for surprisingly small fees - $3 to $10 per evening, heat and light thrown in, and even less on a permanent arrangement. Before you take a $10 hall remember that the hall rent should not run more than ten to fifteen cents per person per evening. How large will your crowd be and will they be good for more than two-bits a head in the collection?

  Your problem depends on the average economic status of the constituency in which the club is formed - as will be almost all of your practical problems of mechanics, as opposed to techniques.

  Publicity for the first public meeting. Don't depend on the persons at the organization meeting to supply the audience at the first public meeting. They will be full of enthusiasm and promises and some dunderhead will point out triumphantly that if each one of you brings ten friends to the next meeting the crowd will be one hundred (or two hundred, or a hundred and fifty). You will be justified in shooting him on the spot for this piece of asininity, but don't do it

  Agree h
eartily that that is just what we are looking for - and bear in mind that getting out a crowd is still up to you. Some of those present will in fact bring friends; Joe Pollyanna won't show up at all.

  How to get a crowd - how indeed! This is a cause of grey hairs to all amateur politicians. The most important point you have already covered-don't let the hall seem empty. The next most important point is to see that you have an attraction. Get the central organization, through its secretary rather than through its speaker's bureau - the things that hide in speakers' bureaus should crawl back into the woodwork! - to provide a really good rip-snorter of a speaker, preferably with a name which is a public drawing card. Be firm about this. Point out that they want a club in that area, don't they? Threaten to throw up the sponge. Kick your heels and scream. But get a good speaker even if he has to fly down from the state capital.

  Provide some entertainment. Tap dancers, even bad ones, go over well. There is probably a children's "talent" school in your town or neighborhood; the coach will display her proteges free of charge, but don't let her schedule more than fifteen minutes and make it all dancing. Be firm in refusing recitations, little plays, and singing. Never use singers - unless it's Paul Robeson, Bing Crosby, or Frank Sinatra.

  A man or woman who plays popular piano well by ear and can lead singing in old-time favorites is worth his weight in marked ballots. There is one somewhere, of your party, within ten blocks of your house.

  Okay, you've got your program. Now to haul them in off the sidewalk. If there is an editor-publisher-owner of a small town or local community paper of your party in your area, he should be at the organization meeting and you will see to it that he is appointed chairman of the publicity committee - not "publicity man"; you keep that open for the man who is going to do the work, when you find him; the editor won't. But he will give you a free half-column ad and he will write up a litde story himself. He will probably donate some throw-away hand bills as well. Get volunteers to distribute them, or see what you can do with three boys and some small change.

  More involved mediods of publicity are covered in the ninth chapter; the same principles apply here. The daily papers will print (but just barely) your notices; announcements tacked to telephone posts are illegal some places but entirely practical in most cases; and bumper signs (see ninth chapter) are good. But direct mail coverage followed by telephone calls on the day of the meeting are your best bet. This will take a little money - not much but, if you can't afford it yourself, you must raise it at the organization meeting. (The hall rent can wait; it will be covered by the collection at the first public meeting.)

  Passing the hat in a private home, if that is where your organization meeting is held, is probably in bad taste. I suggest that you approach two or three persons privately, selecting them for their ability to cough up, and nick each one for a share. A dollar buys a hundred postal cards, it need not be much.

  Your editor victim may print the postal cards. Otherwise, borrow a mimeograph or pay for it.

  The ladies present will address them for you and will make the telephone calls on the day of the meeting. This will give you a chance to locate your girl Friday, too - the woman who is as devoted to the cause as you are and is willing to do quantities of routine clerical work and telephoning, provided you tell her what to do. When you find her, you will wonder how the party struggled along without her.

  You will have to supply the addresses. You have some; the others present have some; you can get quite a list, not very well weeded, from the central organization. Any lists available to any present, such as lists of customers, members of clubs, and church lists, are useful provided they are trimmed down to your party by checking for registration. Don't use a non-political list without this trimming for direct mail advertising. It is wasteful and unnecessarily annoys American citizens who happen to differ with you politically.

  As a last resort you can always use local precinct lists, but it is rather expensive and not too productive to work at this stage from precinct lists which have not been trimmed to live prospects.

  The first organization meeting is over as soon as you have picked the provisional officers, discussed plans for the first open meeting, and got all available commitments for help in preparing for the meeting. Adjourn at once, serve refreshments, and encourage the man from headquarters to reminisce and everyone to gossip.

  Refreshments should be coffee and cake, or something else simple. Make a rule from scratch that refreshments must be simple and that the treasury pays the bill, else the ladies will start competing, upping the ante, and the whole thing will get out of hand. Refreshments are a social lubricant in politics, not a meal.

  Don't start the coffee until you see how many are to be served. Put out halfa dozen tea bags and a pot of hot water for those who can't drink coffee at night. Doughnuts are the simplest food, but they are perishable; if you are in doubt as to numbers, get some boxes of soda crackers, a couple of those small packages of cream cheese and a quarter-pound of yellow cheese. Cheese, crackers, coffee, and tea bags will keep. Plan to take a loss on doughnuts. (Naturally the cost-and the loss - on this first small meeting is not much, but the rule will save quite a bit of money later. The economical use of money is one of the prime secrets in volunteer, self-supporting political activity.)

  You may wonder at my repeated emphasis on the economical use of money in politics. You yourself may not have to pinch-you may be a millionaire. But bear in mind that the average income is less than a thousand dollars per person a year, and is considerably less than that for the great majority of people. Elections are won by majorities, not dollars. Some expenditure of money is necessary to any political work. In a popular, volunteer political movement, the costs must be paid by the small donations of the volunteers themselves. The cost of living being what it is, it is hard for the average run of volunteers to make even small donations, so cultivate the habit of mind of getting the very maximum possible in political results out of every dime spent.

  Therefore, even if you are rich-save those unused tea bags!

  You can never beat a political machine through the lavish expenditure of money. You would be meeting them on their own grounds and they will beat you - they would match and double, or triple, every dollar you spend. Your weapon is the enthusiasm and sincerity of the free citizen.

  It is a shining feet that most votes in America can't be bought. There is an unpurchasable majority of votes in any community. You and other volunteers can round them up to beat the socks off any machine, no matter how rich, while taking care of unavoidable expense by passing the hat - provided you are a little more careful with the collection money than you are with your own.

  The night of the first public meeting of your baby dub can be almost as distressing as a first night performance for an actor. You get there early; the hall is empty and seems cold. People straggle in, stand around and look at you; there aren't enough of them to permit you to start at the hour set. (This is a minor vice of most political meetings; it can be beaten and is worth beating. It requires just the determination to bang the gavel and start anyway - you and the janitor and the cat. It will surprise and please everyone.)

  Let's bust up that empty-hall feeling first. Bring along your own radio or radio-record-player, plug it in, and get some loud music into the joint. If some of the young people start to dance, so much the better. This is a private, non-profit club; you don't need a license for dancing. (If somebody wants to make something of it, it's a fine chance to get some free newspaper publicity on a personal freedom issue.)

  Later on you should be able to get some radio shop to supply a used radio-recorder-player for nothing more than a display, on the machine, of an advertisement. It is then worthwhile to buy a microphone to hook in through the speaker - and you are all set for the biggest hall in town. But the principal use of the gadget is to warm up the crowd-and to turn the conclusion of each meeting into an informal party and dance. This is especially useful in hanging on to the young peopl
e, who will be the bulk of your precinct workers.

  The people are straggling in. Everyone who comes through the door must be greeted. You will do a lot of it but you will need help - provide for it ahead of time. You will want a careful record of every person present, name, address, and anything else at all that you find out about them, and that information must be recorded for each person on a 3" x 5" file card. Cards mimeographed or printed into a form are convenient but not necessary. The blank ones available at 10 cents a hundred in dime stores are all right.

  Don't wait until the audience is seated and then expect to get this information by passing out cards, because many of them will leave the cards blank. If you buttonhole them at the door and ask them to fill out cards right then you will do better, since you have provided card tables, chairs, and pencils for the purpose, but the best way is to fill them out yourself-or have one of your alter egos do it-while asking them the necessary questions and keeping up a running fire of conversation. Don't say "Name? Address? Any other adults in family? Telephone? Occupation?" Such an approach acts like a cold shower. Say, "Glad to know you, Mr. Brewster. Halfa minute and let me get that down in writing. My wife says I can't be trusted to buy a pound of butter unless she writes it down. I wouldn't want you to miss getting an invitation to the Spring Dance through my poor memory. That's James A. Brewster,' isn't it? Mrs. Brewster come with you tonight? So? My wife's doing the same thing - we've got two kids, both in grammar school, and they have to be in bed by nine. How old are your youngsters? Maybe some day we can arrange a sort of game room or nursery for the kids and get a lot of folks out who are otherwise chained down. Do you think it would help if we moved up the meeting time half an hour? Is that address right? That's your home address, isn't it? Business address you say? Oh, of course-that's the same block the Safeway Market is in. It's not the same address, is it? Oh-I think that's the same block of offices Dr. Boyer is in. Hey - Fred! Doc! Want you to meet a neighbor of yours-Dr. Boyer, Mr. James Brewster. You know each other already - fine. Doc, see that Mr. Brewster meets some of the folks, will you?"