HOW TO BEGIN WORK.
The immediate purpose of the Democratic Volunteers is to organize and
carry on in the most effective way the campaign for 1900. They seek
to build up and foster the Democracy of Jefferson, Jackson, Bryan and
the Chicago platform by seeing, first, that the common people remain
in control of the Democratic party; and, second, that the Democratic
party, representing the common people, gets control of the country
in 1900. It is further hoped that the Volunteers thus organized and
trained, will become a permanent force in the history of our Nation;
a power in the guidance of the forces behind the nation's progress;
a means of uniting the best intelligence of our race with that faith
and deep religious purpose which permeate the common people, and of
expediting the conscious co-operation of individuals with those giant
forces that are slowly but surely destroying the old, and building
up the new civilization. Our plan appeals principally to young men.
Our methods are new, at least to this generation, and as we believe
that the great battle in which we are engaged must be led by the most
vigorous, active and courageous amongst us, we depend principally upon
young men for leadership and work.
Knowing that our principles are eternal, and that in proclaiming them
we have the support of the great common people of posterity, and of
God, the Volunteers are expected to assume, upon all occasions, an
attitude of absolute confidence.
We are to utilize every force and every means that perception can
discover or ingenuity devise for the forwarding of our movement. We
are to proceed, not only by usual, but by unusual methods, taking
possession of resources never before thought of in political campaigns
or religious crusades. Our principles are to be declared both in public
and in private, and propagated methodically and persistently in every
existing institution, organization or association of men and women.
The church is the center of activity for many. This class can be
reached best by having our truths come to them through the channel
by which they usually receive their opinion and ideals, namely, the
church. There are other hundreds of thousands whose lives center about
the liquor saloons. To reach these our speakers must go to the saloons.
In many agricultural communities, it is customary to hold meetings
in school houses, while in good weather, picnics, barbecues and all
day gatherings take place in the woods. To these various customs our
speakers must adapt themselves. In some sections the camp-meeting lasts
for a week or two, in great tents, or in special woodland resorts,
permanently constructed and kept for that purpose. Our Volunteers will
find here opportunities for effective work.
But for reasons of economy, the greater part of our work will be done
outdoors. Plutocracy can afford to hire a dozen halls where one drawing
speaker can be secured. Our movement has a dozen speakers to every hall
we can afford to hire. We will consider first, therefore, methods of
outdoor speaking.
OUTDOOR MEETINGS.
The easiest, the most economical, the most fruitful of the Volunteer
speaker's work, will consist of unadvertised outdoor meetings. There is
probably not a city, village, or town in America in which a man with
a strong voice, mounting some emergency platform and calling out that
he has something important to say, cannot, in a short time, attract a
considerable crowd. If his message be direct, condensed, sincere and
well delivered, he can hold the crowd in any except the most inclement
weather. Coming as a surprise does not lessen the effect, if the words
are well directed. People who could not be induced to enter a hall to
hear a lecture, people who, if the meeting had been advertised, would
purposely remain away, will stop and listen to an outdoor speaker; they
will be interested, and may even be converted if the truths are well
presented.
Of course, many passersby will listen only for a few minutes and
proceed on their way. An outdoor crowd is always a changing one, but
this merely necessitates a special outdoor method of treatment.
Indoors, an address is expected to be continuous; one point must lead
up to another; a line of thought must be followed so as to produce
interest cumulative to the end. Outdoor speaking, on the other hand,
must be made up of short, concise points, each complete in itself, so
that no person can listen for a single minute without getting something
to carry away with him. Anecdotes should be freely interspersed, but in
condensed form.
As the audience is compelled to stand, often on damp ground, and
in chilly or excessively hot weather, it is necessary that outdoor
speaking should never, under any circumstances, take upon itself the
qualities of a pedagogical lecture. On the other hand, it must be made
up of illustrations, word pictures, and pungent assertion of those
fundamental truths known to be most essential.
HOW TO ARRANGE SUCH MEETINGS.
The speaker arrives in a strange town, having entered afoot, by horse,
or by rail. If he have friends in the town, his work will, of course,
be less difficult, and it will be comparatively easy to procure a
horse and carriage (or a wagon).
The vehicle secured, let him drive to the principal street, stop at
the corner selected as the meeting-place, and, standing on the seat,
let him announce (his voice pitched high, but not strained, dwelling
for at least two seconds upon each word) that a meeting will be held
in a few minutes at which "the people will be told how our country can
be freed from the curse of Hannaism and monopoly" (or some similar
striking expression). Then proceeding to the next corner let him repeat
the announcement, and so over the village, or, if it be a city, over as
large a section as he can conveniently cover. By making a dozen or more
of these announcements he can always gather about him the nucleus of an
audience.
If unable to secure a vehicle he may go afoot, carrying a chair to
serve him as a speaker's platform. As efficient work can be done in
this way as in any other.
In addressing the five or the fifty men, women and boys who compose
this audience, it is requisite that he should begin in the same high
key and the same deliberate manner and tone in which he made his
announcements, addressing himself not to the few in front of him,
but to the listeners in front of their stores half a block away.
After speaking thus for five minutes, more or less, and arousing the
enthusiasm and interest of distant listeners, he should suddenly turn
his eyes and attention from all who are more than fifty feet away, and
proceed in his natural tone of voice. Very often persons standing in
front of stores and shops, lining the streets for two or three squares,
when the speaker changes and lowers his tone and directs his remarks
to his immediate audience, will come near to hear, if possible, the
completion of some interesting point.
In large cities where there is much noise from street cars and wagons,
this work is more laborious, and from start to finish the speech will
require all the energy the speaker possesses to keep his crowd together
and to increase its number. But in smaller places, or in quieter
neighborhoods of large places, after the first announcements, outdoor
speaking can be reduced to a very moderate exercise. The average man,
after a month's practice, can speak outdoors two or three hours a day,
divided into three or four speeches, without any great fatigue, and
keep it up the year round, resting only upon days so rainy, stormy or
bitter cold, that men will not, for any inducement, stand outdoors.
PRE-ARRANGED APPLAUSE ONE-HALF OF ORATORY.
If friends can secure the free service of a drum corps, a brass band,
or a quartette of singers, to help draw the people together, the
speaker's work will, of course, be greatly lessened, and much will
be done toward saving the voice and energies otherwise necessarily
expended in attracting an audience. He will thus be enabled to
concentrate all his powers, convincing and teaching his hearers.
But in the absence of drums or music, there is nothing so helpful
to the speaker in getting a crowd and in holding it after it has
congregated, than a little skilfully pre-arranged applause. If several
men, helped by a dozen boys, take their places around the speaker,
and from the start take off their hats and cheer lustily about every
three sentences, not only does the noise attract attention and draw
listeners, but it impresses deeply those who are present, so that
each word of the speaker has its effectiveness multiplied. A few men,
starting off in this way (if the speaker is bright and forcible), will
be joined by half the audience, and, in outdoor speaking, generous
applause doubles the effect of oratory. It not only adds weight to the
speech, but it strengthens and cheers the speaker, stimulating him to
his highest efficiency. It infuses new blood into his veins and new
breath into his lungs. It quickens his heart beats and helps clear his
voice. It at once establishes a rapport between the talker and the
talked-to, and converts what might otherwise be a number of isolated
units into a sort of organism, the vital principle of which is one
central enthusiasm voiced by the speaker.
To convince the friends of the movement of the necessity for loud
cheering from the start by pre-arranged, conscious effort, is often
quite difficult, although it is important. Much tact and skill are
required to select a dozen young men before the meeting, and train them
in a few minutes so that they will follow the cue of the man who is to
lead the applause and cheer when he gives the word.
A very important point, where young boys are concerned, is to stop
their cheering when the leader stops. Unless you have a confederate
of tact and personality there is danger that the boys, once started
yelling, will enjoy it so hugely that they will keep it up in a
disorderly way, and injure the meeting much more than they help it.
But properly drilled, a dozen young boys are worth almost as much as a
drum corps. Under proper leadership, they will stop instantly at the
pre-arranged signal, and enjoy the military precision. Ten minutes
training by an experienced man will suffice to complete their education
in this regard.
REPETITION NECESSARY.
The outdoor campaigner should never fear repetition. The average
outdoor listener is not averse to hearing something that he has heard
before, but is averse to anything dull, statistical or requiring
laborious mental effort. In fact, from the standpoint of economy, three
or five addresses made on the same street corner for three or five
successive days, will accomplish much more for the cause than the same
number of addresses delivered each one in a different town or locality.
The apostle of the New Democracy, traveling from place to place, should
stop at least two or three days in each village, even if he has only
one speech and must repeat it over with variations each time. If he is
resourceful and has a few anecdotes and illustrations for each day, it
will pay him to stay a week in each town, as it takes two or three days
for new hearers to become familiar with his objects, aims and attitude
of thought. The writer has often found that more real, direct converts
are made to the people's cause on the sixth or seventh day in a town,
than during all of the previous days combined.
Thought is like seed. Whatever be the soil, like all vegetable life,
it must undergo three stages, planting, developing and fruit bearing.
With the majority each stage of development requires a season; one
speaker sows, another waters, and another gathers the ripe fruit. But a
brain adjacent to an empty stomach, idle arms or a bankrupt business,
offers a more fertile soil for new ideas, and there are some such minds
in every town wherein all these processes can be carried on under the
tutelage of one man; some such persons in despair at the beginning of
the week, who can, by the close of the week, be brought to the light,
their gloom dispelled, and a nobler civilization ever after clearly
pictured before their eyes, the object of their life's endeavor. There
are many persons who, by one series of meetings, are actually converted
from ignorant participants in existing injustice to active workers for
the true state yet to be. The whole tenor and ideals of their lives are
transformed by knowledge vitalized by faith.
When a week's meetings are contemplated in country towns, experience
suggests that the best time to start is on Monday and that the meetings
all week should lead up to one or two grand demonstrations on Sunday,
when the largest crowd of the week can be gotten together, and when,
by the aid of a Scripture lesson, a prayer and a couple of patriotic
songs, the enthusiasm can be carried highest.[3]
[3] Special suggestions for Sunday work see chapter IX.
LITERATURE THE BASIS OF THE MOVEMENT.
No outdoor meeting can fill its mission nor make use of half its
opportunities, without the sale of literature, which enlarges and
completes the points touched on by the speaker. The object of an
outdoor speech is to interest, to stir the emotions of men, dispel
their lethargy and despair, plant in them hope and faith, and prepare
them to think out, read out and study out the great National problem.
The attention of men, that is, the real, serious concentration of their
minds upon great things, is so rare that when you once have it the
opportunity should be utilized fully. Those who are interested by the
outdoor speech should be urged to develop that interest into knowledge,
conviction and action. This can only be done by inducing them to read
some book or pamphlet, explaining in detail the points suggested by you
and backing up your assertions by careful arguments. Ten pamphlets, or
books, sold at a meeting where men's hearts have been opened and their
prejudices melted by enthusiasm, are worth more to the cause than ten
thousand books and circulars distributed from door to door. The sale
of ten small ten-cent pamphlets at a meeting is at least half the value
of the meeting. In this movement one chicken raised is worth more than
a whole brood hatched; one fighting rooster is worth three dozen eggs.
One campaigner, armed with facts and possessing contagious faith in our
creed, necessarily becomes a permanent, creative force in the community
in which he lives.
Literature is one element in the production of such centers of power,
not literature scattered wildly, but literature placed carefully in
the hands of those who have been prepared by the personal appeal of
a sincere advocate to see and understand the points enunciated. So
bountiful has free literature become and so ocean-like is the flood
upon political subjects, that it is difficult to get men to open a
pamphlet on political or social subjects when distributed to them in
their normal condition. But first arouse them by a stirring address,
and they will willingly study what otherwise they could not be induced
to consider even superficially.
Not only should the speaker try to sell as many books and pamphlets as
possible at the meetings, but he should try to leave in every community
or section of a great city covered by him, some worker who will get a
stock of such literature and continue its sale until another impulse is
given the movement by the visit of another Volunteer.
ADVERTISED OUTDOOR MEETINGS.
Very often a little coterie of enthusiasts will think that with the
aid of a few handbills they can get a great crowd of their stupefied,
over-worked and discouraged fellow beings to give up their other
engagements and walk to some out-of-the-way place or corner of the town
to listen to their speaker. Our friendly promoters do not know that
to the eye of the multitude the bills suggest only an uninteresting
harangue or the visionary proclamations of a dreamer that in no way
concern them. The result is that very often instead of a thousand
greeting the speaker, all eager for information and ready for a change
of heart, as anticipated, there are a dozen or so already familiar
with his teachings and sharing his opinion on all important subjects
and half as many idle curiosity seekers without influence in the
community. The speaker is discouraged and the ardent reformers are
chilled to the bone and despairingly admit to each other that the
citizens of their particular community are more perverse and hardened
against new ideas and reforms than the residents of any other locality
under the sun.
If, instead of the preparation for an out-of-the-way meeting and the
laborious provision of seats for people who never came, a few circulars
announcing the meeting and containing two or three gems of thought had
been distributed and the speaker had mounted a wagon or box in the
center of town as heretofore suggested, the meeting would probably have
been a success.
Except on occasions of great excitement, when men are drawn together
by some celebrated orator, or on holidays, when they expect, under any
circumstances, to leave their homes and work and betake themselves with
their families to the woods and fields, it is important to hold outdoor
meetings where an audience can be gathered largely from passersby.
THE NEWSPAPER.
A speaker talks to one hundred, one thousand or more hearers, but
by proper co-operation on the part of the press his words are often
carried to tens of thousands more. Where the press is not absolutely
united for the purpose of maliciously misrepresenting or suppressing
the speaker's words, at least half of his work consists in the silent
appeal to auditors he never sees, those who read his words as reported
in the papers. A few suggestions may, in this connection, be found of
value.
First, have printed, typewritten, or copied by hand, all the
essential points of your speech, ready to be handed to the newspaper
representative. Properly prepared manuscript, written on one side of
the paper only, will often be published in full. It may be thrown into
the waste basket. But any paper will publish more of a man's speech, if
he has neatly prepared his manuscript beforehand than otherwise.
Next, get personally acquainted with each editor, entering into a
pleasant conversation with him and trying to make him your personal
friend. By this means a Volunteer can often use the press of the
opposite party to propagate his views. The original purpose of a
newspaper was to give news, and very often, even in these degenerate
days, the instinct of a newspaper man to give news, if encouraged and
stimulated a little, will become strong enough temporarily to overcome
his prejudice, and possibly overcome his appreciation of the plate
matter supplied by Mr. Hanna's agents free of charge. He may even give
a column or a half-column, describing the meeting of the New Democracy,
quoting freely the words of the speaker.
In dealing with Democratic, Populist and other friendly papers, there
is a secondary opportunity for useful work. It is to show the editors
how they can force the plate matter and ready-print establishments
to furnish news concerning the Democratic Volunteers to all their
customers, by simply demanding information on that subject. Even
request the editor to write a letter, telling of the intense interest
of his constituents in the Volunteers, and urging that his ready-print
matter contain something weekly from the Volunteer's National office.
A sufficient number of such letters cannot fail to have the desired
effect. Let every Volunteer aim to secure the co-operation of a few
editors, and the work is done. The ready-print establishments that
remain stubborn should lose their patronage.