Reform Club

“ In the spring of 1878 I became a member of the Reform Club, Mr. Forster and Mr. Childers being my sponsors. Then, as now, there was a black-balling clique in the club, and nobody could be absolutely certain of election; but my personal friends—among whom William Black was foremost—worked hard on my behalf, and secured my election in spite of the fact that I had a considerable number of black-balls. Personal influence, indeed, goes further than anything else in securing admission to a club like the Reform. ”

“ A club will be started for the express purpose of gaining a reputation for political power which may later be sold out. The president and executive committee of such a club, who will naturally receive the funds, promise to divide with "the boys" who swell the size of the membership. A reform movement is at first filled with recruits who are active and loud in their assertions of the number of votes they can "deliver." ”

“ But, in any event, we gentlemen have reason to congratulate ourselves upon the tremendous progress made by the reform movement against what some time ago appeared almost overwhelming odds. Our successes have been fairly astonishing. Now, at last, the people begin to wake up to it, to understand its principles and to appreciate its aims and its benefits. We have only to go on in the way in which we have begun, and we shall accomplish it all. One thing is certain, and that is that the reform movement has come to stay and grow. ”

“ Clubs.—No licensing reform, however complete the restraints it places on public-houses, will accomplish much unless at the same time it deals with the club evil. In the ordinary drinking club we have something far more dangerous to society than the worst-conducted public-house. Reformers were for long so absorbed in fighting the open drink shop, that they had no time for [Pg 180] attending to anything else; and statesmen of all parties dreaded arousing against themselves the opposition which they knew would follow the curtailing of any of the privileges of club-land. ”

“ Phileas Fogg, having shut the door of his house at half-past eleven, and having put his right foot before his left five hundred and seventy-five times, and his left foot before his right five hundred and seventy-six times, reached the Reform Club, an imposing edifice in Pall Mall, which could not have cost less than three millions. ”

“ Nor should all the social life center about the young people. The woman's club, the village improvement society, the men's civic league, all have their places. Club life will menace neither the man nor the woman whose first interest is the home; and every man and woman needs the stimulus of contact with other minds.
Sometimes it will happen that the homemaker finds work to be done in the line of community reform. Perhaps the roads are out of repair, or the cemetery is neglected, or the school building insanitary. ”

“ It thrives. Another is founded by Y and supported by him because of his belief that reform cannot support itself but must be subsidized. Inside of three weeks the existence of X’s Club is threatened, because its members hear that Y’s Club is charitably supported and they themselves wish relief. They are turned from workers into strikers by the mere report that there is money somewhere. Spend $100 on the Club, and Tammany will be able to buy it when the need arises. ”

“ Hall was one of the moving spirits in the only other club of which Gordon was a member, The Citizens' Club, the somewhat ambitious title of an organization conducted by young men interested in civic and industrial reform, not unlike that to which the unhappy Emil Stuart had belonged.
"Which only shows how little you understand what we are after," was the prompt answer. "There isn't a more truly democratic place in the world—only we insist that a man should win his spurs before he is entitled to consideration. ”

“ And that the Few should imagine that, after having put a club in the hands of the Many with which they can, when they choose, at any election smash to pieces the machinery—political and industrial—that oppresses them; and having established a system of education—nay, of compulsory education—through which the Many must learn during their childhood, how upon attaining majority, they can use this club most effectually, the Many will refrain from using it—is one of those delicious inconsequences of the governing class which throws a ray of humor over an otherwise tragic scene. ”

“ To afford to its members the means of social intercourse, mutual helpfulness, mental and moral improvement, industrial welfare, and rational recreation. The Club shall not identify itself with any political, social, or theological party. ”

“ No; let us have our clubs and work in them together, for so shall we gain new ideas and a more thorough understanding of the real sisterhood of our sex. We shall renew our strength as the eagles, and our belief in each other as actual living factors in the world’s work. And if the club has an altruistic basis, if it has a clause in its constitution about being the means of “elevating this community,” if it is really working for some actual barriers, then let the public know it by every possible means. ”

“ Let every existing Conservative club or association be stirred up into increased action, and put into real working trim forthwith; and where none such clubs or associations exist, let them be immediately formed, and set into cheerful and spirited motion. Let them all be placed under the vigilant superintendence of one or two real men of business—of local knowledge, of ability, and influence. ”

“ Given sincerity, and that vague but essential quality called personality, in the leaders, we do not care very much what the programme of a club may be. I have never known a club leader possessing these qualifications who did not get out of the experience as much as it was possible to give, if not more. An interest in basic social problems develops naturally out of the club relationship. Housing conditions, immigration, unemployment, minimum wage, political control, labor unions, are no longer remote and academic. ”

“ For the rest, that in such prurient confusion, Clubbism thrives and spreads, need not be said. Already the Mother of Patriotism, sitting in the Jacobins, shines supreme over all; and has paled the poor lunar light of that Monarchic Club near to final extinction. She, we say, shines supreme, girt with sunlight, not yet with infernal lightning; reverenced, not without fear, by Municipal Authorities; counting her Barnaves, Lameths, Pétions, of a National Assembly; most gladly of all, her Robespierre. ”

“ The great and rich society clubs are composed of men who are not apt to take much interest in politics anyhow, and never act as a body. The great effect produced by a social organization [Pg 121] for political purposes is shown by the career of the Union League Club; and equally striking proof can be seen by every man who attends a ward meeting. There is thus, however much to be regretted it may be, a constant tendency towards the concentration of political power in the hands of those men who by taste and education are fitted to enjoy the social side of the various political organizations. ”

“ This spirit of enlargement beckons us and leads us to the formation of the Federated Union of Clubs, and we cannot do better than follow its guidance. We all need, clubs as well as individuals, encouragement and counsel; we need to enlarge our knowledge of what other clubs are doing, of their extent, of their objects, of their ambitions. Above all, we need to enlarge our sympathies, to cultivate sympathy by knowledge; for our prejudices are born of ignorance, and we rarely dislike what we intimately know. ”

“ The woman's club was not an echo; it was not the mere banding together for a social and economic purpose, like the clubs of men. It became at once, without deliberate intention or concerted action, a light-giving and seed-sowing centre of purely altruistic and democratic activity. It had no leaders. It brought together qualities rather than personages; and by a representation of all interests, moral, intellectual, and social, a natural and equal division of work and opportunity, created an ideal basis of organization, where every one has an equal right to whatever comes to the common centre ”

“ When we allow ourselves to be drawn into the whirling vortex made up of club classes, too many clubs with the varying interests, too great a multiplicity of club committees, receptions and club teas by the score, until the very name of them nauseates us, the scramble for office (either for ourselves or our friends) and the numerous petty trials and tribulations that follow in the wake of all these things; then we are not getting the best results from club work ourselves, nor giving them to others, either. ”

“ They were all agreed that there were many evils to be eradicated from society; in what way—individualistic, governmental or socialistic, or by a combination of ways—few were agreed.
The problem was an open one. The theories proposed and the discussions were extremely interesting, but no record of them is at hand, except a few essays published in the Dial, a quarterly magazine which was edited by members of the organization, which finally took the name of "The Transcendental Club." ”

“ We are the most abused, and most envied, and most canvassed, Society that I know of, and we deserve neither the one nor the other distinction. The Club is not so good a resource as many respectable persons would believe, nor are we by any means such quizzes or such bores as the wags pretend. ”

“ It will be seen that the idea I have in mind might be imagined as a kind of civic federation club, a super-consumers' league, and a super-advertising club rolled into one. Rolling these three ideas into one is a temperament, and the men who are full of the vision of what can be done with them rolled into one, and of what is the matter with them if they are not rolled into one, must be the controlling powers in the new organization. ”

“ Nothing of the kind was in existence, and, as a consequence, there was no efficient corrective to the growing evils of intemperance and wasted time among these classes of the people. The movement met with a great and increasing support from the working men themselves, and the Provisional Committee appointed has been busily engaged in the work of organising the Club. ”

“ In his annual address of 1886 he declared:
“This League is the only organized and authentic national representative of the reform sentiment. I challenge any man to show that it has in any degree, or at any time, betrayed the trust voluntarily assumed by it, with the approval of the locally organized friends of reform, of honestly and adequately representing that sentiment, and its criticisms and demands upon political parties and public men. The League has pandered to no personal ambition, to no party purpose. ”

“ The reformers imagine they are in politics and must win at all costs. One enthusiast calls twenty friends into a room and organizes a club—and the club ties his hands and sells out to the nearest bidder. Before he knows it he has been organized back into Tammany Hall. You begin with a call to arms and a plan of organization. The men come to you in a moment of hope, showing every shade of intelligence, every stage of opinion,—one because he believes in your candidate ”

“ It may then fairly be said that the troubles and discussions of the first months of the Club's existence centred practically round the question of order, the first of the great difficulties of this most difficult enterprise. How boys who could scarcely be got to behave quietly under the strictest schoolmasters could ever be brought to obey the rebuke of their equal and schoolfellow: how a heterogeneous pack of average schoolboys could organise themselves into a self-governing republic, these were problems of real and stupendous difficulty. ”

“ The conservative women often opposed us, but we of the liberal party prevailed in the end. Gradually club and Federation broadened their programs. At the first biennial convention of the General Federation, held in Chicago, we devoted our attention principally to questions relating to clubs and their management. Should they be large or small? Should we have club-houses? Should we engage in philanthropic work? It seems strange now to remember the great enthusiasm with which we labored over these minor matters. ”

“ Our reformer made them see that in the present condition of Society, clubs had lost the principal charm of their organisation—exclusiveness. In fact, their raison d’être had disappeared. The collapse of centralised government, the vanishing of daily newspapers had deprived these smart haunts of all political and social interest; and the members saw no objection to lending their rooms for the use of public meetings. On the contrary, they rather enjoyed the change, for they longed for agitation, and thought that any kind of life was preferable than social decomposition. ”

“ Cheers were raised here for the old “Sociables,” who never felt so virtuous in all their lives.
“Now you want to hear what our proposal is. You’ll understand it best if I read the rough rules which the committee has drawn up:—”
1. That the Club be called the “Select Sociables.”
2. That the number of members be limited to thirty.
3. That not more than six members be chosen from any one Form.
“This is to prevent the Club getting crowded out with Sixth-form fellows— (loud cheers from the juniors) —or fellows from the Junior Third. (Laughter from the seniors.) ”

“ The large majority of the association is composed of the representatives of all the best classes of society. The number of the members is limited, and the character of the Club is social, and therefore the electing committee is compelled to exercise very vigilant care, for it is clear that it would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than that one terrible bore should be admitted. The prosperity of the Club, and the eagerness to obtain admission to it, are the best proofs of its healthy management ”