Organiser

“ Such are the organized forms of business, education, government, and religion. But all groups require organization of a sort. The gang has its recognized leader, the club its officers and by-laws. Even such antisocial persons as outlaws frequently move in bands and have their chiefs. [9] Organization goes far to determine success in war or politics, in work or play. Like achievement, organization is the result of a gradual growth in collective experience, and must be continually adapted to the changing requirements of successive periods by the wisdom of master minds. ”

“ But it is precisely at the present time, when the wave of spontaneous indignation is, as it were, lashing us leaders and organisers of the movement, that a most irreconcilable struggle must he carried on against all defence of sluggishness, against any legitimisation of restriction in the matter, and it is particularly necessary to rouse in all those participating in the practical work, in all who are just thinking of taking it up, discontent with the primitive methods that prevail among us and unshakable determination to get rid of them. ”

“ And there is the chosen head, commonly the man of greatest mark to be obtained, who exercises a recognized power over speakers and audience—the temporary king. Even an informally summoned assemblage soon resolves itself into these divisions more or less distinctly; and when the assemblage becomes a permanent body, as of the men composing a commercial company, or a philanthropic society, or a club, definiteness is quickly given to the three divisions—president or chairman, board or committee, proprietors or members. ”

“ Here are associations whose ties go over and under and through it, a meeting of merchants, a military corps, a college class, a fire-club, a professional association, a political, a religious convention;—the persons seem to draw inseparably near; yet, that assembly once dispersed, its members will not in the year meet again. Each returns to his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains porcelain, and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may be frivolous, or fashion may be objectless, but the nature of this union and selection can be neither frivolous nor accidental. ”

“ No organisation, no definite programme, no specific object!—what practical good could any one like myself do in such a party?"
The doctor smiled a quiet smile of triumph as he proceeded to overthrow my objections: "Why, the very strength of our party lies in the fact that it has not what you are pleased to call an organisation. Organisations are only a means for intriguers and rogues to climb to power on the shoulders of their fellow-men; and at best only serve to trammel initiative and enterprise. With us every individual enjoys complete liberty of action. ”

“ These people make better organisers than leaders, and their mental martial spirit often finds a splendid field for their talents as the brain behind an army. In plans, tactics and strategy, in carefully thought-out stores of ammunitions, provisions, or in financial schemes that may bring ruin or discomfiture on a more warlike enemy. ”

“ The Tate Gallery touched these folk as would an imposing review of troops, a procession of judges, or a coronation in Westminster Abbey. Their senses were tickled by the prospect of a show, their minds were stirred by some idea of organisation—something was about to be organised, and nothing appeals so much to the vulgar mind as organisation.
An epoch is represented by a word, and to organise represents the dominant idea of our civilisation. To organise is to be respectable, and as every one wants to be respectable, every one dreams of new schemes of organisation. ”

“ And in a world where organizations are regularly being confused and fouled up—either as whole organizations, or through your attempts to get rid of individual members—a smooth-running, efficient organization stands out like a sore thumb. ”

“ We do not appoint a leader for the circle, but a conductor for each department of work—one for geology, another for Greek history, etc. Having a number of professional men in our circle, such as doctors, ministers and teachers, we propose a division of labor, and thus we shall do more thorough work. We will have one regular meeting each month, and as many special meetings as we shall find profitable. ”

“ Moreover, we go to our group to learn the process. We sometimes hear the advantages of collective planning spoken of as if an act of Congress or Parliament could substitute collective for individual planning! But it is only by doing the deed that we shall learn this doctrine. We learn how to create the common will in our groups, and we learn here not only the process but its value. ”

“ I inquired.
“The organization is the Congress Party,” he answered. “But if it fails me, I have my own organization, myself. I am a man possessed by an idea. If such a man cannot get an organization, he becomes an organization.”
“Have you sufficient confidence in the present mood of the country? Will it follow you? This civil disobedience movement may involve heavy sacrifices for the people. ”

“ He had friends among professional men in the arts, and some acquaintances among newly formed bodies of social workers. He was not slow in perceiving that the way was likely to be tedious and hard. It called for organization—the organization of hope, of patience, of hot, untiring zeal, of finesse against political chicane, of persistence in the face of indifference and selfishness. ”

“ Excellent workmen, instead of making all the improvements in their power, follow with indifference the old jog-trot. What a pity! for an intelligent man, occupied all his life with some special employment, must discover, in the long run, a thousand ways of doing his work better and quicker. I will form, therefore, a sort of consulting committee; I will summon to it my foremen and my most skillful workmen. ”

“ With you I believe in organization; organization upheld by, and upholding, the rights of the people, irrespective of class; organization prompted by the still small voice of conscience, which abridges no man’s freedom while seeking its own. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For, to realize its proposed aim and accepted plan of action, organization alone can enlist and keep secure the sympathies of patrons and members, co-ordinate the various forces, and call into play, when necessary, new and fresh energies. The greater the number to be reached by the society or societies which embody this movement, the more efficient should be the organizing power.
Experience and reason prove that an organization destined to affect the masses and hold its grip on them, will not live and thrive only on an occasional appeal or a printed message. ”

“ The elements are restlessly moving, in all directions breaking through the barriers of old organizations. Here they march and there, some with uncertain purpose, crossing one another's paths and sometimes even their own. ”

“ For day after day, every public meeting illustrates afresh this same differentiation characterizing the primitive political agency, and illustrates afresh the actions of its respective parts. There is habitually the great body of the less distinguished, forming the audience, whose share in the proceedings consists in expressing approval or disapproval, and saying ay or no to the resolutions proposed. There is the smaller part, occupying the platform—the men whose wealth, position, or capacity gives them influence—the local chiefs by whom the discussions are carried on. ”

“ All that we need at first is the skeleton of an organization, the most important feature of which would be the committee on membership. Much depends upon getting the right kind of men interested in the matter. Let the objects and work of this organization unfold and develop naturally and by degrees. It may take the form of a mechanics’ institute, a library, a gymnasium, a system of coffee-taverns, a lecture course With elevating popular exhibitions; and so I might go on, enumerating all the admirable things which similar bodies have inaugurated in other villages, both here and in Europe. ”

“ The conference is divided into ten sections:
Children. Delinquents. Health. Public agencies and institutions. The family. Industrial and economic problems. The local community. Mental hygiene. Organization of social forces. Uniting of native and foreign-born.
At the annual convention each of these ten sections holds its own group meetings at which papers are presented and discussions conducted on the subjects appropriate to the section. It will be seen that the division into sections is on a basis of administrative fields rather than technique or function. ”

“ We see the working of the principle not only in simple crowds, but also in groups of very considerable degrees of organisation. We see it in the way in which many a man, who would shrink from the responsibility of directing a great and complicated commercial undertaking, will cheerfully join a board of directors each of whom is perhaps no better qualified than himself to conduct the business of the concern. ”

“ It is here that the individual, who need consult no one but himself, has a pull over any form of organization, where decisions are reached by the method of debate and agreement among a heterogeneous committee. ”

“ Their collective organizations, from of old, have been the Church, the University, and the State. A corresponding division holds in every department of life, in every art, in every subject of inquiry. ”

“ The common identical aim steadily incited to an association and organisation of all work and to its common adaptation, therefore, from the begining every energy was directed to the organisation of a union in which every activity would be concentrated. ”

“ Multitudinous objects are achieved by spontaneously-evolved combinations of citizens governed representatively. The tendency to this kind of organization is so ingrained that, for every proposed end, the proposed means is a society ruled by an elected committee headed by an elected chairman—philanthropic associations of multitudinous kinds, literary institutions, libraries, clubs, bodies for fostering the various sciences and arts, etc., etc. ”

“ More to the purpose, for the controlling and the moderating of the passions of a popular assembly, are the superficial gifts of an impressive presence, an air of authority, a ready tongue, and a resonant voice. ”

“ This reasoning is not without plausibility to a certain point. We must have political parties, and a party in order to be effective must have an organization and workers. This is true. But what kind of an organization and what kind of workers must a party have? ”

“ The natural plan for our purpose, the plan with the smallest artificial element under present circumstances, is the selection by the congress of departments of civic action in which it is desirable and practicable to enlist the general cooperation of the citizens. The organization of each part of this action should be entrusted to persons particularly interested in that kind of work, and particularly fitted for it. ”

“ Another group of the same type is a so-called "movement," composed of a few individuals who associate themselves in a loose way to further a definite purpose, like the promotion of temperance, hold mass-meetings, and create public opinion, but do not at once proceed to a permanent organization. Eventually, when the movement has gathered sufficient headway or has shown that it is permanently valuable, a fixed organization may be accomplished. ”

“ The article manufactured provides the common purpose toward which all strive; and, in the assignment of different kinds of work to the individual workmen, the principle of division of labor is carried out. For the same reason a school, a railway system, an army, and a political party are organizations. ”

“ The discussions and resolutions of the assembly and the final type of organization which grew out of them can be understood only in the light thrown on them by a study of the composition of this revolutionary group of men. ”

“ We therefore call for organizers, capable and well-versed in the whole programme of the labor movement, to be sent into each state to preach the necessity of organization on the political as well as on the economic field. ”

“ Are not these meetings the "primary assemblies," as it were, in which the ideas are elaborated, or the principles formed, which afterwards make their way into the press and the Legislature, and so determine the course of national policy, or the fate of national fortunes? Every day, with the increasing popularising of our institutions, is adding to the influence of eloquence, and multiplying the situations in which its highest style may be poured forth with the greatest effect. ”

“ These leaders may represent therefore a wide variety of interests—society leaders or leaders of political groups, leaders of women or leaders of sportsmen, leaders of divisions by geography, or divisions by age, divisions by language or by education. These subdivisions are so numerous that there are large companies in the United States whose business it is to supply lists of groups and group leaders in different fields. ”

“ Political organization is to be understood as that part of social organization which consciously carries on directive and restraining functions for public ends. It is true, as already hinted, and as we shall see presently, that the two kinds are mingled in various ways—that each ramifies through the other more or less according to their respective degrees of predominance. ”

“ The place of meeting, and rules of the society, shall be established, revoked or altered, and new members admitted, at any of the stated meetings, by a majority of the attending members, if they be a majority of those present, not being less than one-fourth of the whole. ”

“ To the executive board of the society, most of whom have been members of the board for a long period of years, of course the success of the association is especially due. Men of initiative in an ambitious and unselfish [Pg 52] way working for the success of the association, they have had very much indeed to do with its progress. ”