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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
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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.
TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT!
85
" CHATTERY
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
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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
86 Robert A. Heinlein
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 heartily 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
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