The Washington times., 1905-06-11
SUNDAY. JUNE ii, 1905.
How to Reach the 81 Man.


projects as the proposed auditorium,
the free Fairgrounds. and the city
gardens. is everywhere admitted. The
anomaly of depending those projects
upon the interest and financial sup
port of perhaps thousand local busi-
ness men and ignoring the thirty
thousand of Government clerks who
compose the great mass of District
citizenship is, apparently, manifest TO
everyone who has read the two edi-
torials on that discrepancy lately pub
l1shed in these columns.
But the score or half score of
public-spirited men on whom, accord
Ing to The Times. the burden and
control of all such movements has
rested for many years, object that the
failure to include the Government
clerk is not their fault. 1t is. they
say. the consequence of the clerks
lack of interest instead of a lack of
effort to reach him. They think, as
The Times thinks, that 1000 sub
scriptions OF 81 each mean more ad-
vantage to any municipal enterprise
than two subscriptions of 81 900 each.
But they ask: How are we to reach
the 1000 and persuade them to give?
What the community needs to
arouse these men is: First. Some
evidence of spirit to cooperate with
them; and, second, the right kind of
leadership to reach them. ~ -
As The Times has said before. if
taere has been any practical effort to
l--terest the department clerk in any
lee3i project for the municipal adyan-
tage in the past thirty years, this
paper has not heard of it. They have
contributed more than once, to be
sure Among the most gratifying
help extended to the committee on
the recent g. A. r. encampment were
two large checks from the Govern
ment Printing Office and the Bureau
OF Engraving and Printing. But
those checks were in no sense a re-
sponse to effort on the part of the G..
A K. committee. They were Yolun-
tary contributions brought to the
committee as complete surprise.
Recent years offer no satisfactory evi-
dence OF any businesslike effort to
reach the departments.
Undoubtedly the spirit to include
the 81 man, whether in the depart
ment or out, exists. The promoters
OF tie auditorium, the Fairgrounds,
and the city gardens would all be
glad to work with him, if they could.
But they have about concluded that
he cannot be reached, and that they
would better devote themselves to
the men who have given before and
are likely to give again.
This, we say, is all wrong. II it is
needful to enlist these clerks, the
several committees in charge Of these
projects do their causes wrong by
neglecting to go after them, what
ever the difficulty And the difficulty
will not be SO great.
A skeleton organization for this
work already exists in the several
cltizens' associations. If they do not
now include the bulk os our citizens
and they do not-they could easily
be made TO do so by the right kind
of leadership. More effort to enroll
members among the Government
clerks and less to petition;ng the
Commissioners and Congress for spe-
clal fayors will expand the usefulness
OF the citizens associations yaluably.
Not until the officers of these asso-
cations absorb this plain and simple
truth viii these bodies assume the
Importance they ought rightfully to
have.
The Times does not believe that it
will prove discouraging at all to
arouse these clerks to a realization
OF their citizen responsibilities They
are as proud of their residence in the
District as any commercial or pro-
fessional men in the directory. They
are, Intellectually, especially fitted TO
bear their responsibilities, whatever
they may be. But it is no stretching
CT the truth to say that they have
been made to feel like outsiders. How
else could they feel, when every pub
lie enterprise for thirty years has
gone on without even a notice that
their help would be welcomed?
Ii, then, the citizens associations
were to widen their membership
among the men able to contribute
only 81 for each of these enterprises.
that class might easily be interested
and that would be most desirable
step forward. But it will take time
to make it. Meanwhile. the members
of the several committees now urging
these three projects on the public at
tention may do world of work inde-
pendent of the citizens associations.
Let them, first, canvass their own
acquaintanceship among the 81 men.
It will be large field-for the num-
ber Of citizens honestly able to sub