The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-11-18

alone when everybody was hard up. Mr.. Bliss
raised about, half n million.
Under the Bliss plan local committees were
formed in every town in the country. These
committees did the work of collecting the $40
subscriptions. To get these committees Mr..
Bliss made up the biggest mailing list ever seen.
He corresponded with every state chairman and
through these officials got the county chairmen
to draw up lists of possible contributors. When
the lists were turned in appeals were made direct
to those on the lists. Tho result is that shortly
before election Mr.. Bliss was getting frequently
as much as $4,000 in a single days mail.
OF course, under this plan contributions were
not limited to SO, nor were contributions of a
smaller amount spurned. All were welcomed, but
1t required $40 at least to become enrolled as a
sustaining member.
Whatever may have been the success achieved
by Mr.. Bliss, there were persons around Demo-
cratic headquarters in New York, Just around the
corner from the Republican shop, who were will
ing to bet that Mr.. Marsh would beat Mr.. Bliss
to n fragile in collecting money from the real
'%peepul." Out In Iowa, Mr.. Marsh's home state,
he has q record of being one of the greatest
money-raisers ever seen.
The Marsh plan, soon in full swing, was moth
ing more than the good old "every-member-can-
vass" scheme which the churches out In Iowa re-
sort to when they are falling behind In current
expenses or want to make a bonfire of the mort
gage. Marsh and his young men, some OF them
church workers, believed that if it could be
WORKED successfully iOT II Cnlrtn IL COulu Nc
worked In the country as a whole for the Demo-
cratic party.
An essential feature of the every-member-can-
vass plan Is team work. Anyone who has ever
been waited upon with n request to subscribe tn
a church fund to burn the mortgage knows that
not one person but two do the visiting. Confront
ed thus by superior numbers the prospect gener-
ally capitulates. To organize such teams in every
town and hamlet of the United States was the
task which Marsh and his Iowa hustlers set
themselves to do. This Is the way they did It:
The name of a good Democrat in every town
was first secured. Then a communication was sent
to him asking him to forward at once to head
quarters the names of six or eight men in the
an auxiliary finance committee of the Democratic
national committee, designating one man on the
list to be appointed chairman.
BY return mail each man so named got his
credential, a little card bearing the pictures Of
Wilson and Marshall. and announcing that the
Democratic national committee had been pleased
to appoint him a member of its finance commit
tee. with this card went a personal letter from
Treasurer Marsh calculated TO make the new
member of the Democratic finance committed get
busy. Here, for example, is one paragraph from
Mr.. Marshs letter, which as a whole sounds like
the follow-up campaign of a man selling patent
clothespins:
81 wish I might visit with you face TO face and
impress you with the tremendous Importance of
this work. To my mind it is far reaching. We
are absolutely dependent upon it for the money
to carry on the campaign; moreover, It is i'm