Connecticut western news., 1916-02-03
THE CANAAN SLOGAN.

-A lOcdl COnJrlDuCOT WTlteS CO LII News to ask the following:
 @'As business man of Canaan,
 interested ill its progress and pros.
 perity, l am naturally interested
 in the efforts of the Business Mems
 Association officers to secure a
 slogan; and l intend to submit
 suggestion for such slogan, in the
 manner prescribed in your last
 weeks issue, and hope there will
 be large number of competitors
 in that worthy contest. But am
 puzzled for an idea. The article
 kn your paper states that the slogan
 should give clue to the material,
 the esthetic. the industrial or the
 civic aspirations of the con-
 munity. It seems to me that is
 going to be difficult contract to
 ill, for the reason that we are of
 so many different minds ill this
 community. How are we going to
 know that the best slogan sent in
 will get a majority vote of the
 committee of judges? The judges
 themselves may all have different
 minds of their own, and split up
 en the merits of the different
 slogans, just as they may disagree
 on the most conspicuous of our
 civic or esthetic aspirations.
 You have been pounding away on
 your own slogan for years, and &C.,
 eording to your own story the
 people are not getting together nor
 pulling together very much. Do
 you know of any town where it is
 so difficult to make solgan that
 will fit it ?''
 1t may be difficult matter. viewin, she Business Mems slogan contest iron she angle suggested by the esteemed writer, to hit upon catch-phrase tha will apply to every street-corner con singent or loafng-place delegation about town, and at the same tim designate the aspirations of the req element and so called boost DTS. Aspiratio ons are a thing of "in anite variety.'' We number anon, ,ur fellow citizens those whose aspira sions run no higher than a COW stable while others aspire to make their towl s beauty spot and a wholesome, thriv ing, clean, progressive town in whicl they may be proud to live. And be tween these two extremes we find al Ghe intermediate grades and shades O aspirations and indifference. No singl could be devised to cove 5hem all.
 For instance, if the slogan adopted were to emphasize our civic pride, tn ,Ynic--he need not necessarily be 4 'knocker'-would point with derlsiol to the disgraceful condition of our side walks in winter and spring.
 If our spirit of cooperation were ex aRoited the slogan would hardly squar up with the fact that Jones will hay to do with any undertaking il which Brown is in any way interested
 If. the slogan makes boast of ou sentiment as shown in tn ne. license vote, somebody will refut sa with the claim that the town wa voted dry by drinking men, for reason of personal spite or politics; that it i oftener wet than dry, and that tn license question is the one everlastin and the livest, bitterest, most ur gueuchable local issue we have to COT tend with.
 And so on. Plainly the slogan whic we need, and which the president an secretary of the B. M. A. desire { secure, must express not a conditio but theory; it must be inspired nc ny our disappointments but our hopes 1t must describe not our failures br our ambitions; it must emphasize nc our shortcomings but our determin, tions; not what we are or have bee1 but what we want to be and are goin to be-if we can. In that view of tl slogan contest, the answer to the clo ing query of the writer of the aboy letter is easy. There should be |