Evening star., 1923-08-02
Publicity and
Organization
BY DIR. FRANK CRANE.

! Publicity Is about the only known
corrective for the evils Of organize
ton.
! Organization has its good uses. as
everybody knows. without organE-
zation we could not have the grand
est government on earth. which is, df
course, our own. or the only true
i church, or the Grand Old Party, or
| the worlds greatest newspaper. or
any other of those superexceller5t r5t
things to which we happen to belong.
Organization is the tool by which
We get things done.
| But all tools are likely to cut our
fingers and play hob generally unless
| they are used right.
And organizations, besides being
lhstruments OF general welfare, de-
velop quite often into obstructions,
nulsances and tyrannies.
The ku klux klan is an organize
ton which sprang up at the close Of
the civil war for the purpose of ter
rorlZing the negroes. 1t has recently
| had quite revival and has been dI-
recting its attention to the Jews. tire
roman Catholics and other groups
| that certain people do not like ami
whom they are minded to denominate
| aliens"
/ Some time ago the state of New
! York enacted a law requiring all Sc.
cret orders to file with the secretary
or the state the names OF members A
meeting of protest was held in the
town of Eastport, at which a throng
Of fully robed klansmen gathered un-
uer the glare of red. electrically
ilghted cross. and surrounded the
| king kleagle, or high muckamuck of
their order. and listened to him at
tack the law as unconstitutional.
We will fight" said the king klea
! gle. TO the last breastwork to pre-
vent public disclosures of the identity
| of our membership"
! rms disposition to fight on till
death and even after is quite under
standable when we take into consid :
| Grafton the fact that publicity strikes
at the vn"y roots of organization.
| For one of the chief spiritual ad-
! vantages of organization is that by
means of it group of individuals can
! do dirty work very effectually which
no one of them would care to do him
self
| In these days of invention and
| progress no invention has been quite
50 useful as the organization for the
! preparation OF long distance deviltry
! by perfectly respectable citizens A
| man can pass the hat at church. live
| IN the odor of sanCtity as the presi-
dent OF the associated charities, and
be model husband and father as
John Jones. while as a member of the
board OF directors of the Jones Pro-
| noting Trust, Inc, he can rob right
| and left and do an occasional bit of
! thusgery and never get the blood on
! his cuffs
AS members of an organizatio holy
men once roasted heretics and hung
silly old women as witches and
swiped the property of some rival
merchant into the Golfers of the
/ church, incidentally putting COM
petltor out of business. when as in
diVlduals these same holy brethren
were good to their folks. charita BILE
10 the poor and never used tobacco in
any form.
The gentlemen who during the tur-
bulent period between the years 1914
and 1918 ciuttered up Belgium and
northern France and disported them
selves by cutting down fruit trees and
mines and factories. proclaimed them
selves as the apostles of culture.
| Probably very few of them were vi
ciouS individuals, but their organiza
tion formed for promoting the inter
ests of the fatherland was about the
most devilish piece of machinery that
ever broke loose on earth
| Bad as their organization was. no.
! body could hang il. And we seem To
nave considerable scruples against
| hanging the men who belong to it.
; II Is a sort of cardinal principle OF
mine that all men at heart are good
| And by the same token / am of the
opinion that every organization needs
| watching.
| Just as no man should write ar
| anonymous letter which he is afraid q
| to sign. SO no man has any business
TO belong TO an organization and be
| unwilling TO assume his share of the
responsibility for its deeds.