Our plan was simple and to the point; first to organize the village into a club on the simplest and broadest lines. It was to be called “The Pioneers,” and every taxpayer and the family of every taxpayer was to be eligible for membership. The membership fee was to be for adults one dollar, for women fifty cents, for boys ten cents. We were to have a president, a secretary-treasurer, and a board of five directors. The latter were to pass on all disbursements and had the privilege of canceling membership fees in any worthy case. Our constitution and by-laws were to be merely perfunctory and as free of red tape as was consistent with proper organization. Holt, a young lawyer in town who had taken an immediate interest in the plan, undertook to secure the pledges for the thousand dollars so that at the first meeting we might have something tangible to present. I headed the list with five hundred dollars, he came second with fifty, and Ed Barclay made up another fifty. Holt secured the rest in two days from the village merchants. Not a man refused to subscribe. On the face of it the scheme appealed to them as worth a try anyhow. It took no argument to make them appreciate the fact that their business was dependent upon the prosperity of the community, but it impressed them as a distinct novelty to attempt anything to further the prosperity of the same community upon which they were dependent. They had always accepted conditions as fixed by forces over which they had no control. They were like farmers who, before the days of irrigation, accepted drought as a decree of God. The idea of doing anything to remedy natural conditions never occurred to them. This new plan was carrying matters even one step further; it was an attempt not to remedy but actually to create. The argument I had used with Dick about the town being a big unused plant appealed to them. With a market waiting for us and plenty of labor on hand we proposed to set the wheels a-going and create a business for the merchants and for every citizen in the town. Three days later, on January fifteenth, the following notice, prepared by Holt, appeared in the local paper spread over half the front page, in place of the usual stale Washington correspondence: ATTENTION! Next Wednesday evening, January nineteenth, a meeting will be held in the Opera House to discuss a plan for putting money into the pockets of every resident of this village. WE ARE GOING TO WAKE UP! A committee of citizens has contributed the sum of ONE THOUSAND Dollars which will be divided among those who attend this meeting and fulfil the conditions. WE ARE GOING TO WAKE UP! Come and bring the whole family. The Woodmen band will furnish music. WE SURE ARE GOING TO WAKE UP! This looked to me a little bit like circus advertising and I wanted Holt to tone it down, but he shook his head.