Next, get personally acquainted with each editor, entering into a
pleasant conversation with him and trying to make him your personal
friend. By this means a Volunteer can often use the press of the
opposite party to propagate his views. The original purpose of a
newspaper was to give news, and very often, even in these degenerate
days, the instinct of a newspaper man to give news, if encouraged and
stimulated a little, will become strong enough temporarily to overcome
his prejudice, and possibly overcome his appreciation of the plate
matter supplied by Mr. Hanna's agents free of charge. He may even give
a column or a half-column, describing the meeting of the New Democracy,
quoting freely the words of the speaker.
In dealing with Democratic, Populist and other friendly papers, there
is a secondary opportunity for useful work. It is to show the editors
how they can force the plate matter and ready-print establishments
to furnish news concerning the Democratic Volunteers to all their
customers, by simply demanding information on that subject. Even
request the editor to write a letter, telling of the intense interest
of his constituents in the Volunteers, and urging that his ready-print
matter contain something weekly from the Volunteer's National office.
A sufficient number of such letters cannot fail to have the desired
effect. Let every Volunteer aim to secure the co-operation of a few
editors, and the work is done. The ready-print establishments that
remain stubborn should lose their patronage.
CHAPTER III.
SPEECHES AND MEETINGS.
The Volunteers are organized, not to do the easy things that have been
done in the past and are now being very satisfactorily done by others,
but rather to do what others have left, and are leaving, undone. In
communities where the New Democracy is strong and the people are
already in the habit of gathering periodically and during political
campaigns nightly, it requires no organization of Volunteers to
provide men to instruct and amuse them to their entire satisfaction.
Our work is to do what others have not done and cannot do; to gather
crowds where others have failed; to create interest where there is
no interest; to make friends where we have no friends, and, WHERE WE
ARE ALREADY STRONG AND DOMINANT IN A COMMUNITY, TO TEACH OUR FRIENDS
AND BROTHERS TO SO SYSTEMATIZE THEIR EFFORTS AND ENTHUSIASM AS TO
BE MOST USEFUL IN EDUCATING AND GAINING THE SUPPORT OF LESS ADVANCED
COMMUNITIES ELSEWHERE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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