The social center

Front matter

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Copyright N°

COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr.

Preface

"It is necessary that simple means should be found by which, by an interchange of points of view, we may get together, for the whole process of modern life, the whole process of modern politics, is a process by which we must exclude misunderstandings, * * * bring all men into common counsel and so discover what is the common interest. That is the problem of modern life which is so specialized that it is almost devitalized, so disconnected that the tides of life will not flow.

'There is no sovereignty of the people if the several sections of the people are at loggerheads with one another. Sovereignty comes with cooperation. * * *

"You say and all men say that great political changes are impending in this country. Why do you say so? Because everywhere you find men * * * determined to solve the problems by acting together, no matter what older bonds they may break, no matter what former prepossessions they may throw off, determined to get together."

These sentences are taken from the address of Governor Wilson upon citizenship organization and the use of the schoolhouse as the neighborhood center of this

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PREFACE all-inclusive association, given at the opening of the First National Conference on Social Center Development, one year before his election to the Presidency of the United States.

Among a group of men who gathered after the meeting, one said: "With the powerful cooperation of Woodrow Wilson as President, it is not impossible that the basic program of the social center — the self-organization of the voting body into a deliberative body to supplant party divisions — may be effected in one administration."

During the campaign which resulted in the election of President Wilson he repeatedly referred to the social center opportunity, speaking of it as of fundamental and inspiring importance. Moreover, this idea was lifted during the campaign far above being merely a party project by the fact that Colonel Roosevelt strongly urged the logical procedure of shifting the polling places into the schoolhouses and then making them the deliberative as well as voting headquarters of district political organization, "the senate chambers of the people," and President Taft, following the example of Justice Hughes, of the United States Supreme Court, who, when governor of New York, said of the social center movement: "I am more interested in what you are doing and what it stands for than anything else in the world," authorized the hearty approval of this plan by the chairman of the national Republican committee.

The unanimous endorsement of the social center idea

PREFACE vii

by these party leaders and by such bodies as the National Education Association has been accompanied by the beginning of social center development in so many communities throughout the country that the rapid equipment of the whole citizenship with this means of its intelligent self-expression seems assured.

To aid in the recognition of the social center opportunity is the purpose of this volume.

E. J. W.

University of Wisconsin, November, 1912.

Introduction

This volume is the outcome of years of thought and personal activity on the part of Edward J. Ward. While some of the chapters are the contributions of other pens than his, I am sure all will be willing to admit that the inspiration for these contributions was Mr. Ward's.

As director of recreational facilities at Rochester, Mr. Ward was able to develop the social center idea in a number of Rochester schools as he so vividly portrays. With this as a background he has carried forward a propaganda which has reached every part of the country and has resulted in the three great national parties indorsing the idea during the recent presidential campaign.

This volume is the outcome of the consideration given to the whole subject at the Buffalo meeting of the National Municipal League and includes not only the ripe product of Mr. Ward's thought, but the advice and suggestions of his colleagues who have also thought long and worked steadily for the advancement of the idea. Within the past two years Wisconsin has required the school boards to make free and adequate provision for the use of school houses as neighborhood headquarters for political discussion. As this introduction is being written early in the year, the prospects are that a very

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considerable number of other states will follow the precedent thus established and within the year it is more than likely that Mr. Ward's fight will be practically won with only the details to be worked out. Briefly stated, Mr. Ward believes with all his heart and urges, with all his abundant force and vitality, that the school house, being community property, should be utilized for community purposes. It should be the polling place, and before that the place for the discussion of political ideas. It should be the social center of the community for adults and children alike. In fact, it should be the animating civic factor in the community.

The editor of the National Municipal League series has unusual pleasure in sending forth this volume as a source of information and inspiration to the growing list of workers for democratic municipal government in this country. It has a fitting place in the series, providing as it does for the formulation of that sound public sentiment without which there can be no true and permanent success in the matter of self-government.

Contents

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PAGE

I. — Discovery — Not Creation i

Chapter II

It would be worth while to locate the polling place in the school building; even though that son of perdition who is the father of partition were to be allowed to continue ruHng our preparation for the use of the common ballot box; even though that party spirit which Washington called the "worst enemy" of a democracy were to continue to dominate the time before elections ; even though the supreme jury of the citizenship were to keep on making its preparation to render final verdict on public questions by separating into noisy factions instead of by calmly sitting together with fair hearing and free discussion in judgment ; even though the furnishing of information upon which the public may wisely decide the questions of its welfare were to continue to be given over entirely to private, self-interested, and irresponsible individuals and groups ; even though it were to be kept true that "the 'will of the people' is an emotional reaction actuated and controlled by the 'committee on rumor' " ; * even though membership in the district body of citizens, the direct means of coordinate fellowship in the supreme body of the government, were to continue to be treated as though it were less important than membership in any private society; even though, in a word,

* Frederick A. Cleveland, of the President's Commission on Economy and Efficiency.

the neighborhood organization of the electorate were to use its unifying headquarters merely for voting. But the importance of thus permanently and worthily establishing the primary instrument of democracy in this building is far greater in what it prepares for than in what it accomplishes.

When the voting place is located in the schoolhouse, then the district organization of the electorate, the neighborhood body politic, has a headquarters which invites use, not only for the occasional gathering of its members to decide on public questions, but for the frequent gathering of its members for such organized deliberation, such getting at the facts, such all-sided hearing and discussion, as intelligent voting presupposes. In the business of politics, the selecting of community servants, the agreement on restraints, the devising and guiding of cooperations, the together-business which we call government, the citizenship of neighborhood, city, state, nation, the committee of the whole, gets much of its deciding on details done, by subcommittees just as do other and lesser organizations.

In order to have worked out, for instance, some of the details of orderly living together in a city, the citizens select certain of their number as aldermen or commissioners, and give to them, as a temporary subcommittee, the tasks of deciding upon such questions as appointments, rules, investments, and the administration of. some of the cooperative enterprises the citizens have united in. Now a man's prime function as an alderman is simply to vote on public questions. It is exactly the same as a man's or a woman's prime function as a citizen, except that the alderman's responsibility in his voting is secondary and delegated, while the citizen's responsibility is primary and absolute. The relationship with other aldermen, into which a man enters when he becomes an alderman, is the same as that which exists among citizens in any voting precinct. It is fellowship in responsibility for participation in voting.

If the members of this subcommittee met their delegated responsibility in the same manner in which the citizens meet their primary opportunity, then there would be no orderly assembling of the aldermen to talk over the questions on which they are to vote. But, on a certain day, each of them would come to the subcommittee voting place, the city hall, his idea of the matters on which he is to render decision hazy, his opinion based on such chance information or misinformation as he might have, his judgment unclarified, untested, unaugmented by any organized deliberation ; and there in a booth apart register this biased, uninformed, snap judgment, and then go away, to come back to the voting place when another set of questions regarding the public welfare is to be decided.

That is not what the aldermen do. They are selected citizens. Presumably they are better qualified than other voters to decide offhand on municipal affairs. Their responsibility as a subcommittee is merely secondary. Their field of possible activity is narrowly limited in comparison with the wide range of opportunity of the committee of the whole citizenship. Nevertheless, before the aldermen begin to vote on public questions, first of all they assemble in the building in which they are to vote, and there form a deliberative assembly, organize a common council, coordinate a forum wherein there may be opportunity for the orderly presentation and free discussion of the questions upon which they are to vote.

So with the subcommittee appointed to work out 3 details of life together within the wider area of the state. Though the men selected as legislators are presumably even better equipped to decide without investigation and counsel, how to avoid the mistakes and develop the resources of our living together, they would not think of voting on the matters within their sphere of responsibility without first securing for themselves the opportunity for organized deliberation.

And even where the subcommittee upon the details of our orderly association is made up of men selected from the whole nation, presumably because of their rare grasp of public matters and their exceptional capacity for ready decision upon what to do and how to do it, these congressmen first get together in the building where they are to vote and establish means of orderly discussion of the questions which they are to decide in their voting.

In all these cases, and in the case of other subordinate public bodies, school board, park board, industrial commission, interstate commerce commission, indeed, in the case of e/ery subordinate public body, the principle is recognized that if an individual is to vote intelligently upon a public question, that is, a question which concerns not only himself, but others with himself, he must have opportunity to compare his opinion with that of men who dififer from him ; that is, with men who see facts that he does not see, or who see solutions which are not apparent to him, for only so can his knowledge be comprehensive enough to furnish an intelligent basis for judgment upon a public question.

Now, it is obvious that, if the voters who are selected as aldermen, legislators, congressmen, or members of other subordinate public bodies, presumably on account of their readiness in deciding public questions, need opportunity for organized deliberation that their decision may be intelHgent, then the unselected citizens would need such opportunity more, even if the questions on which they are to vote were also secondary in character.

It is apparent that, if the members of these subcommittees, whose responsibility is delegated, need a chance to talk things over in an orderly manner before rendering their decision, then the members of the body whose duty it is to appoint and commission these agents and review their work, need more such machinery for ordered counsel.

And it is plain that, if the members of each of these many subcommittees need opportunity for participation in orderly discussion, that they may decide intelligently upon matters within the respective single spheres of their particular jurisdictions, then the need of the members of the committee of the whole citizenship for such organized deliberative opportunity is many times as great, for they must first and finally decide upon the problems vdthin, not one, but all of these spheres. kV Of course, just as there are among the citizens in the 'average voting precinct, men and women of different religious affiliations, dififerent racial, financial, cultural and taste associations, so there are, among the members of boards of aldermen, state legislatures and other subordinate public bodies ; but these dififerences have nothing whatever to do with the bond of membership or the responsibility for sharing in the deliberations of members of these bodies, any more than they have in the sharing of their voting.

And, just as there are among the citizens of every neighborhood, some impatient idealists and some cautious conservatives, some men who hold one sort of view on political matters, and some who hold another, so among the members of every board of aldermen, every state legislature, and every other subordinate public body, there are men who differ radically in their opinion on public or political matters. But, instead of this variety of viewpoint being a reason for division and separation, this difference of interpretation of common problems is the best possible reason for organization into single discussion bodies, which include in their membership those who differ, that the questions to be voted on may be considered from every side.

The proposal, which goes to the heart of our whole American problem, that the citizenship, which is now coordinated for decision upon public questions, shall organize for such orderly deliberation upon public questions as intelligent decision presupposes, is merely the proposal that the membership of the supreme and fundamental public body do what every subordinate public body now does.

The procedure is perfectly simple. It is exactly the same as tiie procedure whereby the members of every minor body secure the benefits of organized deliberative opportunity. Just as the aldermen assemble in the building where they are to vote, and there form a parliamentary, that is, a discussion organization which includes all of the aldermen as members, and just as they draft by-laws and rules of procedure and select officers, that their deliberations may be regular, so the citizens within any precinct assemble in their voting headquarters, the schoolhouse, and there form a deliberative organization which includes all of the citizens in the district as members, and by the adoption of a constitution and the selection of officers assure orderly procedure.

Of course, in the average neighborhood, not all the citizens will participate in the formation of this citizens' common council, just as not all citizens participate in voting, just as, indeed, not all of the aldermen or congressmen attend all of the deliberative sessions of their assemblies, but whether he attends or not, every neighboring voter is an active member. And, of course, there are no dues, any more than there are dues for the aldermen to pay for the privilege and duty of gathering in aldermanic counsel. The members of every neighborhood association of citizens paid their dues when they paid their taxes, whether directly or through the agency of a landlord.

The right of the citizens in any district to the use of their neighborhood building for orderly and free discussion of public questions, just as they now use it (or some other place provided at public expense) for decision on public questions, is not likely to be questioned when the character of this organization is understood. In most cases, where that body which is charged with conducting the form of public service which occupies these buildings during a part of the time, the school board, has opposed their use for adult meetings, the school board has been entirely right in its position and faithful to its trust of looking after the public interest, for the applications which have come to the school board were to have these public buildings made available for use under the auspices of private organizations of various sorts. The members of a school board would not have a keen perception of their duty to the community if they did not oppose the use of a community building by any other than a community body. But where the organization that is formed includes as its membership the whole citizenship of the neighborhood, that is, where the present neighborhood organization for voting constitutes itself an organization for deliberation, there only a school committee which has not yet gained any conception of democracy will honestly oppose the use of the schoolhouse as headquarters for such association.

Among the many communities in Wisconsin in which, during the season of 1910-1911, application was made to school boards for the use of the public school building as a meeting place for the citizens organized into an all-inclusive neighborhood association, only two boards refused the request. The reason in one case was that one of the questions which the citizens desired to take up was the proposed adoption of the commission form of government for their city. It happened that a member of the board of education was the brother of an alderman. He did not wish to facilitate discussion of a plan which might relieve his brother of that opportunity for service. In the other case the opposition came indirectly through the school board from one of the private interests in the town whose life depended on the citizens not having wholesome assembly places. Upon learning the character of the opposition in these two cases, the 1910-1911 session of the state legislature stated in law the right of the citizens to the use of the schoolhouse in any district as headquarters for the neighborhood organization of the electorate ; and it was declared that where the citizenship of any community is organized for the use of this building as a community meeting place for the open presentation and free discussion of public questions, there the committee in charge of this public property shall make provision for the free, gratuitous and convenient use of the building for this purpose.

It is significant of the normal attitude of school men toward this use of the schoolhouse as the neighborhood political headquarters, both for voting and for the all-sided free discussion of public questions, that the man who introduced the bill which declared the right of the citizens to this use of their property was an old school man, that the committee to which the bill was referred in each house and whose endorsement caused its passage without opposition, was largely made up of school board members, and that the state governor whose signature made the bill a law was a former school principal.

As to the detail of equipment of any school building for this deliberative assembling of the neighboring citizens, the complete answer is, as in the use of the building for voting, in the plan of having a "community room", a combination of assembly hall and gymnasium on the ground floor, reachable directly from -the street or road, and fitted with comfortable, adult size seats. But, where such a community room or neighborhood hall is not yet constructed as a part of the school plant, the kindergarten room, where there is one, is suitable for this use. If there is no room on the ground floor, which is without desks, the plan mentioned in the preceding chapter, of placing the little desks in any first-floor room on "skids", thin strips of hard wood, so that they can be moved easily, and putting chairs in their places, makes possible a satisfactory place of meeting. Obviously, as most of the meetings of the neighborhood citizens' association or civic club will be held in the evening, where the teacher's request for the installation of lighting has not already been granted, this need must be met.

But, of course, the mere opening of the building, even though the equipment be perfect and the lighting, heating and janitor service be all -arranged for, is not sufficient to assure, or, indeed, to make possible in the average community the effective use of the schoolhouse as the center of the neighborhood dehberative organization of the citizenship.

In the case of the aldermen, it is not merely the opening of the city hall for their use which is provided. There is also furnished, as a matter of course, and at public expense, the service of a clerk or secretary. One can scarcely imagine the aldermen, or the members of the state legislature, or national congressmen, providing their own secretarial or clerical service. They and every other subordinate public body have provided for them the service of a man or a staff of men who look after dockets, reports, and other secretarial details of their meeting.

If one would not expect that these men, who are set apart, selected as those especially interested in public business, would take care of arranging for the bothersome details of their meeting, it certainly would not be expectable that the neighborhood body of the citizens, each of whom has his private business to attend to, and none of whom is selected as a man particularly interested in public matters, should provide their own secretarial service. To be sure, it is a fact that, so remarkable is our developing sense of community spirit and neighborhood interest, that there are many places where the schoolhouses are now used as citizenship assembly chambers, where the secretarial service of preparing programs, securing speakers whom the organization wants to hear, and looking after the preliminary and reporting publicity, is done by volunteers, or by the school principal without extra remuneration. But this is distinctly public service, and should be rendered in every community by a public servant equipped and paid as a neighborhood civic secretary.

This is not entirely a new profession, but is rather the extension of the neighborhood secretarial service, which is now rendered at public expense. In the work of the neighborhood or precinct election clerk, secretarial service for the neighborhood organization of the electorate is now publicly furnished for the voting of the citizens. When to the neighborhood civic function of gathering to vote is added the neighborhood civic function of assembling to deliberate, then the service of the neighborhood clerk is simply changed from being temporary and occasional to being continuous. It is exactly as though the aldermen had been gathering only to vote on the municipal business for which they are responsible, having for their voting a publicly hired clerk, and it now being decided that, for their intelligent voting, they should first assemble for orderly deliberation, their secretary were now to be employed continuously for their deliberation, instead of only occasionally for their decisions.

But, in the fact that the secretarial service of the neighborhood organization of the electorate is made continuous, this position is obviously very greatly magnified in importance, and the demand is created for qualities broader, if not higher, than those required in the election clerk, the temporary neighborhood civic secretary, now employed. This amounts practically to the establishment of a new profession. Where shall the person be found to serve the neighborhood organization of the electorate as secretary, not only for the occasional voting of this body, but for the frequent meetings of its members for the presentation and discussion of public questions ?

There will be exceptions, of course ; but the ideal and normal answer to this question is : not in the engagement of a new neighborhood public servant, but in the addition of this requirement to the service rendered by the most important neighborhood servant now engaged. That is, the service of a neighborhood civic secretary should be required of the school principal, and this community servant or official should, of course, be paid proportionately more for assuming the responsibilities of this office in addition to those which he or she now carries.

The reasons for adding the work of secretary to the neighborhood organization of the electorate to the present work of the school principal, instead of engaging another person for this position, are apparent. There is no more important and pressing question in the whole educational problem than that of securing as school principal, for the sake of the children's efficient education, the highest type of man or woman who can be found. And, obviously, the importance of having highly qualified men and women for this position is of interest, not only to those who send their children to the public school, but to the whole community, whose future common welfare is bound up in the training which these children receive.

The question of securing a better type of school principal is in part a question of increasing the salary attached to this profession. Require that the school principal shall be at the service of the neighborhood organization of the electorate, as clerk of elections and as secretary of the organization's deliberative assemblies ; require that the school principal shall do the detail work of securing such speakers on public topics as the organization desires to hear, of looking after the notification to members of what has occurred and what is planned in the business of the organization, and the increased remuneration for this increased service will tend very strongly to assure the engagement in this position of a higher and more efficient type of public servant.

But, practically important as is the matter of increasing the salary and so elevating the standard of this profession, it is the least important way in which the addition of the work of neighborhood civic secretary to that of school principal will tend to improve this most important branch of the public service. The fact is that in many a public school the principalship is now occupied by a person who has capacities for large and efficient service, but who is at present loaded down with a lot of petty detail school work which should be done by an assistant. The requirement upon the time of the school principal in serving as secretary of the neighborhood organization of the electorate necessitates relieving him of much of this detail work, and would so set free, in channels of expression requiring higher capacities, energy which is now spent in doing work which should be done by subordinates.

The inclusion of civic secretarial service as a part of the work of the school principal would tend strongly to draw into this service men who are now attracted to other professions, and who have the qualities needed in this position. For instance, at the head of many a public school there is a young man who intends to occupy this position only until he can read enough law to be admitted to the bar, when he plans to go into that form of service, which offers opportunity for dealing directly with adults instead of only with children. There are several instances of such men who have recently changed their plan and decided to remain in their present positions, because they now see the possibility of rendering as civic secretaries just the sort of service to society which the lawyer is supposed to render in helping to harmonize the discords and set the dislocations in the relations of men together. They see that the position of civic secretary means, among other things, the position of what might be called school district attorney, or neighborhood corporation counsel. Or again, there are young men now in this position who intend to go into journalism. The work of the civic secretary added to that of school principal means the opportunity for the expression of all the capacities that they have for publicity service, not in the round-about working for the public through service to a private owner or corporation, but directly. Or, as is frequently the case, the young man may intend to leave his position as school principal to go into business. When he sees the possibility of serving the citizens of the community in their capacity as stockholders and directors in the most important of all enterprises, the conduct of the commonwealth, which may include the establishment of a neighborhood cooperative creamery or laundry or store (social center organization is developing in this way in several instances) then all the capacities of the potential business manager are called for in this position.

There are now a number of successful lawyers, journalists, and business men who were once principals, and who would never have left the public service if that position had meant civic secretaryship, with all that this office implies. It is obvious that when the school principal is at the same time the secretary of the adult organization of the citizenship, he is necessarily a better school principal. When he is also a specialized brother, reaching out horizontally in direct service to the present citizens, he is a better specialized foster parent engaged in training up the future citizens.

For the present, the requirement of service as a civic secretary as a part of the work of the school principal M^ill tend to result in having men employed in this profession. As we move on, however, from government by a sex, toward democracy, this will not necessarily be the case.