Until genuine local leadership is available, community organization will be impossible. It is true that often where the need for community activity is sufficiently great that the very necessity develops new leadership. Herein lies the value of beginning the process of community organization by some enterprise which enlists the enthusiastic support of the whole community, for in such activities new leadership is often developed.
Any form of community organization which is to be permanent and effective must represent the actual life of the community, which is largely dominated by existing organizations. Most individuals are loyal to certain of these organizations and these loyalties are the social realities which must be recognized in any attempt to unite them in larger aims. Unless most of the leading organizations of a community can be affiliated for community progress, any so-called community organization will be but another organization. The League of Nations hardly represents the world community as long as the United States, Germany and Russia are not affiliated with it, nor would our federal government be representative of our national life if it were responsible only to the direct vote of the people and did not give recognition to the states as states. It is for this reason that community organization will proceed most efficiently where it is initiated by the joint effort of several of its leading associations, the churches, the grange, the farm and home bureau, the Red Cross, the business men's association, etc., for without their support a divided loyalty will persist.
For the same reason, a community organization cannot be under the auspices of any one existing organization as a chamber of commerce or farm bureau. Both of these and others are community organizations, but they are for specific purposes. Proponents of both of these have advocated making them community-wide and all-embracing in their functions, but it needs but little reflection to show the impossibility of such a plan. To cite but one objection. The rural church is the most deeply-rooted and in many ways the most powerful of rural institutions. It can coöperate with these other organizations for community purposes, but neither of them can enter into the religious field. The same is true of lodges, schools, health organizations, government, etc. Community organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce or Commercial Club, the Grange and the Farm Bureau for agriculture and homemaking, the Red Cross for its activities, Church Federations, and others should all be encouraged where needed, but although each of these has certain community functions, no one of them can do or can direct the work of another. The community organization must bring them together so as to best coördinate their work for the good of the community, not through the power of an organic federation, but through the influence of conference, good will and devotion to the common weal.
3. The Community Council.—Community organizations are, as yet, in an experimental stage and their formal constitutions or by-laws are of many different types.[87] The Community Council, as suggested by the National Council of Defense, has been adopted in many communities with various modifications to meet local conditions. A community council consists of one representative from each general organization which affiliates with it and of a variable number of members-at-large elected by the annual community meeting. All citizens are entitled to vote for the members-at-large. The usual officers may be elected by the community meeting, or, preferably, be chosen by the council itself. Thus the council represents both the existing organizations and the community as a whole. The council does not attempt any control over existing organizations, but merely provides a means for their voluntary coöperation and is an agency for promoting community activities. In many cases where there are a large number of organizations, and it is surprising how many are found in many average-sized rural communities, the council will be too large to be an effective working body. Furthermore, the members who represent various organizations may not always be the best persons to carry on the particular enterprises which the council desires to promote. The council may, under such circumstances, devote itself to the consideration of policies and enterprises, and may create committees of citizens who are best qualified and most interested in particular projects to have charge of their execution. Thus if the council decides to get back of a movement for a playground, a public health nurse, and a band, committees would be appointed to take charge of organizing each one of these enterprises. These committees should be selected so as to represent the various organizations most directly concerned with or interested in the particular project as far as possible, but they should be chosen primarily for their ability to produce results. Committees should be appointed only for those projects which the council decides to undertake, although one or two committees may be appointed merely to investigate suggested projects and to report their findings for further consideration. Where the council is large, and it is not practicable to have it meet more than once a quarter, it may be well to have its work carried on in the interims by an executive committee consisting of the officers and the chairmen of the committees.
There can be no one best type of community organization adapted to the widely varying conditions of all sorts and sizes of rural communities; each community must have a form of organization adapted to its needs. The important thing is not the creation of another new organization in the community, but to afford the means for the better team play of those which already exist. The mechanism must therefore depend upon the character and stage of development of the community and will be modified from time to time as its experience, or that of similar community organizations, warrants.
Finally let us remember that community organization is not an end in itself, but that it is merely a means whereby conditions in the community may be made such that every individual in it may have the best possible chance to develop his personality and to enjoy the fellowship of service in the common good. The aim of all social organization is personality, but personality is achieved and can find its own satisfaction only through fellowship. The ideal community but furnishes the social environment in which the human spirit realizes its highest values.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Much of this chapter is a revision of parts of an article by the author entitled "Some Fundamentals of Rural Community Organization." Proceedings Third Natl. Country Life Conference, pp. 66-77.
[85] See Elliott Dunlap Smith, Proceedings first National Country Life Conference, pp. 36-46 and Appendix C.
[86] In this connection, Dr. N. L. Sims in his "The Rural Community" (p. 640. New York. Scribners, 1920), has propounded a most interesting "Law of Rural Socialization":—"Coöperation in rural neighborhoods has its genesis in and development through those forms of association which, beginning on the basis of least cost, gradually rise through planes of increasing cost to the stage of greatest cost in effort demanded, and which give at the same time ever increasing and more enduring benefits and satisfactions to the group."