CHAPTER XII
HOW THE FAIRFIELD BOYS ORGANIZED
I knew several of the boys at Fairfield, and because I was much interested in debating generally, I was delighted when Jack Mason asked me if I would like to go with him to a meeting called to discuss the organization of a debating club. Jack was a fine lad about seventeen years old; he was an enthusiastic ball player and delighted in outdoor sports. His particular chum, Frank Lawrence, was a different lad. He found his chief interest in books and reading, although he was by no means a “dig” or a recluse. However, the two boys made a fine team, and each supplied what the other may have lacked.
Frank was really the leader in the movement to organize the club. He had been reading several volumes of orations and had been impressed by the force and vigor of the great speakers. Like all boys who amount to anything, he wanted to try his hand, and naturally he didn’t want to do it alone. He took the matter up with Jack and, while Jack at first laughed at the idea, Frank finally brought him round to see it was a good thing. The result was that fifteen or twenty of the boys came together to talk things over.
When I arrived I found just a crowd of ordinary boys, no better or no worse than average lads in a community. They all wanted to do something; they were not satisfied with waiting for something to happen; they wanted to make something happen. With that spirit in them, they speedily got down to work and before I realized it they had organized their club.
Some of the boys were Scouts and naturally preferred to have that organization connected in some way with the club. Jack, I think, approved this idea, but Frank pointed out that although many of them were Scouts and all of them had friends who were Scouts, this really was not a scout organization and they might wish to take into the club boys who possibly did not believe in the scout organization, and might thus be prevented from joining. Charlie Taylor suggested that it be called “The Debating Club of the Epworth League.” Charlie was a Methodist and belonged to the Epworth League. George Perkins, however, who was an ardent member of the Christian Endeavor Society, objected, and of course when the proposal was put that way, Charlie at once saw that it was not fair. The boys finally agreed that the only thing they had in common, as far as the organization of the club was concerned, was first, that they were boys, and second, that they wanted to debate. Therefore, they decided to call it by a name which would, by its very simplicity, avoid any misunderstanding and at the same time properly characterize the object of the club. They decided therefore to call the club “The Boys’ Debating Club of Fairfield.”
When they came formally to state the purpose of their organization, after some discussion they agreed upon this preamble: “We, the undersigned, appreciating the advantages to be derived from practice in debate, hereby organize ourselves into a club for that purpose and agree to be governed by the following constitution:”
Frank wished to have more in this preamble and urged that they write it so that it would state that they would be benefited by drill in discussion, in composition, in declamation, in elocution, in parliamentary practice; in fact, in many other ways growing out of their meeting as a club, but Henry Jordan, a quiet, unassuming member, asked if all that really was not included in the word “debate.” They said, “Of course,” and so the short preamble stood.
The first few articles were adopted without much discussion, as they all thought substantially alike on those points.
The question of a short term of office called forth much discussion. My friend Jack is decidedly businesslike and he could see no real reason, he said, for going through the fuss and bother of so many elections. “If a man makes a good president,” he said, “why do we want to put him out of office after he has been working ten weeks and has just got the run of things? Besides, he would scarcely have time to show what he could do in ten weeks.” Frank replied: “Suppose he doesn’t make a good president; even these ten weeks would be a pretty long time, wouldn’t it?” Jack grumbled a good deal and insisted that the boys would put in most of their time electioneering for office. The boys laughed him down on this point, but Henry Jordan convinced them all when he said: “If practice is what we are after in this club, the more the offices are passed around the more practice we will all get.” They decided to fill vacancies by election at any meeting of the club, although some of the boys thought that it would be simpler to have the president appoint some boy to fill out the unexpired portion of the office, if a vacancy should occur.
There was a good deal of discussion of the duties of the various officers. Henry Jordan thought it would be enough if the constitution simply set out the ordinary rules governing similar bodies. Ralph Parsons—the boys called him “Tubby”—suggested, quite ingenuously I thought, that he supposed the various officers would have so much work to do that they would not be expected to take part in the debates. The thought in his mind was clear to all. The boys evidently knew him. “No, indeed,” announced Jack, “the president and all the rest of the officers take part in the debates when their time comes.” “O, well!” sighed “Tubby.”