How should they provide the necessary funds? Since Sam Levi’s father was a banker, he was regarded by all the boys as an authority on finance. He talked quite at length on bonds, debentures, income taxes, and just dues, and when it was all over the boys seemed to be quite clear that if they ever decided to build a club house they might want to sell bonds, but until that time they would simply levy dues on all members equally. They really did not need much money. The School Board had told them they could use the school assembly room for their meetings. Their incidental expense would not amount to much, and they thought ten cents per member, besides an initiation fee of twenty-five cents, would take care of it.
One point did cause some discussion. Suppose a boy didn’t pay his dues; what then? Jack as usual was for drastic action. He wanted such a boy “fired” right off. Sam suggested that a penalty of ten per cent. per month on the past due fees would keep the boys up to the mark. “If they have to pay eleven cents instead of ten if they are behind a month,” said he, “or twelve cents if they are back two months, they will look out.” It struck the boys as good finance until Jimmy Francis suggested rather timidly: “If a fellow is hard up and couldn’t get his money together just right it would rather hurt to pay the extra cent or two.”
The boys quickly saw the other side. Jimmy was the son of a widow. Everyone respected him, for, although he didn’t pity himself the least bit, he was always looking out for odd jobs to help out. All the lads knew he would have to find one more job to take care of his dues. His mother had to count every penny as it was.
They finally decided not to impose any penalty for non-payment of dues. As Frank pointed out, they felt that “if any fellow is mean enough to quit on his dues because there is no penalty tacked on, that’s conduct unbecoming a member of the club and we can ‘fire’ him.”
After they had taken care of a few miscellaneous provisions, they found they had a good working organization. I agreed with them, and in the appendix, beginning on page 156, you will find their constitution in full. In the next chapter I am going to tell you about the rules of order they adopted. They appointed a committee to draft them and I helped with the work. We talked the rules over a good deal both in this committee and afterward in the first two or three meetings. They were good enough to make me Critic several times and most of the help I gave them was in parliamentary practice. I have given you the rules, together with the running discussion we had on them. Possibly the reasons given for the rules will help you, as they seemed to help them.
CHAPTER XIII
THEIR PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE
Knowledge of parliamentary law is, at some time or other, useful to almost every member of an American community, yet few ever get more than a confused and mistaken idea of its principles.
Absolute equality of rights and privileges among the members of an assembly, the right to a full and free debate of every proposition offered, the rule of the majority, and the limitation of consideration to one thing at a time, are the cardinal principles upon which the rules of order rest. To enforce them, a chairman or moderator must be chosen. He always speaks of himself as “the chair.”
All the proceedings of an organized assembly, whatever its purpose or composition, are founded upon the motion, which is really the form in which action is proposed. Besides the main or principal motion, which is the proposition in its original and simple form, there are subsidiary, incidental, and privileged motions. They will be explained later.