people have written on it, and a great many have gone astray on it, but the idea that is back of it is well worth working out. Here in this city, as well as in other cities, we have a lot of unimproved property; perhaps almost half, in many instances, is unimproved, and it is growing in value every day. Who is creating that value? Who ought to have the advantage of it? I read a very ingenious book the other day which says that all the cities and villages ought to tax themselves sufficiently to pay back to the farmers in the United States all the money that is represented in their farms, and give it to them gradually, in installments, covering a period of twenty-five years -give it to them in kind, give them a wagon, or a cow, or something, and let them make this money fructify, and it will come back into the city again and it will produce and keep on producing advantages for the city. We could subsidize the farmers to work for us. All the surplus is being gradually bound up in city property. Now let some professor at the University study out that.

And so there are other problems that you know of in your communities; they come up here; your different committees represent these different problems. Instead of having them threshed out by the committees here at haphazard, why not have a committee down. at the university to work them out, and start an extension course and have meetings in every town; every so often have one of those professors come to a town and get the intelligence of the town inoculated, and in a little while we will have the whole State of Minnesota on an ideal basis. It has got to come from you; it has got to come from

the municipal authorities; it has got to come from the cities.

We brag and boast a good deal about our government, but we see very well how much we still lack in efficiency and in organization. In some ways we are over-organized. I believe that our problems and our business will never be well worked out unless they are worked out locally. After all, what difference does it make what kind of national government we have? The national government only touches us here and there; but it is the local government, the municipal government, that we are in touch with every day; and if the municipalities would understand their responsibilities and would discharge their nsibilities, we

would have a form of liberty that would be well worth whiie. What is the use of having liberty un paper if we have not enough to eat and if we are taxed to death and if we have a good many slum problems and all these other things that are staring us in the face every day and we cannot get away from them? That would be my idea, and that is why I am very glad to have a chance to say a word to you. I hope that in some way you will turn your attention to something of this kind, so that you will co-operate with the State University and the State University co-operate agair with you to teach the members of our different communities what are their p ivileges and what are their responsibili ies. I believe that is the shortest cut to vards making this an ideal state. (Applause.)

Look up the ad ertisers in Minnesota Municipal ies. They are well prepared to supply the needs of your municipal ties.

President O'Neill: Ladies and Gentlemen: The first speaker this evening has for his subject Community Development. He spoke before the convention this afternoon, and I am sure that those who heard him will appreciate an opportunity to hear him. further upon a different subject. He has devoted considerable time and thought to solving some of the economic problems and social questions which have bothered us in the past and which promise to bother us more in the future if a satisfactory solution is not arrived at. Men of his type, I feel, are entitled to the thanks and consideration of the community. He is one of those who is doing these things because he loves his fellow men, and that, I believe, is the highest compliment that can be paid to anyone. I take great pleasure in introducing to this audience Judge Frank T. Wilson, of Stillwater, Minnesota. (Applause.)

Judge Wilson spoke as follows:
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentle-

men:

You have something exceptionally good to follow my talk tonight and I am not going to play the hog. I am going to be fair. I want to limit my talk to such time as will give you an opportunity to hear what will follow. Therefore I shall have to touch a few of the high places and talk rather hurriedly, to cover the field that is outlined on the chart before you.

A word of explanation sometimes is helpful to give a better understanding of why a person should speak as I shall

*Address delivered before the Fifth Annual Convention of the League of Minnesota Municipalities, St. Cloud, October 17, 1917.

talk to you tonight. I may say, first, I have had that opportunity that the fool needs-the school of experience. It was never my good fortune to get interested in some of these card games and other means of entertainment that so many people enjoy, and I have had a little recreation in the last thirty-five years in the town in which I live in helping to put over some experiments that have been very gratifying because they were successful. And then, again, there have been many failures, and out of our failures we often learn lessons better than we learn from successes.

I rather capped the climax by falling heir to the position that perhaps gives a little extra halo around my head, that you would not understand without explanation on my part. I am the unfortunate "goat," the last president of the State Federation of Commercial. Clubs, a defunct institution, a matter of no particular satisfaction to me, but it led to our going up to the state University, about two years ago, with this proposition: that the people who live in the cities of Minnesota pay taxes for the support of the University just as well as do the farmers. That the farmers have had exceptional attention on the part of the University is evidenced. by the fact that today there are twelve hundred farm clubs in the State of Minnesota, and many of them wonderfully successful, and their successful existance today is due to the fact that the Agricultural Extension Service of the University has been behind them. We said to the University people, "You should get behind the commercial clubs. of the state, of which there are three

hundred twelve; and out of the three hundred twelve, if we test them by the same success as the farmer clubs, there are not a dozen live clubs in the state. Most of the commercial clubs of the state are purely institutions for the selfish entertainment of the members. They have club rooms, they have they have places where their mem bers may gather to play games and amuse themselves, but to the study . of these problems which are essential to the successful development of every community very few clubs. are giving attention. Possibly the biggest club in the United States is the one in Minneapolis. Only last fall the secretary of that club said to me that they had a surprising revelation when they sent out a questionnaire asking the men who belonged to the club and the women-some three thousand of them, "What activities do you commend as those activities which should occupy our effort?" He never dreamed but that which seems to have been characteristic of commercial clubs would result in that answer, that emphasizes the factory side, that emphasizes the material, but somewhat to his surprise, and mine, fifty eight per cent of the emphasis was placed upon the uplift, these activities that go for human welfare. I say that is the finest thing that is present today.

Cooperation Is Coming

And now, to preface what I am going to talk to you about, Community Development, let me call your attention to the fact that we are now right in the transition of order that is passing away forever. The individualistic stage is going, and in its place is coming a recognition of our mutual relationship, is coming co-operative organi

zation. Some of our fellow citizens are blindly groping for the same goal under the name of non-partisanship, under the name of socialism, but after all I think what I shall show you tonight is the goal that we are reaching, and that is to bring a little bit of the kingdom of heaven down here on earth in this life, and not put it off until we get over on the other side, we know not where.

Defining a Community Club

Now first let us get a distinct understanding of what we mean by the community. Every commercial club with which I am acquainted is absolutely wrong so far as its practice is concerned. The expression "commercial club" in itself is wrong. It is a suggestion of a group, it is a suggestion of the organization of the trade interest of the community; and on the other hand, as my good freind Dean Wood said to me a few months ago, "I am not so sure but that we blundered when we called these country organizations farm clubs," and I said "Amen." They did, for that is a suggestion of the organization of one group against another group. Now we don't want that. We want to get the people who live together, who are in the same community, to recognize that the community. of which they are a part is the only institution that should have their undivided allegiance and loyalty.

My work for six months was to give part of my time to the Extension Service of the University, in discussing before gatherings of farmers and people in the smaller towns this matter of community organization. And out in these smaller towns and all the cities of Minnesota under five thousand in population the farming element is the

great big interest of the community. Without the farmers, as I frequently say, the store and the bank in the city or the village would have no value. whatever, and of all the delusions the delusion of the man whose name is on the sign over the door of the store or the bank that he owns that business is one of the big delusions of our day. Without his customers, without these farmers who for fifteen miles out in the country come into the town to trade, the store would have no value whatever. Now as a matter of common sense, wouldn't any man, if he stopped to realize his relationship with others, come to the conclusion that he must be on good terms with his partners, if he is going to conduct a successful business? Once let his partners get disgruntled, let them be filled with enmity against the man in the town, and what is the outcome? The mail-order house thrives, the chain store thrives, and the small town dwindles away, as they have been doing in the past few years in so many localities in the United States.

Now, realizing that the community is not bounded by any platted portion of that particular part of the United States that bears the name, but includes every living being for any distance out in the country who comes into that trade center to trade, to bank, to go to school or to go to church or partake in any way of the community activities, that is the community of which I wish to talk tonight.

Over here on the corner was the best demonstration of the truth of what I am going to bring to you, when a friend said that he had no use for these longhaired reformers-they are a nuisance. They are. They are not tolerated in

any community. And old Ben Franklin, when on earth, made one of the profoundest statements when he said that if any man had a desire to do things for the public uplift of the community he must get under the cover of some organization. A common maxim is, "vox populi vox dei"-the voice of the people is the voice of God, and that is absolutely true. And yet what opportunity. do we furnish for that voice to express itself? I contend that only when communities are organized to their largest and fullest extent do we have the opportunity, and when once the community has expressed its sentiment on any project the longhaired reformer is forgotten. It is the voice of the community, and then comes action that amounts to something. So I say as a fundamental proposition, if you want to do things for human welfare, for the uplift of the community, you must organize. And whom you are going to take into this organization? Men. That is what you do when you organize a commercial club. But I want to tell you right here tonight that the farmers are far away in the lead of the people in the town. Into their clubs they take the family, they take the women and the children, and I was immensely impressed with the statement made by our friend the secretary of the Civic and Commerce Association in Minneapolis, that down there they take the women into their institution. And why not? If we are organizing the community, can you tell me any person in the community that has a larger right to have a voice than the women who are the mothers of those who make the community of to-morrow, the mothers who have more at stake in what is go

ing on in the community than any man has? And my contention is that every community organization should take in the women as well as the men. (Applause.)

And that is not all. When it comes to the financial suport of these community organizations, is there a church, is there a lodge, is there a store, is there any institution in the town but what is vitally concerned in the welfare and development of the community? Down in the city of St. Paul, one of those great department stores pays a thousand dollars a year into the community treasury, because the managers of that store say "We recognize our responsibility, we recognize that the development of St. Paul is our development; if it prospers we prosper; therefore we are ready and willing to contribute according to our might." So I say every community organization should not only have men and women, but it should have firms or institutions; and when it comes to the financial part of it, it is possible in some of the communities of Minnesota that are already organizing along this line to have a certain individual fee, a certain family fee, a certain institutional fee in the way of financial contribution.

But coming back to the proposition I gave you, that this community organization is to give us the opportunity to get the expression of the people of the community, the larger the organization the more forceful is that expression when it comes. So we want to get into the community organization just as many members as we possibly And how do we get these members? The most significant statement that I have heard for many a day was

can.

made over at the convention of the Jobbers Credit Bureau. They gave to the retiring president a gold watch; they felicitated him upon his wonderful success in getting members, and this is what he said in answer: "Why, gentlemen, there is nothing to it. Solicitation and shoe leather, that is all." Now that is all, a simple thing— solicitation and shoe leather.

Last January, over in the city of Stillwater, we picked out three hundred and fifty names. We put into the papers statements with regard to what the civic club or citizens' association, or boosters' club as some call it, had been doing for the city. Then we sent out circular letters, three of them in succession, to these three hundred fifty prospective members and told them what we wanted, what we were trying to do, and wanted them to get into the game. Then we appointed ten committees, and we got together at a noon luncheon and divided up these three hundred and fifty prospects among the ten captains of these ten committees, and each of those committees said, "We will take hold, we want to get about thirty-five or forty names apiece", and then we said, "We will all go out the same day, and we will put in a couple of days at this business; we will do nothing else". In fortyeight hours our membership jumped from one hundred seventeen to three

hundred twenty five. Now, that is all there is to it-solicitation and shoeleather.

Down in the city of Faribault, one of the first communities toward which I had the privilege of acting, as I sometimes put it, as "spiritual advisor" in this matter, they started in with nothing. We started in with a min