The 1913 book

3

THE

EMBLEM CLUB

THE

EMBLEM CLUB

BEING A MEMORY OF THE ADDRESS

OF THE TABOO AT THE FIRST

ANNUAL DINNER OF THE CLUB

JANUARY 4, 1913

PRINTED PRIVATELY AND ISSUED

ALPHABETICALLY TO MEMBERS

ONLY, THIS COPY BEING

No. 2

AND THE PROPERTY OF

MR. W.D. CHENEY

THE EMBLEM CLUB

Gentlemen of the Emblem Club:

Of the resources surrounding us it is not necessary for me to speak. Others have done so; and we all know that those resources are sufficient to build a city here. But our table is spread in a beautiful valley, beside a swift river, where the clear air, laden with the resinous odour of pine, fills us with vitality, permits us always to see, even by moonlight, the blue and snow-clad mountains, warms the valley by day with floods of sunshine, and lights it by night with myriads of stars.

It is the purpose of the Emblem Club to make ourselves and our inevitable city worthy of that setting.

If enough men, regardless of ability or character, were to wear the Emblem in their coat-lapels, and reply to questions regarding it, “I have agreed to wear it until Bend has a population of one hundred thousand,” such a display of faith and determination would build a city of one hundred thousand. That alone, even though the Club held no meetings and had no quarters, would be sufficient reason for the existence of the Emblem Club.

4

But the Club means more than this. The men seated at this table have no idea how carefully they have been selected to fill the chairs they occupy. You doubtless think that some have been chosen because they represent this or that influence. Not one has been selected for any such reason. Each and every one of you is here by virtue of your character as a man; and this Club is already a body of men that, for average character, is not excelled, probably not equalled, by any Club in the world. The poorest-paid stenographer in this city, if he has the character, and force of character, of any man at this table, is wanted in the Emblem Club; and though a man have the wealth of Croesus, if he has not a fine and forceful character, he is not wanted here, and can never gain admittance to this Club.

There are now twenty-one members; and there will never be but nineteen more. The Club is permanently limited to forty; and we should move with caution in the suggestion of candidates. Time is plentiful and men are scarce. It will be a rare exception for any candidate to be even considered who is not a young man; and when the forty is complete, as we first members grow old and die, only men under thirty years of age must take our places. Only so can the Club remain forever an active and forceful organization. Before his name is even presented, each candidate must run the gauntlet of twenty or more shrewd pairs of eyes, to which his soul is glass and his daily life an open book. And then he must pass muster in that deadly test, a “first impression” on the cold eye and severe judgment of a stranger who is very jealous of this Club.

Therefore, already, you are members of what is probably the most exclusive Club in the United States; and as a mere social Club, without other quarters than hotels and the houses and offices of members, that would be enough to warrant the Club’s formation.

5

But in two or three years, in proportion to the growth of Bend and our consequent financial success, this Club will have quarters. Not in size, but in quality, in beauty, in dignity, and in comfort, they will be equal to those of any Club; and when that time arrives, we will have all that is possessed by any of the social Clubs, with the added value of the Emblem and the Club’s exclusiveness.

With such quarters and such exclusiveness, distinguished visitors can be fittingly entertained, and will go away with an indelible impression of dignity and hospitality that will be of immeasurable benefit to Bend. Sir Thomas Lipton said, when leaving Seattle recently, “I am so pleased with the graceful act of the Seattle Press Club in making me an honorary life member that I will have the letter conveying the courtesy suitably framed and hung in a place of honor in the new Shamrock to be built for the next America Cup Race. There the letter shall stay as a permanent reminder of the happiest night ever spent in my life.” Think of it! The happiest night ever spent in the life of the most wined and dined man in the world! And the Seattle Press Club has no opportunity at all compared with the opportunity of the Emblem Club.

But this Club means more than the Emblem, more than quarters, more than entertainment. It means that a man’s character must be above the ordinary before he can become a member; and after he has become a member, it means that he will become a finer character than he was before. The Emblem Club is to stand for morals. Not for cant or hypocrisy, but for honest, human manhood. It is not to stand for asceticism. As Robert Louis Stevenson has said, “The Ascetic and the creeping hog, although they are at different poles, have equally failed in life.” The Emblem Club is not going to fail. No ascetic will be comfortable within it; and no creeping hog will desecrate it. It will take at the start and hold to the end that middle course which alone is right.

There was question on the part of some whether champagne should be served at this dinner. There was no question about it in the mind of him who gave the dinner. Provision was made of two glasses of champagne for each man. Anybody will get drink at the Emblem Club; nobody will get drunk. It is the wine that will be drunk. Wine will be served at dinners of the Emblem Club. Many would consider a dinner less than perfect if wine were omitted; and no guest shall ever think an Emblem Club dinner imperfect. He who enjoys wine will enjoy it; and he who wishes to invert his glass may do so. Or he may leave it filled; and if Mr. Putnam is sitting beside him, the wine will not be wasted.

The creed of this Club shall be what Stevenson considered the sum of human virtue: To be brave, to be honest, to be kind, and to be cheerful. He who lives up to that creed will be every inch a man; and his life will be a success.

6–9

Besides the Emblem worn by members, they are now provided with Emblems to be places inconspicuously on the glass in the doors of their stores, offices, and residences, and on the windshields of automobiles. The time will come when any one honestly needing counsel or assistance will knock at the door of the Emblem, or hail the auto bearing it, and will find what he needs; any unprotected woman, worthy or unworthy, will appeal to a man who wears the Emblem, and will find a gentleman, a friend, and protection; any stranger seeking to buy goods or service will go along the street, passing many a door, until he finds one with an Emblem on the glass, and there he will find courtesy and honesty.

And these people will find more than this. They will find, if need be, that this one man to whom they appeal has but to raise his hand to rally to his support forty of the finest minds and strongest personalities in the city. Think, gentlemen, what this means!

Alexandre Dumas, in “The Three Musketeers,” which should be “The Four Musketeers,” has shown how four men united by perfect loyalty, can sat and unseat kings and all but change the map of Europe. It is imaginative literature, if you will; but it is true. Our Mayor has told us tonight of certain secret difficulties in his administration; and it was a pleasure to hear him do it. The time will soon come when any member of this Club will have such perfect faith in the loyalty of every other member that he will say anything in the Club with the absolute certainty that no word that he speaks will ever be heard by any one outside. “These walls are thick” will soon become a proverb of the Emblem Club.

The time will come, and come quickly, when the most insidious Iago will be unable to induce any member of this Club to speak critically of another member, even though he knows him to be wrong; for we all do wrong; and the friendship that is loyal so long as its object does right, is no friendship at all. It is like investing in a stock that pays one hundred per cent., and calling it charity. We already have a creed and a proverb; let us have a motto, Fide et Fiducia, “By fidelity and confidence”; fidelity to each other and confidence in Bend.

So carefully have members been selected that we begin with a group of men who think and believe alike on all subjects upon which the Club is likely to act; and when the feeling of loyalty of which every man here is worthy, is once firmly established and proved by trials, I tell you that he who represented the Club, and knew that each man present in this room was thinking of the same subject in the same way and with equal intensity – in other words, forty minds sincerely and vigorously working as a unit – that man could command the fire in that fireplace to come forth, and he could draw it forth, by the combined strength of forty believing minds. I do not mean that I believe in the unnatural; but I do mean that such a power applied to shovels will move mountains. That is what Christ means by faith, - faith in each other, faith in the future founded on the present, and faith in the power of unity. When this Club becomes, as it will become, a group of forty men working as an absolute unit, I tell you that we could not only make a Governor of Oregon; we could seat a President of the United States.

I do not mean that we will ever attempt to do any such thing; but in those things which we do attempt, the result will be certain. Nothing, positively nothing, can withstand the force of forty minds united by perfect faith in each other and animated by the same desire.

I know cities where the leading men in all lines, who started as we are starting and whose fortunes grew as ours will grow with the growth of a city, have led dissolute lives, and have missed no opportunity to vilify one another, or to stab one another in the back, and whose avarice has never hesitated to rob a stranger by methods that would make a footpad blush. If those men had grown to be wealthy from such a beginning as this dinner represents, they would today be worth ten times as many millions as they now possess, and their city would now be four times as large as it is. The robbing of strangers never made a city; cities have grown in spite of it, that is all.

Avarice and chicanery in mercantile transactions have done great injury to many a city; but the big, glaring frauds that have dealt the most severe blows to a city’s reputation have been connected with the sale of real estate. It is a cause for gratitude that no strangers are thus defrauded in Bend. No matter from whom they buy real estate, they make a profitable investment; and property is priced as fairly as possible from outskirts to center. But, both now and more particularly later, when prices advance and real activity begins, we must go farther than this. Then and now, if the Emblem Club does the work for which it is intended, the stranger will leave here with an honest investment and an impression of integrity, confidence and co-operation, the fame of which will travel all over the world.

10–11

There was a recent case of several men being sent here from Nome. Alaska is filled with monied men who spend the winter searching for longtime investments for the gold which they dig in summer. They do not want quick profits, but safe investments in property that will increase in value at more rapid rates than the interest paid by banks or the dividends paid by corporations.

These Alaskans came to Bend and found everything better than they had been told. They were switched off, however, from the property and ideas which brought them here, and were taught to believe that, by spending a few days in search of them, they could find isolated bargains. They bought, as any man with eyes in his head would buy; but I understand that they bought of several different owners, rather than wholly of one firm. That is all right; and it may be that those men, if they make a profit of ten thousand dollars on their purchases, as they certainly will if patient, will make three or four hundred dollars more than they would have made if they had not been transformed from broad investors into bargain-hunters. They left highly pleased with Bend, and came back to thank the men that brought them here, who assured them in no uncertain terms that their purchases were good investments, and who showed their own faith in. Bend by not reducing their price to meet a temporary competition. Everything was done honorably, by those who bought, by those who sold, and by those who did not sell. But each of these Alaskans represents fifty more men in Alaska. He will tell them that Bend is all right, but will advise them to invest with discrimination. Many of them cannot leave Alaska, and will not buy.

If these men had come to Bend, had found the property as represented to them several hundred miles distant, as they did find it, had bought, and had gone away to carry the good news to others, Bend’s mail order business with Alaska would have been something to talk about; and every real estate operator in Bend would have been benefited by the visit of these men ten times as much as he will be now.

I am sure you know that I do not speak of this because I happen to head the corporation which sent the men to Bend. I can pay for my property if I never sell a lot; and the longer I hold, the more money I shall make. But I speak of it to illustrate what my object is in doing something which I shall begin at once.

Hereafter, when one of my offices sends a man to Bend with a letter to my manager, he will often bear a letter of introduction to every competitor of mine who is a member of this Club. I do not mean this to tie your hands and prevent you from selling to my prospective buyer. If you ever think it wise to sell to him, do so. I shall never lose faith in your loyalty to me; and the quicker you sell, the sooner I shall have the only lots left unsold.

What I do mean to do by this method is to make visiting investors go away from this town singing its praises and spreading the impression broadcast that here is one town where men are broad enough to help each other and square enough to make that possible. This may sound Utopian, foolishly unselfish; but it is the most selfish thing I could do; and if Mr. Coble ever meets with the competition that he says he at one time feared, if he and every one of us follow this policy with perfect and justified faith in each other, we will all do ten times the business we would do by any narrower method.

12

The men in this Club have been carefully selected; and every one of them can be trusted. What may be the opinions or methods of others does not matter; but we members of the Emblem Club must begin now and continue forever to talk frankly among ourselves and each to praise the other behind his back.

Think, gentlemen, what will be the result of this! Think what an impression will be made upon the first man who comes from me with a letter to my competitor. He will not believe it at first; he will suspect a combination; and when he finds that we are sincere competitors and loyal friends, even though he learns this by purchasing from my competitor, every member of this Club and both my competitor and I will make a hundred-fold greater indirect profit from that sale than the direct profit made by my competitor, by my friend, whom I am glad to see make that profit, a member of this Club, whose bond of union with me no sordid thing can shake.

13

Money? We will make any times more this way than any other; but what is money anyway? Merely a measure of sordid value to facilitate exchange. I expect to make here enough money to give me an income far beyond the needs of my not immodest way of living. How I use that surplus, not the surplus itself, will be the measure of my success. I have learned this by experience and know whereof I speak. I have known manual labor, mental labor, great activity in the financial and commercial world, and periods of idleness; and, gentlemen, I know that success is neither wealth, nor ease, nor fame. It is only to be found in a vocation and the creed of this Club. I have found in Bend my life-work; and my work is my pleasure. Every man must be selfish to the extent of making a living; and he should not live narrowly. Also, he who does too much will soon have no means with which to do anything at all; and I shall not spend my principal; but if I ever have a permanent income of one hundred thousand dollars, I shall sometimes spend eighty thousand of it, not in my name, but in the name of the Emblem Club, and not for profit, but for the purposes of this Club.

This is already being done in proportions to present means; and much of the Emblem Club work has been in the form of printing. Few of you realize the far-reaching influence of the Bend Bulletin. It is only an outsider who can see its effect; and to spread the influence of the Emblem, enough small cuts of it are here on this table and will be placed in the editor’s hands tonight to enable each member of the Club to use one in any advertisement he may print in the paper, on checks, or stationery, or other kinds of advertising; and they are small enough to be used even in a professional newspaper card. It is hoped that every member who carries newspaper advertising will use this cut. I hope that the next issue of the Bulletin, the editor and owner of which is a member of this Club, will not only have the Emblem at the top of the Editorial Column, but that the whole paper will look as if it had the emblematic measles.

14

The effect of this cannot be measured; but it is very widespread and very valuable. Also, a favorable editorial on Bend in a paper in another State is almost without precedent in the history of cities. We are constantly getting such notice; and one such editorial is worth a year of paid advertising. One such editorial in one Seattle paper, and two weeks later, another article on the editorial page of another Seattle paper, were the direct result of one recent edition of the Bulletin. These and the Bulletin itself caused so much talk in Seattle that we are asked in barber shops where a copy of the paper can be obtained.

If this is so, what will be the effect in January, when a neat book appears in the book stores called “Seattle Contrasts”? It will contain some fifty or sixty pictures, two on each page, both pictures on each page being of the same Seattle view, with no printing excepts the number of years intervening between the taking of the two pictures. None of these books will be given away. They will be sold, perhaps at a profit. The title-page will read:

SEATTLE CONTRASTS

Dedicated to the Seattle Ad Club

Published by

The Emblem Club

Bend, Oregon

That is all; no other printing of any kind. That is the kind of dignified and unselfish advertising that pays, and is therefore most selfish.

15–16

Did you know that the Emblem Club recently published a little booklet in Bend? It is called “What Others Say About It.” On the back cover is printed “This little booklet is issued by the Emblem Club. Anybody may use it without other alteration than the insertion of name and address in the square below.” Then follows a blank square; and that in turn is followed by “Bulletin Press, Bend.” The book contains no quotations from prejudiced sources, but the opinions regarding Bend of men of national and even international reputation. That is the kind of direct printed advertising that pays. We have now issued and distributed some forty thousand copies of this booklet. This last edition alone is ten thousand. Bend, a town of two thousand, through one avenue alone, has distributed in one year fully half as many pieces of literature as the Portland Chamber of Commerce; and this literature has been fully equal in every way to that for which the Seattle Chamber of Commerce has voted to raise and spend one hundred thousand dollars. And this little booklet has been found by actual results to be the most effective of anything we have issued. It is hoped that all Emblem Club members who use such advertising will use this little book, and also the Commercial Club, to which the Emblem Club will be pleased to furnish copies, if the Commercial Club has no fund for such a purpose.

Hereafter, as far as possible, all printed advertising issued by the corporation od which I am President will be of the nature of “Seattle Contrasts” and “What Others Say About It”; and they are confined to no one firm; any one can use them to advertise his own business. These two are typical pieces of Emblem Club printed advertising.

But, excepting the idea of character and loyalty, all the many things which have been mentioned are not the most effective work of this Club. At three o’clock Sunday morning these talks and these songs and yells are being given at Bend. Tomorrow, at noon, four hundred miles away, in a restaurant at Seattle, the same songs, the same yells, and excerpts from your speeches will be occupying the minds and throats of forty jolly and enthusiastic people in a private dining-room, and also occupying the cars of the innocent occupants of the main and adjoining room.

This is typical Ad Club work, which is now being done by many Clubs and quasi-municipal organizations. Nearly all of these, like the “Royal Rosarians” of Portland, wear white costumes. From a column and a fraction in this morning’s “Portland Oregonian,” you can gain some notion of the effectiveness of this kind of work. The “Rosarians,” now returning from California, were entertained royally in every possible way. They added several cities to the Pacific Coast Festival Association, and were pledged delegations from nearly every city to the Portland Rose Festival next June.

About all of these festivals in the different cities there is a monotonous similarity that I fear will cause the public to tire of them as soon as they become too common. Except when the costumes are grotesque, like those of the “Tillikums” of Seattle, or the “Indians” of Spokane, they are the same; and the same floats, the same decorated automobiles, the same confetti and confusion, make up the sum of each municipal fete.

I have recently made it a point to visit Ad Clubs and like organizations; and I am surprised to be able to say, but I think I am justified in saying, that our songs, our yells, and our entertainments are already better than those of any Ad Club in the Northwest.

17

The costume of the Emblem Club will give the Club a dignity and distinction that will attract attention in any place and at any time, and will be proper in any drawing-room. Its cost will prevent its being copied. We will appear in the “Pathe Weekly”; and on moving-picture screens we shall march around the globe.

Bend’s “Festival of Pines,” when, in two or three years, we are ready to begin it, will be a dignified, beautiful, and original Festival that will become an annual attraction, not only to nearby cities, but to tourists from all over the world.

When I boarded the observation car of a transcontinental train at Portland this morning, the negro porter asked me where I was bound.

“To the metropolis of Central Oregon.”

“Oh, Bend! Change cars at Fallbridge.”

How would the porter of a limited train have answered that question one year ago? That, gentlemen, is what builds cities. Spread the impression abroad that Bend is the honest and hospitable metropolis of Central Oregon, and Bend will be that metropolis. For that belief will draw men to her. Industries and local improvements are of great value to a city; and the value of great pioneer industries, like those represented by some of the men who are here tonight, cannot be exaggerated. But this is because they help to make the city’s reputation. The vast majority of men and industries which constitute a city come after and because of that reputation, not before it; and they often do nothing to increase it. We are here before it; and it is the purpose of the Emblem Club to make and maintain that reputation.

But what is the Emblem Club? This certificate of Membership, which is to be given tonight to six of the men at this table, will partly answer that question.

18–19

“I agree to wear this emblem constantly, every day and upon every occasion, until Bend has a population of one hundred thousand.

I agree so to conduct my affairs that they shall never conflict with the best interests of Bend as a whole; and I promise to work together with the wearers of this emblem to build and sustain the reputation of Bend, its honor, dignity, cheerfulness, optimism, gaiety, activity, hospitality, and solid prosperity, and in so doing to traduce no other town or community.

You have signed the foregoing, and may or may not have known that you were signing.

THE OATH OF THE EMBLEM CLUB.

To live the letter of this oath and, as near as may be, live its spirit, will make us nobler and happier men, will bring true success to each and every one of us, will even bring greater financial success than any narrower policy, and will make the Club a force incomprehensible. Instead of bitterness and strife, imagine the result to any city now mature if, from the beginning, a group of its most active and virile men, a group not large enough to be unwieldy, had been bound together to work as a unit to “build that dome in air, that sunny dome.”

To this end, even though it may seem to you to be of benefit to the individual, to Bend, to the State, or to the Nation, it is hoped that through you this emblem will never become associated with any religious, social, or political enterprise, or with any public utility.

Earnestly it is hoped that you will come to recognize in every wearer of this emblem a friend and associate whose aims are identical with your own; that to him you will give your moral assistance in his every endeavor, and when that shall not be possible, your friendly neutrality or generous rivalry. Partisan, neutral, or rival, may you never utter, by voice, writing or sign, a criticism of any wearer of this emblem.

Should your feelings toward any member be or become incompatible with the tenets of the Club, may chivalry first surrender the emblem, and only then feel free to express an opinion derogatory to any member.

Your own delicacy will never allow you to debase the emblem you wear by any demand upon a member that may in any degree increase the difficulty of his adherence to the spirit of the Club. If, in your business relations with any member, he refuses any request of yours, try, so far as you are able, to look upon the matter with his eyes, and in any case to harbor no resentment.

May we earnestly endeavor to make this the coveted emblem of the only Club in the world without initiation fee, without dues or assessments, without other officer than the owner of the emblem-copyright, without political, social, religious, or factional taint, wherein the spoken word is unrepeated, wherein the unity of purpose is so true and loyal as to remain unshaken by any differences of belief, effort, or fortune, and so unselfish that it scorns any fraternal benefit that comes not unsolicited, a Club whose only object is mutual help and the building of an ideal city, a Club whose only bond of union is good-will and love of Bend, a Club whose foundation is the integrity and chivalry of its members.

20

You have taken the oath, and are bound only by the letter of it. What else is above written is the spirit of The Emblem Club as it lives in the hopes of its founder.”

That is the Certificate of Membership.

What is a church? That is no harder to answer than “What is the Emblem Club”? The purposes of an ordinary Club are hard to define; but they are too well known to require definition. The purposes of an Ad Club are known. The purposes of an Improvement Club, a Commercial Club, and a Chamber of Commerce are understood. A definite idea is conveyed even by the hitherto unused term, “The Diplomatic Corps of a City.” It is not hard to understand what is meant by the Masonic order with the insurance feature omitted. It is understood that an Order of Nobility with its attendant decoration is conferred by one man upon another for merit which the former discovers in the latter. The Emblem Club is an effort to combine the usefulness of all of these in one compact organization.

Bend will have many of these. Bend will have many clubs, all good, for Bend has and will have the men to make them good. But every church repels or precludes some good men by its creed; its existence depends upon the financial support of its members; and it is so governed that differences and often dissension arise among its members; it is not exclusive, and is consequently a conglomerate group of incompatible men and women.

21

An ordinary club has its initiation fee, its dues, its assessments. These exclude many good men, usually the young men whose youthful sincerity and enthusiasm are most desirable. It has its election of officers to engender strife if not ill-feeling. It is almost invariably so constituted that financial, political, social, religious, or other external influence, can cause the acceptance or rejection of a member. It has its corps of employees to be complained about, and its official management to be criticized. Shall the Club do this? Shall the Club do that? Immediately there are differences of opinion. One committee infringes upon the province of another. Forty-nine per cent. of the members supply money reluctantly for a project proposed by two or three active members and supported by fifty-one per cent. of the membership. These two or three active members do practically all that the Club accomplishes, except to provide a building with more or less comforts, the expense of constructing and maintaining which is borne equally by all the members, many of whom, often the majority, are not at all satisfied with the things for which they pay.

One or another of these causes of discord or ineffectiveness which we find in churches and clubs in general is inherent in every special Club, in every Ad Club, every Improvement Club, every Commercial Club, every Chamber of Commerce, every Diplomatic Corps, every Fraternal Order, and even in most Orders of Nobility, - in fact, in nearly every organization yet devised by man.

The Emblem Club is an audacious, egotistic, Quixotic attempt to form a Club from which every one of these imperfections is eliminated.

22

First, membership is permanently limited to forty. More would result in breaking one of the main tenets of the Club, its freedom from monetary considerations, or it would often, through limited finances, fetter the Club’s activity and thereby restrict its usefulness.

Its founder is its only officer. He own so much property in Bend that his entire financial success is dependent upon the growth and prosperity of Bend. Therefore, in every detail of that growth, the most selfish thing he can do is to be unselfish, the narrowest policy he can wisely follow is to be broad.

He does not live in Bend. He lives too far away to be approached with every petty, local discord, too far away to foster – although perhaps not to prevent – that familiarity which breeds contempt, and yet near enough to be able to reach Bend at any time in twenty-four hours.

Any member of the Club may call a meeting thereof at any time, at which meeting any subject may be discussed, excepting only that no discussion, canvass, or solicitation shall ever be permitted involving the payment or refusal of any money by any member to or toward any cause or purpose whatever. Whether two members are called or all members are called, whether two members are present or all members are present at such meeting, and whether the meeting is a chance one or prearranged, positively no mention of money for Club purposes shall ever be made by any member. If it were not for the Emblem, the device of this Club might be

$

TABOO

23–25

After discussion with each member resident and at that time present in Bend, should any member feel that there is a reasonably unanimous desire that action of any kind be taken in the name of the Club, then he shall demand a vote from each member resident and at that time present in Bend; and the instant that he makes such a formal demand, all discussion of the plan must cease.

This is designed to prevent discussion beyond the bounds of perfect good feeling; and it fives each member a power, which it is hoped he will exercise, to foster unity and kill discord.

This member who thus becomes sole sponsor of a plan, in demanding a vote from each member, may continue to advance every argument in favor of action; but no member to whom such demand is made shall ever do more than ask such questions as may be necessary to a complete understanding. The preposition must never be discussed after it becomes a demand for vote; and thereafter no expression of opinion regarding the proposal shall ever be made by any other than the sole sponsor of the plan.

Then this sole sponsor shall state the plan in writing to the officer of the Club, stating how many resident members are present in Bend, and giving the plan an arbitrary title of one word.

Whenever a vote is demanded of a member, on that same day, he shall mail to the officer a card, the card bearing the title of the plan and the one word “No,” “Yes,” or “Doubtful.” Neither card nor envelope shall bear any more than this or any means of identifying the sender. One of these cards and a stamped envelope addressed to the officer shall be presented by the sponsor to each member from whom he demands a vote. With such cards and stamped envelopes the sponsor will be supplied at the Bend headquarters of the officer until the Club has rooms, when a supply of such cards and envelopes will always be kept on file at the Club.

In this same manner all candidates for membership shall be proposed, except that no discussion shall be permissible. The sponsor for a candidate must never allow the candidate to know that his name is being considered; and the sponsor must present the name of his candidate, written on the card above mentioned, to every member resident and at that time present in Bend; and no expression of opinion shall be made by any member other than the sponsor. The sponsor shall send a letter to the officer regarding his candidate; and each member of whom vote is demanded shall send in his card. Then, if rejected, the candidate will never know it. If accepted, neither he nor any member will know it until the Emblem is placed on his coat. If it never appears there, the candidacy is a closed and forgotten incident.

Thus, in case a plan is dropped or a candidate rejected, the sponsor will never know why the plan was dropped or the candidate rejected; and he will never know who, if anybody, disapproved. A candidate might be rejected by the officer alone; or an action might be dropped even though all approved, for the same reason that a boy with neither a penny nor credit does not buy candy.

The cards must be unanimous to admit a candidate. If the cards seem sufficiently unanimous in favor of an action – if the action, in other words, is “on the cards” – if the officer also considers the action advisable, and if the condition of his finances permit him to bear, if necessary, the whole expense of the action, then he will issue a call to the Club.

The issue of such a call is an announcement to the Club that the officer is ready and willing to bear all of the expense it involves; and no reference will ever be made to money.

Should any member consider the action to advisable that he wishes to do all possible to insure it, he may contribute money toward the action by sending it with the title of the action to the officer, in the same mail, not in the same envelope, with the card; but no member shall ever discuss or even mention any such contribution; and if call is not issued, the money will be returned to the donor.

So also, after the call, if any member desires to contribute money toward any action of the Club, he may do so by sending his contribution secretly to the officer. The donor’s name and the title of the action must be sent with the donation; hence it must never accompany the card.

No receipt for any such contribution will ever be given; and should any contribution become known either publicly or to any member of the Club, it will be returned to the donor.

Thus the stenographer of the wealthiest and most powerful man in Bend may wear an insignia which his employer might strive in vain to acquire with the expenditure of all his wealth and all his power. So a young man without a dollar may travel to distant cities and march between two men, one of whom is paying ten dollars of the expense, which is half of all the money he has in the bank, the other of whom is paying two hundred dollars of the expense, which is no more to him than a dollar would be to the man in the middle; and not one of the three knows what the others have done or are doing. Only one man knows; he will never tell; and he called the men together with a glad willingness to defray the whole expense.

And right here a word must be said to the members, present and future, who may at any time, or every time, be unable to bear any part of the expense of this Club. Not one man should ever contribute more money than he can spend with the same freedom and pleasure that he would buy a theatre ticket. The Emblem Club is formed expressly to give it the benefit of forty of the finest minds and personalities in Bend. It can only gain this benefit by means that are without embarrassment to such minds and personalities; and it is exactly such minds and personalities that are easiest embarrassed. Money is no measure of brains or character; and the Emblem Club wants nothing but brains and character. It is designed to exclude the brainless and the vicious, and, to the manageable limit of forty, to exclude no fine mind and character from membership. Consequently, no member could do anything so selfish as to refrain from Club activity for any sordid reason. He is needed; and he who cripples the Club by his absence takes from other members a portion of the pleasure and profit for which they pay. There is nothing so selfish as false pride.

26–27

The colors of the Club shall be Blue and Gold. The uniform of the Club shall be: Patent leather shoes, dark blue trousers, dark blue inverness cape overcoat, white vest, white tie, and a two and one-half (2 ½) inch gold satin ribbon flat across the white shirt-front under the vest from right shoulder to left hip. Dark blue tuxedo coat shall be worn always when marching, and for all purposes between sunrise and 6:00 P.M. After 6:00 P.M., for all purposes except marching, the coat shall be dark blue, full evening dress. The parade hat shall be a plain, dark blue chapeau with Emblem at side. For all other occasions, a black silk hat shall be worn. White kid gloves will be worn.

Should any member desire a new uniform, or a new portion thereof, he must so notify the officer. No member shall ever buy a uniform or any portion thereof herein mentioned, except shoes, tie, and shirt. If any member desires to pay for his uniform, he may do so only in the same manner and with the same restrictions as to silence and secrecy as apply to contributions for other Club purposes.

$

TABOO

28

When quarters for the Club are provided, no member will be permitted to have any share, either known or secret, in the cost of construction or maintenance. Each and every member will thus share equally in the Club privileges. As individuals may now dine or entertain at restaurants at their own expense, so then members may at the Club; but by a unique plan of operation, no question of money or service can ever involve the Club. But positively no dinner or entertainment shall be given in the name of the Emblem Club, and positively no action of any kind shall be taken in the name of the Emblem Club, that has not first been voted upon in regular form and passes upon by the officer; and positively no money shall ever be spent in the name of the Emblem Club, except in the form of secret donations as hereinbefore provided for.

Any act of kindness, courtesy, hospitality entertainment, altruism, municipal advertisement, or municipal improvement, is within the province of the Club; but no action shall be taken by the Club that is not strictly non-partisan and non-sectarian.

To introduce the Emblem and bring it before the public, the founder of the Club has heretofore been compelled to use it copiously. Always, away from Bend, the more widely and promiscuously it is used by any member with due regard to its honor and dignity, the more will Bend and all members of the Club be served. But hereafter, in Bend, the founder of the Club will use its Emblem only and strictly as the Emblem of the Club, and will use it in connection with his personal business exactly as much and in exactly the same ways as it is used by other members of the Club, no more and no less.

At the death of the founder, the Baton of the Club, which was used at its first banquet, the first banquet ever given in Bend, is used tonight, and has been used and will continue to be used on every occasion in which the Emblem Club takes a concerted hand, will be left by will, together with an income-bearing endowment, to the founder’s self-appointed successor, who will hold office for life with the full powers of the founder; and he in turn will appoint his own successor, the office for life thus to descend together with the endowment in perpetuity. Both the office for life and the endowment will be figuratively represented by the Baton of the Emblem Club. The holder of this Baton, this sole officer of the Club, having absolute command of the Club through the power of veto, yet having no more privilege or authority than any other member of the Club except through the power of veto, shall be known as the Taboo of the Emblem Club.

There are now two members of the Emblem Club who are non-residents of Bend. After the death or resignation of either or both of these, there shall never be any non-resident member other than the Taboo. Even after the death of the first Taboo, the Taboo of the Emblem Club may be, although he need not necessarily be, a non-resident of Bend.

Therefore, excepting the Taboo and one other present member, any member of the Emblem Club who may become a non-resident of Bend, shall thereby cease to be an active member of this Club; his chair shall be declared vacant, and a new member may be chosen to fill it; but so long as this non-resident who has once been a member shall continue faithfully to wear the Emblem, he shall be an honorary member of the Emblem Club, with the full rights of a member whenever he visits Bend. Should he return to Bend to live, he shall no longer be a member, either active or honorary; but he shall fill the first vacancy in the Club. No resident of Bend shall be made an honorary member of this Club. No non-resident shall be made an honorary member unless he shall agree constantly to wear the Emblem of the Club.

29–30

Nonwearing of the Emblem shall constitute a resignation of membership; and any member ceasing to wear the Emblem according to agreement will surrender it without putting the Taboo to the embarrassment of asking for it. Should this be overlooked, however, it must be understood that no discourtesy or unkindness is conveyed in the request for the Emblem. Should any member wish to resign from the Club, he may do so by the simple surrender of his Emblem and his Certificate of Membership to the Taboo, with or without explanation, and with the certainty that his resignation will be kindly received and silently accepted with sincere and continued friendliness.

Non-members can never be justly unfriendly; for membership is limited, and such a Club so constituted can never do anything that is not equally for the benefit of every resident of Bend in exact proportion to his activity and the magnitude of his interests in that city. The Club will be of some benefit to every resident of Oregon, and of some slight benefit to every resident of the Nation, especially in the Northwest. It can do no harm to anybody; and this work and play will cost no non-member anything, not even in taxes, for the Club will be kept absolutely free from politics.

Thus we have a Club possessing all the attributes of an Ad Club, an Improvement Club, a Commercial Club, an exclusive social Club, an Order of Merit, and many of the attributes of a Chamber of Commerce, a Fraternal Order, and a Diplomatic Corps; yet neither money nor power of any kind can have the slightest influence upon its membership or its proceedings.

31

This will curtail the Club’s activity; but when it does act, it will act with absolute unanimity; and one such act is worth a thousand half-hearted deeds. Also members may found and belong to other Clubs whose activities are not fettered by any such restrictions. They may do this and still remain members of the Emblem Club; or they may resign, for any cause whatever and without explanation.

Hence it will result that a natural and inevitable process of voluntary selections and voluntary resignations will cause the Club to become a body of men who are drawn and held together by similarity of aims and ideals. Not from conviction or compulsion, but naturally, like breathing, such men will be loyal to each other, never working at variance, and often working solidly as a unit for a purpose un which all heartily and enthusiastically believe.

Organized into such a unit at the beginning, and working quietly through all the years of municipal growth, the spirit and influence of such men cannot fail so to permeate a city that its buildings, its parks, its music, its theatres, its commerce, its gatherings of strangers, its tourist visitors, its tenements, its very pavements, and the face of its meanest citizen, will bear the impress of their minds and ideals.

As said in the beginning, it is audacious, egotistic, Quixotic; and the joke of it is, it cannot fail. The Emblem Club may act once a month or once in five years; it may have forty members or two members; but it will never cease to exist. It will always do its modicum of good; and it will never do any harm. That is all we can expect of any human invention.