TALKING CROWDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 December 1929, Page 3

TALKING CROWDS

■ ■ " 1,1 THE CONVENTION HABIT. : “Where shall we meet next year?” The Convention was breaking up and a group of members was standing in the hotel lobby discussing the results of. it.. It had been a success —a distinct- success —of that everyone was certain, though in what exactly its success had consisted no one could say very clearly. The city of —— had prepared a great'welcome for it, and all through the week there had been, special shows in its honour. And the meetings had gone off very well; a new . president. had been elected, together with a committee, seven vicepresidents, .a treasurer and three honorary secretaries. There.had beendiscussions on American Citizenship, on Boys’. Homes, on the formation of an Anti-Bolshevik League; and, most important of all, on the possibilities .of establishing a Tieague for the .Prevenfirm and StnmninP'-nnt nf All Tin-

non ana stamping-out or ah un« American Ideas. Yes, it had been a success. All over America to-day there are Conventions going on,; The;, trains are full of people going from one city to another to attend a Convention, the hotels are full of people who have cotne from east and west and north and south to take part in a Convention. Sometimes you begin ; to wonder where a sufficient number of people who are not attending Conventions can be found to carry on .the ordinary business of the country. The Convention lias to-day ’ become one of the outstanding features of American life.. There are two main reasons for the outbreak of Conventions which has spread :all over America. In the first ■place they are encouraged by every

big city. Like'a swarm of locusts thereat up everything they • light upon—, but unlike-the? locusts they -pay for what they eat. The arrival of a Convention- ef-—ar'thousand people . (arid some are far bigger than that) ineans a week’s boom'for every hotel and shop in the towh; And so .part of the duties Of every city’s Chamber of Commerce is to encourage Conventions foj come. Once you get a reputation as

a good Convention. town you are on the road towards’success. A railway, station, a junction, a hotel de luxe, an . airport, and ' finally, a Convention centre—such is the. history of any successful American city. . . ■ 'But there are. other far deeper, reasons for the Convention mania. The American people, more than any -other*,’ love to do everything in a crowd. They "feel that it gives them a" definite'-standing which, they might' never have if'they were on their own. .'Who dares for John. Smith? Nobody. But a great many people, cane what the National Convention of the Society, for

Encouraging ‘ American; pharaqteristics •is -thinking .and\ sayipg,.,„an 4 .-John Smitir'is a ■meniber of that-,- JSocietjf/ But not only is he a member. By day he may/be only an office clerk, b,ut when evening comes and he attends

the Convention he does so as- a ViceRegent. “Vice-Regent John . Smith will now give us his views on the subject.” Who would miss the thrill -of • that moment? These are imaginary societies, but’' we will.now glance at a very real one? The Sons of the American Revolution• were meeting at Richmond not -long ago, while at the same time a,far more ■ important body,, the Daughters of the.; American Revolution,, were filling a:, huge auditorium at Washington. It was 8.30 in the evening. With a burst? of. music the . Yice-Presidents-General-of .the Daughters of the. American Re-;, volution marched up the central aisle,followed.by their pages. There were--six thousand delegates to the Con ven--tion, and nearly all of them were at this meeting. The President-General took her seat. in the centre of . thepiatform, and round her were-grouped the Vice-Presidents-General, each withher page ..carrying her State;; .banner. The meeting. was long arid, to a stranger, exceedingly boring, but as a s't.udy of the Ariierican woman it was

.certainly, enlightening. Every one. of,, those present, took themselves desperately seriously. Their principal aims were to .encourage the'preservation OU everything ’ Ainerican, including.,the. original Ariierican stock, and tp stamp" out “all this Bolslievisin, Radicalism,,.' 'and Atheism.” It was.impossible to," discuss with them what they meant; by these terms, for the Convention.' mantle had settled on them arid they were all' “fighting for the cause”' •whose origin they had completely” gotten. America is the home "of the?' “great cause which cannot 7 be ex-; plained,” arid the rallying point for . every cause is a Convention. There.: is? no one" in. Ahierica who does not feel ’very strongly indeed about one'? particular subject, and most Americans have very decided views'bri any '

subject that comes up. But it' is dif-ficult-to Work out. one’s views systematically, arid so the best thing tS" do to-make certain of being right is’’ to belong -to a society which will tell '' you why you do believe what you , do 7 '‘ ..And if you really, feel strongly about something you must realise that by ' ..yourself you can do nothing to help -your cause, forward. A society which,' whiled explaining to you what the cause is, will at the same-'time- : enlist all .your powers to help it forward, is a. necessity in -these days, when there is so. little time to work-problems Out. ;

No American has time for much more ’ than his-own job. He/leaves'the job -of manufacturing. views to someone' else, .and as soon as he. finds-a view that , he likes he will buy it by subscribing to the, society which is . (exploiting it.-, - And -so there is a regular industry of organising ideals, and one of the main planks z in that industry is the Convention.