Civic Helpfulness 95 



tunate in life. It is no easy task to make move 

 ments of this kind succeed. If managed in a spirit 

 of patronizing condescension, or with ignorance of 

 the desires, needs, and passions of those round about, 

 little good indeed will come from them. The fact 

 that, instead of little, much good does in reality re 

 sult, is due to the entirely practical methods and the 

 spirit of comradeship shown by those foremost in 

 these organizations. One particularly good feature 

 has been their tendency to get into politics. Of 

 course this has its drawbacks, but they are out 

 weighed by the advantages. Clean politics is simply 

 one form of applied good citizenship. No man can 

 be a really good citizen unless he takes a lively in 

 terest in politics from a high standpoint. Moreover, 

 the minute that a move is made in politics, the people 

 who are helped and those who would help them grow 

 to have a common interest which is genuine and ab 

 sorbing instead of being in any degree artificial, and 

 this will bring them together as nothing else would. 

 Part of the good that results from such community 

 of feeling is precisely like the good that results from 

 the community of feeling about a club, football team, 

 or baseball nine. This in itself has a good side ; but 

 there is an even better side, due to the fact that dis 

 interested motives are appealed to, and that men are 

 made to feel that they are working for others, for the 

 community as a whole as well as for themselves. 



