ORGANIZATION 139 



overlapping of activities on the part of different agen- 

 cies. We find also serious overlooking of vital needs 

 by these same agencies. Sometimes there is real fric- 

 tion, misunderstanding, and consequently a waste of 

 time, money and effort in duplicated endeavor. Good 

 organization would avoid these defects. 



2. Rural organization must be of the cooperative, 

 not of the military, type. German efficiency was real, 

 but it was purchased at the expense of the individual. 

 Cooperative or voluntary organization is not so effec- 

 tive in detail as the military or compulsory form, be- 

 cause all the people will not voluntarily cooperate all 

 the time for all purposes. The only way to do it 

 is by making an army of them. But there are 

 manifest advantages in voluntary organization. The 

 genius of democracy is cooperation and not compul- 

 sion. 



3. Good organization does not submerge the indi- 

 vidual; it enlarges him. It may subordinate him to the 

 common good, and it ought to do so. It says that no 

 one individual and no small group of individuals shall 

 fatten at the expense of the rest. Organization recog- 

 nizes that the individual at his best is the most effective 

 force for the common good; that people are the vital 

 factor rather than machinery or methods of organiza- 

 tion. Organization seeks, therefore, to make each in- 

 dividual the most effective possible, but effective both 

 for his own good and for the common good. More- 

 over, under ordinary conditions, the average individual 

 can come to his best estate only as a part of an effective 

 organization, so that good organization is really and 

 fully democratic. 



4. Organization eventually reduces rather than mul- 

 tiplies the number of associations, because it demands 



