It begins to look easier - one man to haul fifteen voters to die polls, in order to gain control of a district containing a third of a million people, in order to seat a congressman in a Congress where the draft law was extended, just before Pearl Harbor, by a majority of one vote.

It is easy - from that stand point, and that is the reason why the volunteer amateur can take over this country, or any part of it, and run it to suit himself. Your part is very easy if you are just one of the volunteer precinct workers-a noble ambition in itself!

But if you aspire to manage a congressional contest you will find, before you are through, that it requires all of your intelligence and diplomacy. While the job can be done - many have done it-it will call into use your highest human faculties.

Choosing a Candidate: All too often your choice is very narrow. In this country people who offer themselves for public service get a shameful kicking around. The pay is so niggardly that an honest man usually leaves office poorer than when he accepted it, and the dead cats and rotten eggs far outnumber the pats on the back for work well done - to our collective shame!

The sober, able citizens whom we need in public office know these things; very few of them are willing to make the sacrifice that public service entails. We have indeed been blessed that enough able men have always been willing, thus far, to forego their own interests that the Republic might survive.

You will probably have to persuade the candidate of your choice to make the race. If he is bright enough for the job he won't be very anxious to have it.

If he is the man you need for the job he will be aware that some citizens have to give up their natural desire for privacy, peace of mind, and financial security in order to keep democracy alive. The motivation is the same which causes men to volunteer to meet their deaths in time of war; it exists in peace time, but is a little harder to stir up.

You can expect him to be reluctant but willing to be convinced - convinced that his personal sacrifice will not be in vain. You must convince by showing him that he can be elected, in terms of district statistics, local factors, availability of campaign funds, your proposed budget, and your organization - organization above all. Since he is neither a nincompoop nor politically naive he knows that organization is the controlling factor. If you can show him a fighting chance, he will probably go.

On the other hand you will be beset by hopeful, potential candidates who are just waiting for the lightning to strike. They will come smirking around, digging one toe in the dust, and murmuring that "Barkis is willin'." These people are usually political light-weights whose only assets are consuming ambitions to hold public office and to receive a public salary.

They will look you up - of course they will look you up; you have an organization-and get in your hair.

They will be hard to handle. It is a hard thing to tell a man bluntly that you don't think he has the character, or the intelligence, as may be, to hold public office. Furthermore you might be mistaken; some unlikely people have served the public well. I suggest that you use a counter-attack.

Ask him if he is willing to refrain from running if the organization chooses some other man to back. Press this point and press it hard. Insist that he must commit himself to support and campaign for the candidate chosen by the organization before his name goes into the hat. This commitment should be in writing.

His commitment probably isn't worth anything but it may keep him from doing what he can to sabotage your efforts.

Don't promise him anything at all except that he will be allowed to present his case before the organizational caucus which chooses the candidate - provided he binds himself to the caucus. This is the essence of caucusing, that no one shall participate in it who is not bound by it; it is an entirely fair, democratic procedure.

The pipsqueak will probably jump the caucus if he loses in it. You are then morally justified in sending several of the more influential members of the caucus to see him in order to coerce him back into line. If they are his business customers, so much the better. A caucus is a contract and should be enforceable, but the law gives no means. You are entitled to improvise means, as rude as necessary, as long as you don't step outside the law. ("Look, Joe - you signed that caucus. If you break your word to us between now and election day, your name is going to be mud in this community. We'll see to it that everybody and his brother knows just what kind of a heel you are when it comes to keeping your word. You won't be able to do anything about it, because every word of it will be true-in feet, we'd love a libel suit because that would spread it around to more people. If you don't toe the line as you promised, you are finished politically - and it's not going to do your business any good either. People don't like to do business with a man who isn't honest-starting with me!")

Your own candidate must agree to the caucus, and you yourself. This may be a little hard to take, but democracy is not a one-way proposition. Require from him also a written commitment that he will endorse, support, and make at least one public appearance on behalf of the straight party ticket and in particular on behalf of his successful opponent, in the event that he is defeated. If he won't do this he is not your man, no matter how well you thought of him. Don't waste your time on prima donnas.

A word of warning - when you bind yourself to the caucus, do not bind yourself to manage the campaign of the successful candidate. It is likely that you will be willing to undertake the grief of managing only for the candidate whom you hand-picked. If another candidate is selected, itis all right for you to drop back to the status of a precinct worker, there to do honest work but considerably less of it, if, in your opinion, the candidate is not electable or not completely satisfactory to you.

But you must bind yourself to endorse and campaign for the candidate selected by the caucus, at least on the minimum level of canvassing and carrying your own precinct.

I can almost hear your doubts and misgivings about this. Isn't such a commitment likely to land you some day in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between breaking your word or supporting a candidate you know to be unworthy of public trust?

No - not if you know your procedure. In the first place, these are your friends and associates, aren't they? Can't you count on Tom and Art and Dr. Nugent

and Alice and old Mrs. Krueger to back you up in keeping any real jerk from getting the nod? If not, you are probably in the wrong pew and should be more careful in picking your political associates.

But let us suppose, nevertheless, that there is a chance that a certain party will pop up as the choice of the caucus; you are among friends but, while you are convinced that this person is a moral leper, you can't prove it. However, he is a very personable chap and many of your staunch friends are still taken in by him. This can happen-it's happened to me.

You need only insist that all the potential candidates be listed before die caucus is bound and that the caucus be limited to consideration of the listed candidates. This gives you a chance to thresh it out before you are bound.

Let's run over a typical caucus-it is one of the least understood and most necessary of the democratic techniques. We'll make it the caucus to select the organizational candidate for congress for the party primary in your district. Caucuses can be used for any sort of joint action; this one will illustrate all the principles involved.

In the first place membership in a caucus is strictly by invitation. The man, or group of men, who call the caucus is the sole judge of the membership. No one has a natural right to be a member of a caucus. You are no more obligated to invite a man to caucus with you than you are obligated to invite him to be a guest in your home. It may be politically imprudent to exclude someone who wants in-he may form a rival caucus of his own-but you don't have to. A caucus has no existence until it votes to bind itself; up to that time, if you called it, you can exclude anyone merely because you don't like the way he parts his hair.