Your exclusion-act may antagonize some persons who are useful otherwise but who can't or won't do canvassing, but it is better to let them fall by the wayside in order to protect the morale and enhance the prestige of the field workers.

If you build up such a special club, you will not only win for Mr. Upright, you will make yourself the unquestioned boss of the district. The canny politicians will quickly recognize that you possess the only political power in the district; they will come to you for the yea-and-nay. You will not neglect the public clubs you have helped found or been active in, however; they dien will become the feeder organizations for your campaign shock troops.

Mr. Upright is a member of the club, since you have him punching doorbells. Don't let him miss attendance

at a meeting, or even part of a meeting, not even though the governor or the national chairman wants to see him that night, or your vote-getting will take a sudden slump. On the other hand, if he is home sick in bed you can use it to inspire more work.

The methods of precinct work have been indicated by examples in an earlier chapter. You will have to train them in it, since most people get stage flight at the idea There are many right ways to do it and you will learn your own as well as the types I have given-but keep it simple!

The hardest hurdle is the opening remark when the occupant answers the door. The next hardest is the second remark in answer to the householder's reply, a reply which will follow one of about a dozen stock forms, if your worker can get past this point the rest is easy for any of us chattering simians. It is therefore worthwhile to type out and mimeo some stock phrases:

Opening Remarks

"How do you do-Mrs. Crotchet? I'm a neighbor of yours, Thomas (or Mabel) Friendly, and I'm calling on you to ask you to support Jonathan Upright in the primary next month."

"Good morning. I'm Tom Friendly, Mrs. Crotchet We're supporting Mr. Upright for the party nomination and I'd like to tell you something about him and try to get your support, too."

"How do you do? Am I speaking to Mrs. Crotchet? Mrs. Crotchet, I am one of your neighbors, Mrs. Thomas Friendly. If you can spare me a moment I would like to tell you about a citizen's committee we have formed to try to improve the representation in Congress for this district."

Replies and Answers

("I'mfor Jack Hopeful.") "So? Well, I understand heisa fine man. We're in the same party, at least-if your candidate wins the nomination, Mr. Upright is pledged to support him and campaign for him... and so will I." This is followed by a quick retreat, or an invitation to attend local dub party meetings, depending on the response.

("Those people have moved and we belong to the other party.") "Oh, I'm sorry to have bothered you! Well, be sure to vote in any case. Mr. Upright says that if we aU turn out and vote our convictions it won't matter whether Upright is elected, or Upright is defeated - the country will be in safe hands." (Note the triple mention of Upright's name in a statement which urges her to vote the other way.)

("How much do you people get paid for this sort of thing?") "Oh, we don't get paid anything! This is entirely a spontaneous effort of some of the voters. We organized it and, instead of getting paid, we pay for our own printing and hall rent and so forth by passing the hat among ourselves. We think that's the only way we can have honest government."

("I'm too busy to talk to you.") "Oh, I am sorry that I bothered you! May I leave this with you and then come back at a more convenient time? We know you folks take the trouble to vote in the primaries so we would like a chance for you to get to know Mr. Upright - your opinion is worth something."

("Oh, I never vote except in the main election.") (Frankly, this idiot is hopeless - however) "Oh, if you wait till fall you don't get any real chance to make a choice. The primary is very important this year - if we sent a car around to pick you up, would you make an exception? We need you."

("I intend to vote for Mr. Upright.") "Fine. It cheers me up to hear a person say that. Here is some literature about him - maybe some of your friends would like to see it. By the way, Mr. Upright is speaking at our local club next Friday night. Could I drop by and take you with me?"

The field workers will teach each other, through shop talk; from that shop talk you will get better examples than I can give, examples tailored to your campaign and your community.

One of the easiest ways to train a precinct worker is to send him out with an experienced one for a single afternoon or evening. You can teach a group at a time by acting out the type cases, using two experienced workers in an amplified version of the type cases given herein. Do it two ways - the right way and the wrong way-and you have the basis for an amusing dub program. The wrong ways can be made very funny by persons of moderate dramatic talent-Joe Roughly arrives smoking a cigarette, knocks and rings alternately until he wakes the householder or drags her out of her bath, sticks a foot in the door, gets into an argument, and so forth without end.

I venture to predict that, with the recent enormous strides in visual-aid training, both major parties will soon have 16-mm. sound pictures available for the use of local dubs covering the above. If such pictures are supervised by persons intimately acquainted with the problems of the dosed door, then they should be very useful; otherwise - hmmm! Better taste before you serve.

Get them in the habit of using the 3x5 card. Have a supply at the meetings with a notice that invites them to place a dime in the saucer for each pack or to take them free if they wish. Show them your own files. Emphasize that the usefulness of their work depends almost entirely on whether or not they have records on election day of where the vote is.

Your area managers may show so much talent that they will crowd you and inspire you into better work yourself; however some of them will simply be message points, persons you can telephone and who in turn will telephone their several workers or whom you can call on to pick up campaign material from the headquarters for redistribution to the individual workers. In either case the area supervisor must be a person who works in at least one precinct. Otherwise he does not know the field problems and will botch things for you.

But there is another reason why everyone from the candidate up through the whole organization to the single precinct worker should do canvassing: The U.S. Army, shortly before World War II, added some 30% to its fire power by arming with rifles or carbines all of the non-coms and officers up to major. The same result is obtainable in a campaign organization - I have seen more than one campaign in which there were so many supervisory jobs, special jobs, and headquarters jobs that there were no doorbell pushers; then they wondered why they lost!

This is a complete reversal of opinion on my part, brought on by experience. In my first campaign I used to quote Poor Richard: "The overseer's eyes are worth more than his hands." In politics it should be rephrased, "The overseer's example is worth more than his precept-and it opens his eyes wider and gets votes in the bargain!"

Your publicity man should ring some doorbells in the district to sample the flavor - but he probably won't, whether he is paid or unpaid. Still... he can't shoot you for suggesting it.

If your office girl pushes a few doorbells in the evening she will understand the campaign better, but you will be happy enough if she has a civil tongue, a tight lip, and an ability to not lose track of the details.

Haw to Get a Selected List frim which to Punch Doorbells: Your district has 320,000 residents lodged behind some 100,000 private doorways. It is most unlikely that you will have enough people to punch every doorbell. However there are only 70,000 members of our party