The War Efforts of an Average Club

A Record of Charity Relief—with a Moral

STEPHEN LEACOCK

THE Great Winter Kermesse at the Galaxy Club, to which I have the honor to belong, has just ended. For three weeks our club-house has been a blaze of illumination. We have had four orchestras in attendance. There have been suppers and dances every night. Our members have not spared themselves.

The Kermesse is now over. We have time, as our lady members are saying, to turn round. For the moment we are sitting listening, amid bursts of applause, to our treasurer's statement. As we hear it we realize that his Kermesse has proved the culmination and crown of three winters' work. But I must explain from the beginning.

Our efforts began, with the very opening of the War. We felt that a rich organization like ours ought to do something for the relief of the Belgians. At the same time we felt that our members would rather receive something in the way of entertainment for their money than give it straight out of their pockets.

We therefore decided, first, to hold a public lecture in the club, and engaged the services of Professor Dry to lecture on the causes of the war.

In view of the circumstances, Professor Dry very kindly reduced his lecture fee, which (he assured us) is generally two hundred and fifty dollars, to two hundred and forty.

The lecture was most interesting. Professor Dry traced the causes of the War backwards to the Middle Ages. At the time when the lights went out he had got it back to the eighth century.

Unfortunately the night, being extremely wet, was unfavorable. Few of our members care to turn out to lectures in wet weather. The treasurer was compelled to announce to the Committee a net deficit of two hundred dollars. Some of the ladies of the Committee moved that the entire deficit be sent to the Belgians, but were overruled by the interference of the men.

BUT the error was seen to have been in the choice of the lecturer. Our members were no longer interested in the causes of the war. The topic was too old. We therefore held another public lecture in the club, on the topic What Will Come After the War. It was given by a very talented gentleman, a Mr. Guess, a most interesting speaker, who reduced his fee (as the thing was a war charity) by one-half, leaving it at three hundred dollars. Unhappily the weather was against us. It was too fine. Our members scarcely care to listen to lectures in fine weather. And it turned out that our members are not interested in what will come after the war. The topic is too new. Our receipts of fifty dollars left us with a net deficit of two hundred and fifty. Our treasurer therefore proposed that we should carry both deficits forward and open a Special Patriotic Entertainment Account and showing a net total deficit of four hundred and fifty dollars.

In the opinion of the committee our mistake had been in engaging outside talent. It was felt that the cost of this was prohibitive. It was better to invite the services of the members of the club themselves. A great number of the ladies expressed their willingness to take part in any kind of war work that took the form of public entertainment.

Accordingly we presented a play. It was given in the ball room of the club house, a stage being specially put up for us by a firm of contractors. The firm (as a matter of patriotism) did the whole thing for us at cost, merely charging us with the labor, the material, the time, the thought and the anxiety that they gave to the job, but for nothing else. In fact, the whole staging, including lights, plumbing and decorations was merely a matter of five hundred dollars. The plumbers very considerately made no charge for their time, but only for the plumbing.

IT was felt that it would be better to have a new play than an old. We selected a brilliant little modem drawing-room comedy never yet presented. The owner of the copyright, a theatrical firm, let us use it for a merely nominal fee of two hundred dollars, including the sole right to play the piece forever. There being only twenty-eight characters in it, it was felt to be more suitable than a more ambitious thing. The tickets were placed at one dollar, no one being admitted free except the performers themselves, and the members who very kindly acted as scene shifters, curtain lifters, ushers, doorkeepers, programme sellers, and the general committee of management. All the performers, at their own suggestion, supplied their own costumes, charging nothing to expenses except the material and the cost of dressmaking. Beyond this there was no expense except for the fee, very reasonable, of Mr. Skip, the professional coach who trained the performers, and who asked us, in view of the circumstances, less than half of what he would have been willing to accept.

The proceeds were to be divided between the Belgian Fund and the Red Cross, giving fifty per cent to each. A motion in amendment from the Ladies' Financial Committee to give fifty per cent to the Belgian Fund and sixty per cent to the Red Cross was voted down.

UNFORTUNATELY it turned out that the idea of a play was a mistake of judgment. Our members, it seemed, did not care to go to see a play except in a theatre. A great number of them, however, very kindly turned out to help in shifting the scenery and in acting as ushers.

Our treasurer announced, as the result of the play, a net deficit of twelve hundred dollars. He moved, with general applause, that it be carried forward.

The total deficit having now reached over sixteen hundred dollars, there was a general feeling that a very special effort must be made to remove it. It was decided to hold Weekly Patriotic Dances. No charge was made for admission to the dances, but a War Supper was served at one dollar a head.

Unfortunately the dances, as first planned, proved again an error. It appeared that though our members are passionately fond of dancing, few if any of them cared to eat at night. The plan was therefore changed. The supper was served first, and was free, and for the dancing after supper a charge was made of one dollar per person. This again was an error. It seems that after our members have had supper they prefer to go home and sleep. After one winter of dancing the treasurer announced a total Patriotic Relief Deficit of five thousand dollars to be carried forward to next year. This sum duly appeared in the annual balance sheet of the club. The members, especially the ladies, were glad to think that we were at least doing something for the war.

AT this point some of our larger men, themselves financial experts, took hold. They said that our entertainments had been on too small a scale. They told us that we had been "undermined by overhead expenses." The word "overhead" was soon on everybody's lips. We were told that if we could "distribute our overhead" it would disappear. The War Ker-! messe which we have just held was intended to distribute our overhead over a long enough time to obliterate it. The club, as I said, has been a blaze of light for three weeks. We have had four orchestras in attendance every evening. There have been booths, draped with the flags of all the Allies (an ingenious idea of our own) in every corridor of the club. There have been dinner parties, supper parties and dances every evening. The members, especially the ladies, have not spared themselves. Many of them have spent practically all their time at the Kermesse, not getting home till two in the morning. But it is War Work and they mean, as they say themselves, to see it through. It is now through.

The treasurer has been reading out to a general meeting the financial results as nearly as they can be computed, although many of the bills have not yet come in. There is a bill for scaffolding, for instance, the total of which must be a little over $200; and a bill for printing the programs, which were unfortunately lost before delivery; also a charge for installing a colored electric light system, which, as bad luck would have it, could not be used owing to the fact that the fuse blew out just before the performance. Well, anyway, the treasurer has put the Net Patriotic Deficit, as nearly as he can estimate it, at fifteen thousand dollars, though he has stated, with applause from the ladies, that the Gross Deficit is bigger still.

The Ladies' Financial Committee has just carried a motion that the whole of the deficit, both net and gross, be now forwarded to the Red Cross Society (sixty per cent), the Belgian Relief Fund (fifty per cent) and the remainder invested in Liberty Bonds.

THERE is a very general feeling, among the ladies, that we have not only done something,. but that the club was never so bright and gay and enjoyable as during the patriotic sacrifices that we have made. They are talking already of a big summer Garden Festival on behalf of the Navy.

But some of the men are beginning to wonder whether it would not be better to cut out Patriotic Work altogether and be content with sending the Red Cross a dollar whenever they get it.