Indianapolis Times, Volume 37, Number 251, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 February 1926 — Page 16

PAGE 16

Indianapolis Pushes Movement for Increasing Its Population

HOMER M’KEE GIVES CLUB PLAN OUTLINE Originator of Million Population Idea Speaks at Chamber of Commerce Dinner. Homer McKee outlined liis plan for a Million Population Club for Indianapolis at a meeting at the Claypool Thursday night under the auspices of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. His speech in part:

Before we start this discussion, I want everybody in this room to clearly understand three things-. 1. This plan does not contemplate raising a cent to be loaned to or in. vested with weak and failing concerns. 2. This plan does not contemplate the raising of large funds for extravagant advertising purposes. ?,. We are going to raise only £200,000 and we are not going to raise any of that here tonight. I personally am not going to make any profit out of any advertising that may develop. Indianapolis has more reason for doing something and can And more excuses for doing nothing than any town I ever saw. When Carl Fisher wanted a road built out in front of his house—we did nothing. When’ John N. Willys got a proposition from Toledo to move the Overland factory out of Indianapolis we did nothing. When thirty of our industries from time to time needed our help, the same anvil chorus which right at this minute is trying to kill this new Indianapolis movement, got their hammers out and knocked, knocked, until those thirty' industries were dead as a mackerel. City Did Nothing What did Indianapolis do to prevent these homicides? She did absolutely nothing. Recently when officials of General Electric Company went through this town looking for a factory site, and finally decided to establish a factory 200 miles west of here that will employ 15,000 people, what did Indianapolis dp? Again sne did absolutely nothing. I want to say to y'ou that if this plan we are talking about had been in operation at that time, the General Electric factory would today be in Indianapolis, and so would this new Delco factory', located just a few miles north of here, which also is going to employ 15,000 people. There you have 30,000 jobs for Indianapolis people that, within the last year, have! got away from us, all because we have not had a plan and the courage and the cooperation among to carry out such a plan. You know and I know that this is not conversation. These are facts and it is about time for somebody to recognize the facts and do something for Indianapolis. When hundreds of Indianapolis people began cranking their Fords to go to Florida, there was not one single bit of concerted effort to impress on them the superior, stable, profit-making integrity of Indianapolis real estate. We let these these people get away from us and we deserve absolutely' no sympathy. Make No Effort At this moment, with hundreds of factories from all over the country looking for more advantageous distribution facilities and many of them ready, if they knew the truth about this town, to come here, what are we doing? We are sitting here, smugly, and with an indifferent wave of the hand we are passing the buqk to the Chamber of Commerce and when the Chamber of Commerce fails to do the humanly impossible thing of dragging the dead weight of 360,000 sleepy' people, who apparently prefer to stay in a rut, what do we, as a city, do? / We damn the Chamber of Commerce and, as usual, do absolutely nothing. Asa matter of fact, Indianapolis is not dead, but sleeping. This apathetic condition is going to be quickly' corrected. All we need to do is to stick some dynamite under all this inertia and wake the town* tip. Then we are going to make the world understand, in no uncertain terms, -that in many important respects Indianapolis is the best town on earth; the best town in America from a manufacturer’s standpoint and the best town in America for the purposes- of a man who wants to raise a decent, heatlhy family and incidentally get the most out of life while he is about it. We are deeply indebted to the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce for SIOO Reward for a box worth 60c I lie was 4,000 m:le3 from home, in a land here cooks fried everything; and all his Stuart's .b’etsin a trunk they couldn’t find I" I'll give most anything to get it, ’ 'he told me, ‘‘for I rane.itanychinsia the worldif I take a tablet afterward. ’ Chew a Stuart tablet after the heartiest meal and you, too, can smile at indigestion. Relief is instantaneous. And ail danger of bad breath is banished! In fact., hearty eaters —hard smokers — high livers — find these tablets a boon and blessing. Here's proof: Full Box FREE! Every druggist has Stuart's tablets, 25c and 60c. Or, af ul 1 box free if you write the F. A. Stuart Company, Dept. F ■ Marshall, Mich. Get a meta Ibox of Stuart’s for the pocket—and keepi t filled STUARTS DYSPEPSIA TABLETS

this opportunity’. At augers j well for the future of our city when our oldest and most substantial com- ! mercial organization expresses suen j an interest in Indianapolis by calling together this representative body. Spirit of Mutuality We are here, not in a spirit of criticism or of rivalry, but in a great, i new spirit of civic mutuality, i The New Million Population Club, while of necessity and rightfully an ! independent enterprise, is wholly j sympathetic with and friendly to I the Indianapolis Chamber of Com- ! merce. We have no grievance against the Chamber of Commerce. On quite the contrary most of our executive committeemen are members of the Chamber of Commerce, and to criticise you would be to criticise ourselves. The fact remains, however, that Indianapolis must now have a completely new type of single-minded-ness—a new devotion and concentration on the one big problem of getting new factories here. No organization of long standing, not even the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce itself, can meet this requirement. To meet this requirement, the Chamber of Commerce would have to completely reorganize itself along different lines—and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. * * * The New Million Population Club; the new industrial sales manager; this new $200,000 budget for advertising to the world the truth about Indianapolis; this whole new industrial movement is incomprehensible to the Indianapolis of yesterday, and I can scarely hope that the Chamber of Commerce could at this time take official cognizance of our program or give it executive support. Except in the matter of size alone, a city is precisely like any other big corporation. It has its ups and downs, its joys and its sorrows, Us periods of prosperity and of depression, its problem of interna] morale, and of public approbation, its animosities, its jealousies, its wrangles, its obstructionists, its knockers and its friendships that never die. I say that there is no inherent difference between a city and any other big corporation. Precisely the same things which make a business successful will make a city successful. And precisely the same things that throw a factory into bankruptcy will, in time, make any city on earth commercially and morally insolvent. No business in all the history of the world ever grew to great accomplishment without the help of a wideawake and competent sales department. Needs Sales Department Indianapolis has never had a sales department. We have had a good product. We have had internal organization. We have always had an abundance of working capital. We have had everything that goes to the ?iaking of a great business or a reat city except a sales department. And when I tell you that the only function—the only ambition —of the Million Population Club is merely to supply Indianapolis with a sales department, I have, in a word, explained the whole plan. Indianapolis, after a long, painful inactivity, is about to leap forward, and heaven help anybody who gets in the way of that leap. The men behind this Greater Indianapolis movement have so ulterior motives. They have risen completely above all selfishness. They have cast aside all class considerations of every kind and all prejudices. They seek no political preferment. For themselves they ask nothing whatever except the simple privilege of doing something for Indianapolis. Except for others they want nothin. They are doing this because they love Indianapolis. They are right, at heart, and unless we can reverse all human experience and overcome right, then the only sound policy is to stir ourselves out of our long sleep and to join in this leap. Times Change Without in any way reflecting'discredit on the past accomplishments of the Chamber of Commerce, with-. ! out in any way interrogating its 'function or questioning the sincerity of the able men who from time to time have run its affairs; with all ; respect and in a spirit of humility and brotherhood, 1 want to remind • you that time are changing—that the implements of yesterday will scarcely do the work of tomorrow —that while the sturdy little Monitor, with its revolving turret, stopped the threat of the Merrimac during the ! civil war and thus turned tlie tide, lit would bo pitifully inadequate I against the naval dreadnauglits of ; today. ! Greater Indianapolis will in time demand a greater Chamber of Commerce and you have here the firm foundation on which this needed greater Chamber of Commerce can and I believe will eventually be built. You ask me why, without authorization from any one, I should take it upon myself to stir up this issue? I reply that every good citizen should regard all public considerations as his own personal affair. The , principal trouble with Indianapolis | today is that we do not regard any phase of Indianapolis’s welfare as our own personal responsibility. All Are Responsible Try as we may, theorize and argue till we are blue in the face, no citizenship in the world can escape its individual, personal responsibilities and until we learn to say that tills Chamber of Commerce is our Chamber of Commerce, that ihis police department is our police department, that the minis-

trations of the Critter den home and of the Community Fund are our ministration, that this smoke is our smokeuntil we learn to say that all these things are our own personal problems and our own personal faults, Indianapolis is never going to be anything but just a plain, overgrown hitchrack town. You can never build cities and homes and heal human hearts, by impersonal machinery. So I say to you that to remedy conditions, we must make this the personal fight of all of us—so don't criticise any one who regards the welfare of his home town as his own personal business. If Indianapolis fails ultimately to make the most of herself, to become the town she can become, no man can deny to me the right to regard tills failure as my own personal fault, and I accede to all of you exactly the same privilege. There are honest men who today do not believe that Indianapolis can ever be made a city of a million people. By the same token, there are honest men who do not want to see Indianapolis ever become a city of a million people—artistically and csthetlcally, they rebel against ever living in a city of a million people. And 1 can quite understand their point of view. Proportionate Growth We are in the path of progress, twenty-five years from now a city of 1,000,000 people will not, by comparison with other cities, be so very large. Twenty-five years from now Indianapolis with 1,000,000 people will bo proportionately no larger than she is today. She iuust get 1,000,000 people or ( fall back and let America go on without her. The problems of the Million Population Club and of all of us becomes one not of getting a million people for Indianapolis, but of so preparing ourselves and organizing our city Mint we can absorb an ultimate population of one million peopple without losing any of tlie charm and of (lie homelike characteristics which have tor so long distinguished In : dianapolis from inferior towns of greater size. I suppose there were many heartaches wnen the cow pastures north of Sixteenth St. were plowed up and the noise of saws and of hammers disturbed tlie pastoral solitude of happy hovels. At the Traffic Club some time ago, I promised that almost immediately somehow, someone would evolve a plan and would present it, for better or for worse, to the citizenship of Indianapolis. Plan Not Perfected There are many respects in which Ihis plan is not yet perfected, but it is sound in its fundamentals and enjoys the distinction of being the only Indianapolis plan that anybody ever stuck to long enough to finish. Either this plan will be accepted or it will not. The decision rests with Indianapolis. I'warn you, how'ever, that all Indianapolis for the first time in her history, is now at white heat—that we will never again get behind us this same enthusiasm—this same unanimous spirit of cooperation, and if we go back to sleep this time we deserve our reputation of slowness, of indifferenec and of municipal incompetency. Essentially, this plan Is hypothecated on the idea of helping the whole town, not just a few politicians, or a few merchants or any group, cult or class, bu. all the people. It will help the laborer because it will give him steadier work, better income and a happier home. It will help the man who employs labor because it will give him better financial support, better operative conditions, a better reputation for his goods and in the aggregate, better business. Will Help Everyone It will help the jobber because it will raise him and his house and his point of distribution, far higher in the esteem and confidence of his market; for one of the principal results of this plan will be the creation of anew confidence in and a new respect for Indianapolis—to make merchants far and wide more willing to buy from Indianapolis. It will help the retail merchant because it will give him more customers. He can certainly sell more goods to 500,000 people and later to 750,000 people and eventually to 1,000,000 people than he*HM)ow to 360,000 people, a percentage of whom, due to our restricted manufacturing activities, are out of work and, therefore, out of money. It will help the banker because ft will increase his deposits and, what is even more to be considered, it will increase his fiscal usefulness and give him a w’ider field and a wider opportunity for contribution to the welfare of humanity, which, after all, is the banker’s real function os well as function of all of us. Simultaneously, it will help the man who owns and the man who sells Indianapolis real estate because it will create in Indianapolis for the first time in our history a permanent, active and growing demand for Indianapolis real estate. It will help the home, for the business of this Million Population Club is to awaken and to keep alert our civic consciousness, so that misrule and abuses by organized minorities become impossible. And, incidentally, it is going to put behind Butler University enough additional power to give Indianapolis one of the greatest institutions of learning in America. You get 15,000 Indianapolis people to thinking in a straight line and you will begin to see an abatement of our smoke nuisance, of crime and of all the abuses that have so insidiously crept into our Indianapolis life. For Better Schools This plan, if applied and carried through, will make for better schopls and for better churches, for a more judicious expenditure of the taxpayers’ money, and for a bigger and better Indianapolis. In the final Analysis, its success will depend on the energy and the fearlessness with which it is carried on. I say its first cardinal principle is the jirincipie of 'all for one and one for all.’ the community ideal, the spirit of brotherhood and of bigi’.ess. And now I submit as my belief and as a proved economic fact that the basis and the source of all mu-

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

Originator of Plan

. Homer McKee, whose plan to boost the city’s population to a million, was indorsed by a group of citizens at a meeting sponsored by the C. of C. Thursday night. nicipal success, whether commercial or esthetic, Ls industry, industry first. Money, science, art and welfare follow industry. Population follows industry and before you can have population and prosperity you must have the incentive that draws the people to you and the industry that feeds and clothes and underwrites the happiness and insures the homes of those people. Trying to run a city without industry is as asinine and as silly as trying to run an automobile without an engine. So I say, and all Indianapolis says, that we must have factories. To get factories is simply a selling job. The man with a factory is simply a prospect for Indianapolis, a prospect that we want to convert into a customer. I say that this business of getting new factories to come to Indianapolis is first and foremost a selling job and that it calls precisely for the same procedure that any other selling job calls for. So, I recommend that Indianapolis i; unediately organize itself on a plain selling basis; that we find somewhere a sales manager of prime ability; a man who knows from experience how to organize a first-class sales department, how to train salesmen and to utilize advertising and, above all else, how to treat a customer. Again I remind you that Indianapolis is just a big corporation. 360,000 Stockholders Our 360,000 people are just 360.000 common stockholders; and like all common stockholders, they want more dividends and fewer assessments. The Million Population Club will give these 360,000 stockholders more of a voice in their own business. The executive committee of that Million Population Club does not rise to the dignity of a board of directors of the city of Indianapolis —jt is merely a sales council, thinking solely in terms of sales and of the resulting prosperity of the business. All this Million Population Club does is to give you something you have never had before and which you so surely need, for the first time in your lives it gives you an Indianapolis, sales department. There is nothing Irreparably wrong with the executive management of this great corporation except the simple and serious fact that we have forgotten to put a motor in our automobile; that we have forgotten to build up a sales department, for, as the Outlook recently remarked, “Indianapolis is an unsold town.” All I can say to you now is that

VALUE OF LARGER CITY POINTED OUT George Marott, Indianapolis Merchant, Says More Citizens Will Bring More Money—Congratulates McKee.

The hard dollars-and-cents value of an increase in the population of Indianapolis of as much as 100,000 was pointed out today by George J. Marott, Indianapolis merchant, following the dinner at the Claypool Thursday night at which Hom'er McKee explained his plans for a “Million Population Club.” “I congratulate Mr. McKee on his address and on his sales idea which is necessary to stimulate tho forces of citizenship to a greater population.” Marott said. “To sell Indianapolis to all the industrious citizens who love their city such an organization of citizens as suggested by Mr. McKee should be pledged to a fixed constitution of tlieir obligations. The membership should be bound together as a nonpolitical body, because there is much in politics that needs to be corrected for the purpose of economics and good government. Taxes Burdensome “The people are complaining of their taxes and the taxes are burdensome, because they must provide for the welfare of the city and for proper school facilities. We must have a source of tax income that will sustain all the city’s requirements without an increase in the percentage asesssed against taxable valuations. “How will we do, this? Applying Mr. McKee’s idea of sales, to sell the city jto ourselves, to the State and to the Nation, the first result

here at last is one thing started in Indianapolis that can’t be stopped. Here is a movement calculated to give Indianapolis what it has alwys lacked, namely, an aggressive, competent sales department that knows how to stir up and then how to close a prospect. There should be sufficient funds to finance this sales department. A real sales manager should be obtained. In a short time such steps as m..;’ bo deemed necessary to dry clean Indianapolis in its spots, to polish its nickel and to make it presentable and salable should be promptly taken. lain morally certain that within a reasonably short time the membership of the Million Population Club will astound you with its sheer size; and that the whole wide world will soon know that at least there is something stirring at the cross roads of America. Among other things this movement contemplates, at the right time, and coordinated with the efforts of the sales department, a powerful advertising campaign that will tell all America exactly whom we are and exactly what we have to offer. In the preparation of campaign, the best advertising brains of Indianapolis will be given an opportunity to concentrate. It will not be a one-man jom, or a profitable Job for any one, but when it appears, it will be a workmanlike job and it will do the business. Os that, I can completely assure you now. Outline of l'laii Summed up and in a word, this plan proposes: 1. The formation of the Million Population dub with a membership of at least 15,000 people—all taxpayers of Indianapolis. 2. The employment of an industril sales manager worth and paid around $20,000 a year, whose job shall be to support present Indianapolis factories and to sell other factories on coming to Indianapolis. 3. A national advertising campaign of tremendous power that will make the outside world eognizant of Inditinapolis and our own citizeship proud of Indianapolis by making both those afar and those at home familiar with the facts about Indianapolis. 4. Affiliation with existing practical means of financing and cu|Mtalizing worthy institutions. 5. The informal organization of all liidiana|>olis bodies, social, business and political, Into one powerful fighting unit intent on and peldged to the industrial development of Indiana po'is. 6. Sympathetic and active interest in every movement and every influence calculated to make Indianapolis a better as well as a bigger city, at no time forgetting that cultivation and fostering of the fine' arts and cleanliness is quite as necessary to our city as its material prosperity. 7. Systematic discouragement of selfishness and pettiy jealousies and new detrmination to cultivate in Indianapolis a broad, new spirit of brotherly interest and a sincere desire to see tlie other fellow pros|>eruiis and liappv, as well as ourselves. This job is as big as all Indianapolis. No one man nor no one group of men can do it alone. Do you want it or not? Are you with us or not? If it sounds fair, pull off your coat and help put this old town back on solid cement of the clear road to prosperity and progress. Endorsed by Mayor This movement has appealed to the public imagination. It has canned the indorsement of the mayor of our city. It has received from every corner of the city complete and unanimous approval; a literal deluge of approval. If I have earned the right to speak with authority on any subject whatever, It is on the subject of sales policies; and I say to you that right here and right now this Chamber of Commerce to which we are all so devoted and in whose future we all take such store, is now in position to establish itself forever in the hearts of Indianapolis. All In Indianapolis want prosperity and the industry through which alone that prosperity can be derived. The whole town is vibrating to the new idea of industrial growth. Now instead of creating a lot of unpleasant static and of fighting the people's wave length, why don’t you just turn your dials a bit and tunc into that wave length?

might be a unit of 100,000 workmen. This would mean an increased pay roll for labor alone of at least $150,000,000. “This $150,000,000 would go to farmers, to merchants, to the building of homes and to savings. I estimate that the farmers of Marion County and adjoining counties likely receive $50,000,000 of the $150,000,000 in the increased requirement of eatables, such as eggs, milk, butter, potatoes and other vegetables and meats. This money would stay in the community. The remaining $100,000,000 would go to the building of homes, to merchants dealing in clothing, to shoe men and other dealers in necessities, to recreation and to savings. Profits Would Result “Then, again, what is the value of 100,000 working men, who are good citizens as an asset to our city? Profits would result from the enhanced value of r’eal estate and from extending the city into the country. These men W’ould create a taxable asset of at least half a billion dollars a year. “If the population should reach a million, the taxable assets no doubt would be increased five billions of dolla rs. “Few people realize that every thirty-two years on the present basis of our taxes every piece of ground, every building, every piece of machinery and every other item of taxable property is absorbed in taxes."

DICK MILLER FOR BIGGER CITY MOVE Banker Indorses Homer McKee Plan for Million Population Club.

Dick Miller, president of the City Trust Company, and vice president of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, in comrfienting on the McKee plan for a Million Population 'Club at the Claypool Thursday night, said: # "If we really want a rejuvenated city and strive for it in a well organized way, we can mt it. It is not up to Homer McKee and his executive committee alone, it is up to all business and professional men and women of the community to bring the thing about. Os course, we need proper direction. We must have concentrated authority to outline the things for us to do, but in its final analysis it is put straight up to the individual responsibility 'of all the people of the community. “Now do we want a bigger city? Aro we anxious that v;e should have a city teeming with the spirit of industrial progress, or do we as a people want to become even more selfsatisfied than we are now, to the end that other cities may take from us that which we have to the great advantage of their own industrial progress? “If we decide that we want very sincerely that the city should grow in population and industry, the question then which naturally follows is this: Is the Homer McKee plan the one we should adopt to bring about this result? Talks as Citizen “I shall make some observations touching these two points at issue. In what I have to say tonight, I should like it definitely understood that I represent no organization. I am the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce. I have been active for years in Chamber of Commerce work, but in no sense do I represent the Chamber of Commerce in what I have to say. I am here tonight as a private citizen. I assume the representation of no one except myself. I do, however, hope what I have to say will reflect the sentiment of the very great majority of the business and professional people of this city. “It ls our contention that we do want very much that Indianapolis should suddenly come to realize its potential power and that, somehow, some way, we should immediately set about to measure up as a city to that potential power. We want a city here at the crossroads of America of 1,000,000 population! We want thriving, driving industry and distributing activity, and if you please, a civic responsibility that measures up to a city of 1,000,000 population. “In the first place, we are moved to the ambition because of civic pride. Our spirit of loyalty to the community in which we live Is challenged. Tlie recognition of Individual responsibility as detailed by Homer McKee may have been lacking up to this time, but not from now on. Loyalty Challenged “We are a proud, red-blooded people here in Indianapolis, and when our pride and loyally are challenged, we meet that challenge by action. It may be our spirit of pride has been dormant. Our civic sensibilities may have beer dulled, but even with that, what one of us does not react with a feeling of joy when something worth while has happened which reflects glory on the city of Indianapolis? What one of us is so dulled in our civic pride, that he do& not feel a pang of sorrow when something happens to’ the benefit of Kansas City, Mo.. Toledo, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio, or some other city, when in our judgment it should have been done to the advantage of Indianapolis? So I say we are proud. We want Indianapolis to grow. Wo want to see here, at the crossroads of America, a city of a million people. "May T not remind you that among all the cities of this nation, our city was finally selected as the site for the greatest memorial shrine ever erected to the memory of man. The Memorial Plaza is now an assured reality. One building has been completed and others are being placed under contract. It is up to us to build a city around that memorial shrine to justify the confidence and judgment of those who honored our city with this magnificent undertaking. For decades we have enjoyed the glory which came to us from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on the Circle. We built a great city around that monument. Greater glory is coming to us in the future because of the Plaza Memorial. So we must build a greater city around that monument that we may come to deserve the glory which will he ours. Industrial Age. “We are living in a very practical industrial age. However sentimental and reactionary wp may be, we can not get away from the real fact that human progress is marching on, hand in hand with industrial and commercial accomplishment. If there be those who claim we should not stimulate our industrial and population growth by organized methods, let me remind them that others will take advantage of our inactivity and draw from us the wealth and industrial glory which should be ours. If such a thing should happen there is no question in my mind that tills community would suffer in social and civic progress. Wo do not want that thing to happen. ReIF SHAPLEY’S Original STOMACH MEDICINE relieved thousands of others of bad stomach trouble, WHY do you doubt that it can relieve you! Try one bottle and be convinced. HOOK’S DEPENDABLE DRUG STORES AND ALL GOOD DRUG ETCHES.

member tiiis, in this industrial age, there is competition in city building the same as we find in individual busines enterprises, and if we do not organize for growth, we shall finally succumb to those cities which do organize. “Now, finally, there is one very potent reason why we should promote new business enterprises to swell the population of this city. It is a very human reason, quite personal, indeed, to most all of us. It is based upon the law of self-preser-vation—selfishness. Represents Business “In this particular instance, I assume to represent thousands of small business men. I represent big business men who sell to tho small business man. I represent bankers who receive deposits from all kinds of business. I represent the real es'ate dealer and the real estate owners, I represent railroads, the traction lines and public utilities. 1 represent labor, which depends for Its hire on business enterprises. I represent every charity organization, every hospital and every church. Indeed, I assume to represent the civil and school governments of the city. All of these must selfishly proclaim that their prosperity Is dependent upon the industrial and commercial prosperity of the community at large. I say to you, Mr. Chairman, we are nil anxious because of this self-preservation reason for anew spirit of industrial and commercial expansion in Indianapolis! "Here at the crossroads of America we want to see a city of a million population. Wo all know this city does not now enjoy the prosperity it deserves, and we know something can be done to create greater opportunity for nil kinds of business, and we know t..at opportunity must come through a very practical program of industrial expansion and population growth. “Now, what of Homer McKee’s plan? If there was no other reason for adopting this plan to stimulate our growth, it would be sufficient to say we approve of it because It is the only concrete plan ever presented to do the thing which we all desire should be done. If this city has been lacking in any one thing in the past it has been in leadership. If Homer McKee or any one else comes to the front now as a leader in concrete thought, I say It is up to us to follow that leadership. In listening to this proposed plan of action I can see nothing to cricise. Chamber Lacks Funds “Someone says, why should wc have an outside prganization to do this thing, why isn’t it the province of tho Chamber of Commerce? If we were a freer giving community and had the enthusiasm of all the peoplo mobilized in the Chamber of Commerce organization, I think It could be done by the Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Chairman, we face a condition and not a theory. I happen to know the Chamber of Commerce cannot do this thing because of an uttter lack of funds. "In passing, let mo sny to those who are prone to criticise the Chamber of Commerce for its seeming inactivity in promoting industry, that so long ns the Chamber of Commerce is so illy provided with funds, wo need not expect marvelous results from that source; so long as we here in Indianapolis sit complacently by with a contribution of 50 per cent under even the much smaller city of Columbus, Ohio, with Kansas City giving to her Chamber of Commerce three times what wo give here; with Louisville, Ky., Toledo nnd other neighboring cities supplying funds all out of proportion to what we give our chamber, we need not expect to reap a reward from our Chamber of Commerce activities comparable at all to what ls done In other cities. “Someone says, if the Chamber of Commerce would change its attitude nnd devote more of Its energies to building up industries It would draw more freely from business men nnd women In the city. Os

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FEB. 19, 1026

course the answer to tliat is wi | must have the money first. 1, in\ self, stand on both sides of tin question. I believe if the Chambei of Commerce should give more at tention to conserving the Industrie we already have anT! work mw energetically to bring others In, w> would crealo a better spirit for tin Chamber of Commerce In the coni niunlty. It Is my honest convietloi the spirit of the Chamber of Com merco iH adjusting itself to tlx present needs of this community, predict, that under the leadershii of Nick Noyes and the men ho has drawn around him, no business wil havo reason to complain of ibo m tivitles in the future. But lot m* remind you that while our finance? demand that wo shall pay $3 000 s year to an Industrial secretary, am competing cities pay from $7,000 1< $15,000, we can not expect to get comparable results. Every One Responsible “Now is the time for us all to get together in this community. If Homer McKee never accomplishes anything other in presenting Ihis plan than to drive home to us our Individual responsibility in tho business community, he would have earned our everlasting commendation ami esteem. He says wo all sit by ami let the Chamber of Commerce do it. If W'e do not take our place In tlnChamber of Commerce and give ii our individual Bupport In money and time, how can wo export to get tinresults wo have a right to expect? If the Chamber of Commerco has drifted away from the fundamental principles upon which It wus founded, let’s all get in and change its course. This year the Chamber of Commerce is going Into anew home We get out of that old atmosphere this year. We will no longer be compelled to ride In those stuffy, sea sick elevators. We are going to have anew home. Let's all get back of it and make that home-warming a reul event. Let’s make It a civic holiday in Indianapolis, and lot that be the day when we bury all of our differences nnd march ns a solid army of Industrial builders, without petty prejudices, all for one and one for all, “But I am beside tho subject. 1 say we are facing a condition and not a theory. The McKee plan provides an outside organization, He has an executive conimittoo all ready to act and no man can deny the capacity of that executive committee. He proposes to raise a sum of money to be used to advertise the industrial and social advnntuges of the city of Indianapolis. Agrees With Plan “He propoMS that wo should cm ploy a sales manager who knows how to plan a sales program and who knows how to carry out that plan. With all this I am in happy accord, I don’t enro whether it is the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade or the Million Population Club. I am not interested in organization politics. I am Interested with every other business man In seeing this city grow. It seems to me tho only sure way we have of making this city a capable competitor for business with other cities ls to adopt this plan. lam quite sure I represent In this statement tho spirit of a great majority of nil the business institutions and business men and women in this community. We are ready to join this movement because Jt is tlu> only practical plan presented. We know this, too, If this flame flickers out it is going to be a long time before we get another light to lead us out of our social nnd industrial gloom. We are for this plan, because It seems to be a very practical program. Wo believe It is work able. “I acknowledge my Indebtedness ns a business man to Homer McKee's selling vision. I know I represent the thought of the community when I say wo are nil appreciative of his efforts to do something concrete to help build the city of Indianapolis into a bigger and better city.” $25,000 DAMAGES ASKED Complaint for $25,000 damages was filed In Superior Court Three today by Kfflo It. Ammon ngalnst Arthur L. Pchrsnn for Injuries *u talned last Dec. 1, in nn nutonioblle accident. Tin intiff charged she was crossing N. Delaware St. at Twen-ty-Second St., when a machine driven by Pchrsnn struc k In r.

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