Clubs and club etiquette

A club, as every one knows, is merely an organization of people—men or women or both—who establish club rooms, in which they meet at specified times for specified purposes, or which they use casually and individually. A club's membership may be limited to a dozen or may include several thousands, and the procedure in joining a club may be easy or difficult, according to the type of club and the standing of the would-be member.

Membership in many athletic associations may be had by walking in and paying dues; also many country golf-clubs are as free to the public as country inns; but joining a purely social club of rank and exclusiveness is a very different matter. A man to be eligible for membership in such a club must not only be completely a gentleman, but he must have friends among the members who like him enough to be willing to propose him and second him and write letters for him; and furthermore he must be disliked by no one—at least not sufficiently for any member to object seriously to his company.

There are two ways of joining a club; by invitation and by making application or having it made for you. To join by invitation means that you are invited when the club is started to be one of the founders or charter members, or if you are a distinguished citizen you may at the invitation of the governors become an honorary member, or in a small or informal club you may become an ordinary member by invitation or suggestion of the governors that you would be welcome. A charter member pays dues, but not always an initiation fee; an honorary member pays neither dues nor initiation, he is really a permanent guest of the club. A life member is one who pays his dues for twenty years or so in a lump sum, and is exempted from dues even if he lives to be a hundred. Few clubs have honorary members and none have more than half a dozen, so that this type of membership may as well be disregarded.

The ordinary members of a club are either resident, meaning that they live within fifty miles of the club; or non-resident, living beyond that distance and paying less dues but having the same privileges.

In certain of the London clubs, one or two New York ones, and the leading club in several other cities, it is not unusual for a boy's name to be put up for membership as soon as he is born. If his name comes up while he is a minor, it is laid aside until after his twenty-first birthday and then put at the head of the list of applicants and voted upon at the next meeting of the governors.

In all clubs in which membership is limited and much sought after, the waiting list is sure to be long and a name takes anywhere from five to more than ten years to come up.

How A Name Is " Put Up"

Since a gentleman is scarcely likely to want to join a club in which the members are not his friends, he tells a member of his family, or an intimate friend, that he would like to join the Nearby Club, and adds, " Do you mind putting me up? I will ask Dick to second me." The friend says, " I'll be very glad to, " and Dick says the same. It is still more likely that the suggestion to join comes from a friend, who says one day, " Why don't you join the Nearby Club? It would be very convenient for you." The other says, " I think I should like to, " and the first replies, " Let me put you up, and Dick will be only too glad to second you."

It must be remembered that a gentleman has no right to ask any one who is not really one of his best friends to propose or second him. It is an awkward thing to refuse in the first place, and in the second it involves considerable effort, and on occasion a great deal of annoyance and trouble.

For example let us suppose that Jim Smartlington asks Donald Lovejoy to propose him and Clubwin Doe to second him. His name is written in the book kept for the purpose and signed by both proposer and seconder:

Smartlington, James
Proposer: Donald Lovejoy
Seconder: Clubwin Doe

Nothing more is done until the name is posted—meaning that it appears among a list of names put up on the bulletin-board in the club house. It is then the duty of Lovejoy and Doe each to write a letter of endorsement to the governors of the club, to be read by them when they hold the meeting at which his name comes up for election.

Example:

Board of Governors,
The Nearby Club.

Dear sirs:

It affords me much pleasure to propose for membership in the Nearby Club Mr. James Smartlington. I have known Mr. Smartlington for many years and consider him qualified in every way for membership.

He is a graduate of Yalvard, class 1916, rowed on the Varsity crew, and served in the 180th, as 1st Lieut., overseas during the war. He is now in his father's firm (Jones, Smartlington & Co.).

Yours very truly,
Donald Lovejoy.

Lovejoy must also at once tell Smartlington to ask about six friends who are club-members (but not governors) to write letters endorsing him. Furthermore, the candidate can not come up for election unless he knows several of the governors personally, who can vouch for him at the meeting. Therefore Lovejoy and Doe must one or the other take Smartlington to several governors (at their offices generally) and personally present him, or very likely they invite two or three of the governors and Smartlington to lunch.

Even under the best of circumstances it is a nuisance for a busy man to have to make appointments at the offices of other busy men. And since it is uncertain which of the governors will be present at any particular meeting, it is necessary to introduce the candidate to a sufficient number so that at least two among those at the meeting will be able to speak for him.

In the example we have chosen, Clubwin Doe, having himself been a governor and knowing most of the present ones very well, has less difficulty in presenting his candidate to them than many other members might have, who, though they have for years belonged to the club, have used it so seldom that they know few, if any, of the governors even by sight.

At the leading woman's club of New York, the governors appoint an hour on several afternoons before elections when they are in the visitors' rooms at the club house on purpose to meet the candidates whom their proposers must present. This would certainly seem a more practicable method, to say nothing of its being easier for everyone concerned, than the masculine etiquette which requires that the governors be stalked one by one, to the extreme inconvenience and loss of time and occasionally the embarrassment of every one.

As already said, Jim Smartlington, having unusually popular and well-known sponsors and being also very well liked himself, is elected with little difficulty.

But take the case of young Breezy: He was put up by two not well-known members, who wrote half-hearted endorsements themselves and did nothing about getting letters from others; they knew none of the governors, and trusted that two who knew Breezy slightly " would do." His casual proposer forgot that enemies write letters as well as friends—and that moreover enmity is active where friendship is often passive. Two men who disliked his " manner" wrote that they considered him " unsuitable, " and as he had no friends strong enough to stand up for him, he was turned down. A gentleman is rarely " black-balled, " as such an action could not fail to injure him in the eyes of the world. (The expression " black ball" comes from the custom of voting for a member by putting a white ball in a ballot box, or against him by putting in a black one.) If a candidate is likely to receive a black ball, the governors do not vote on him at all, but inform the proposer that the name of his candidate would better be withdrawn. Later on, if the objection to him is disproved or overcome, his name can again be put up.

The more popular the candidate, the less work there is for his proposer and seconder. A stranger—if he is not a member of the representative club in his own city—would have need of strong friends to elect him to an exclusive one in another, and an unpopular man has no chance at all.

However, in all except very rare instances events run smoothly; the candidate is voted on at a meeting of the board of governors and is elected.

A notice is mailed to him next morning, telling him that he has been elected and that his initiation fee and his dues make a total of so much. The candidate thereupon at once draws his check for the amount and mails it. As soon as the secretary has had ample time to receive the check, the new member is free to use the club as much or as little as he cares to.