When the armistice was signed in November, 1918, the Association immediately canvassed the neighborhood to erect a suitable Tribute House, as a memorial to the eighty-three Merion boys who had gone into the Great War:  a public building which would comprise a community centre, with an American Legion Post room, a Boy Scout house, an auditorium, and a meeting-place for the civic activities of Merion.  A subscription was raised, and plans were already drawn for the Tribute House, when Mr. Eldridge R. Johnson, president of the Victor Talking Machine Company, one of the strong supporters of The Merion Civic Association, presented his entire estate of twelve acres, the finest in Merion, to the community, and agreed to build a Tribute House at his own expense.  The grounds represented a gift of two hundred thousand dollars, and the building a gift of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  This building, now about to be erected, will be one of the most beautiful and complete community centres in the United States.

Perhaps no other suburban civic effort proves the efficiency of community co-operation so well as does the seven years’ work of The Merion Civic Association.  It is a practical demonstration of what a community can do for itself by concerted action.  It preached, from the very start, the gospel of united service; it translated into actual practice the doctrine of being one’s brother’s keeper, and it taught the invaluable habit of collective action.  The Association has no legal powers; it rules solely by persuasion; it accomplishes by the power of combination; by a spirit of the community for the community.

When The Merion Civic Association was conceived, the spirit of local pride was seemingly not present in the community.  As a matter of fact, it was there as it is in practically every neighborhood; it was simply dormant; it had to be awakened, and its value brought vividly to the community consciousness.

CHAPTER XVI

THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S INFLUENCE

When the virile figure of Theodore Roosevelt swung down the national highway, Bok was one of thousands of young men who felt strongly the attraction of his personality.  Colonel Roosevelt was only five years the senior of the editor; he spoke, therefore, as one of his own years.  The energy with which he said and did things appealed to Bok.  He made Americanism something more real, more stirring than Bok had ever felt it; he explained national questions in a way that caught Bok’s fancy and came within his comprehension.  Bok’s lines had been cast with many of the great men of the day, but he felt that there was something distinctive about the personality of this man:  his method of doing things and his way of saying things.  Bok observed everything Colonel Roosevelt did and read everything he wrote.