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 Prologue:
At
this point President‑elect Harris entered the room and was
brought forward by the Sergeant‑at‑Arms.
Chairman Perry. Mr. Harris, the Chair intended to appoint a
committee to escort the President‑elect to the Chair, but it is
all right so long as he got here.
Mr. Harris, it is largely a matter of formality to talk to you
and turn over the National Association to you, inasmuch as we
are both members of the same club and have been associated
together in the work of bringing the National Organization into
existence; it is hard for me to make any speech in presenting
the gavel to you, but I want to say to you, sir, from the bottom
of my heart, that I believe the convention has acted most wisely
in selecting you to guide it during the next year, and it has
conferred the honor where it is due. I congratulate you upon
your selection and election to the presidency of the National
Association of Rotary Clubs, and hand you the gavel.
Gentlemen, your President‑elect, Mr. Paul P. Harris. (Applause.)
President Harris. Gentlemen of the National Association of
Rotary Clubs of America: I see there is no such thing as rest
during these conventions. I thought that I might be able to
steal away, if only for a few moments and get a little nap down
at the New Southern. We worked the first night until 1 o'clock,
last night until after 2, and I don't know whether we shall get
to bed at all to‑night; I do not expect to. This is too glorious
an occasion, and the honor is too great to permit of sleep from
now on. I can see that.
I
cannot tell you, gentlemen, how deeply I appreciate the honor
you have conferred upon me. When the permanent chairman was
handing me the gavel, he made the statement that he thought I
was entitled to the position, due to work, and if it were put on
that basis alone, I feel that there perhaps is some
justification in your having elevated me to this supreme office,
but I shall content myself with basing my conclusions entirely
on that point. That is, I firmly believe that there are many
more able men in this association than myself, and the only real
logical excuse, as I see it, for my preferment at this
particular moment, is that I have worked for a long time with
the end in view of bringing about a National Convention.
Of
course, the Rotary Club idea means much to me. It could not be
otherwise. I have been living with this project since 1904, and
during the major portion of that time it has been my conviction
that all of these things, or nearly all of these things which
have transpired now, would eventually come to pass. Sometimes, I
think that I myself am over optimistic. I am led to that
conclusion by reason of the fact that I find about me sane,
level headed business men who are not disposed to take the same
sanguine view of this situation that I am. I remember the time
that I first mentioned to the members of the Rotary Club in a
meeting gathered, the fact that it was my belief that, sooner or
later, the Rotary Club thought would spread throughout the land;
that even the most optimistic and the warmest of my friends
expressed their doubts, and I remember that one gentleman, whose
name it is not necessary for me to mention, out of pure loyalty
perhaps to me, made the statement that he would go with me as
far as it seemed practicable to go, and that from then on I
would have to excuse him. This sentiment was expressed
immediately after I had voiced the opinion that the Rotary Club
was bound to spread throughout this land.
I
would not really dare to tell you gentlemen, right now, what I
think about the future of this organization. If I were to do so,
I venture to say that there is not a man assembled here now who
would not say that I was a vagarist. But the thoughts and the
plans that I have for Rotary, transcend, I believe, anything
that has yet been expressed by any member of any Rotary Club. We
have undoubtedly a great many severe problems to confront us and
it is going to require a masterful spirit and a masterful energy
for us to cope successfully with those problems.
I
realize that in times past, in times during my incumbency of the
office of President of this local organization, that I proceeded
too rapidly. I realize that great bodies move slowly. I am
getting to realize that more and more as time goes on, and I
think that my past experience has served, at least to mellow my
judgment somewhat. I think perhaps that has been illustrated in
my own course in this particular convention. You did the honor
of placing me on what I consider vastly the most important
committee that was appointed by the Chair to do duty it this
convention. I think that the primary purpose of this convention
was to adopt the constitution and by‑laws. That we have
succeeded in doing. We have succeeded in coming together on this
project principally because every man who served on that
committee was animated by the one purpose, that of bringing
about a conclusion that would meet with the approbation of the
delegates present and of the Rotary Clubs throughout the United
States. It was not long after we had first assembled, that the
spirit of conciliation began to evidence itself. There were men
from New York and men from the Pacific Coast, and a man from the
extreme south, all with views as divergent as the points of the
compass which pointed to their location, but after we had
threshed the things over, I am pleased to say that the
transcendent spirit that animated the committee was a spirit of
conciliation. We all had our very different positive ideas when
we started out, as to what ought to be done. Those views were
vastly modified by the views of the others there, and modified
even further, much further by the thought that the gentlemen who
came here were not the only ones to be considered in this great
move, but that these gentlemen had their respective messages to
take back to their various organizations, and that those various
organizations bad to be pleased with the results of our
achievement here.
I
hope sincerely that that spirit will continue to manifest itself
in the work of the Rotary Clubs of America. That is all there is
to it, gentlemen. If we all succeed in learning the lesson which
I think, in my humble way, I have myself succeeded in learning,
that is all there is to it, and the grand ultimate success of
our organization is assured.
I
did not come here at the instance of these gentlemen, who came
to my hotel for me, with the end in view of making any set
speech. Something was said about set speeches in the early
progress of our convention, and I ventured the statement that I
did not believe that ever in the history of local Rotary Club,
had there been anything like a set speech by any of the members
of the association. It has all been attributable to the fact
that every man has been so full of his subject that he has not
felt the necessity of committing any speech to memory, or of
defining exactly, even in his own mind, that which he was about
to say.
I
don't know that there is anything more that I can say on this
occasion, except that I want to personally thank every member of
the Constitution Committee with whom I worked, and I want to
thank you gentlemen here assembled for the very extreme, if
perhaps not justified honor which you have bestowed upon me.
(Applause.)
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