Rotary's Power for World Peace

Conventions

MESSAGE TO THE CONVENTION

Purposeless or merely traditional limitation has no place in Rotary.

President Emeritus Paul P. Harris

Welcome, Rotary, welcome, welcome back home. You have grown enormously since last we saw you assembled in convention in our city of Chicago. We hardly know you. You have done a great deal of traveling. You have climbed the highest mountains and crossed o'er all the seas.

Our hearts are as warm as ever they were in the days ‑ the dear old days - of long ago. Welcome, welcome, thrice welcome back home. This is our Silver Jubilee, but we extend you a golden welcome, back home.

There is likely to be much mysticism surrounding the genesis of great movements. I am glad that you are here to learn how simply and naturally the birth of Rotary came about. You will meet no long bearded prophets here, but you will find friends here without number. You will meet the old boys who gathered together in the old days, the dear old days of 1905. This is Silvester, Harry, Rufe, Fred, Charlie, Al, Bill, Barney, Doc, and a dozen others. They were a loyal crowd in 1905. They are a loyal crowd today.

They were happy days, the days of 1905. We were a small self‑centered group. It has been said at times that we were selfish. If it is selfish to center your affections upon your immediate friends instead of spreading them over a wider area, then we were selfish. Possibly parents may be considered selfish in the interests of their children. We were selfish in the interests of our friends. I prefer to think of the spirit of the early days as self‑centered, rather than selfish.

While the members of the 1905 group vary greatly in their interpretation of the spirit of 1905, even as Rotarians of the present day vary, none would be satisfied with the characterization of selfish. Harry Ruggles, my energetic companion in Rotary, says that no relationship which he has ever experienced in life has been quite so sweet, quite so delightful as the spirit of concentrated friendliness which characterized the early days of Rotary in Chicago. Of course the fact is that Harry looked down into his own heart and read the answer there. He couldn't have found anything sordid or selfish in his heart. And after all, that is the best any of us can do now when we seek to interpret the spirit of Rotary. We look down into our own hearts and determine what is to be found there.

Rotary was an oasis in the social desert of a great city. In its sacred precincts we threw off business cares and formalities and became boys again. I am not ashamed of the Rotary of 1905. It contained the germ of all that there is today, although it was at first very much self‑centered.

"Can anything good come out of Chicago?" The primitive conception of Rotary came out of Chicago, and then a vision opened up, a vision of an immeasurably expanded and useful Rotary founded upon friendship, that attribute of mankind which had so nobly proved its dependability on the proving ground in Chicago.

The yearly, daily, hourly spirit of Rotary should be the spirit of the Renaissance. We need men of microscopic visions who will explore the molecules, atoms and electrons, but we also need men of telescopic vision who will explore the stars.

Every transition from restricted vision to broad vision has had its "doubting Thomases" and men who have loudly proclaimed, "It can't be done."

Can Rotary clubs be established in cities other than Chicago? No, it can't be done. Very well, we are specializing on the impossible; it must be done. Can Rotary clubs be established in countries other than the United States of America? No. Guess again; you are wrong. Can Rotary clubs succeed in cities of less than fifty thousand inhabitants? No. Well, we shall show you that they can succeed in villages of less than 1,000 inhabitants. Can more than one Rotary club be successfully maintained in a city? No. We will show you that more than fifty Rotary clubs can be successfully maintained in one city. The Rotarians of the City of London, England, have an excellent research department. They scrapped a useless precedent that stood in the way of their natural and proper growth, thereby putting themselves in numerical ascendancy of the entire Rotary world.

In the battle between the "can'ts" and the "cans" in Rotary, the "can'ts" have never won a single permanent victory to my knowledge. The broad visions, the nobler purposes have always won.

We celebrate February 23, 1905, as the birthday of Rotary. With equal propriety we might celebrate the date of the renaissance. What would there have been to celebrate in Chicago today had it not been for the new birth, the renaissance. By its virtue friendly men and women of many nations have been gathered together in Chicago in the spirit of "Peace on earth, good will toward all men."

What of the morrow?

Is there any lesson to be learned from the past?

In studying great movements, it seems to me that it is with them as it is with individuals. The formative period is the early period. The youthful mind is impressionable, the mature mind has become set. As movements get older, they become institutionalized. Tradition hampers the exercise of reason. Conventionalities enter and assume undue importance. Unworthy and irrational features are permitted to continue merely because they have always been. No one cares to disturb precedent even though it may be manifest that its reason, if there was one, no longer exists. The spirit becomes lost in the letter of the law.

The human animal differs from others of the animal kingdom in that it is normally progressive. The only thing that can hold the advance of the human animal long in check is precedent.

Rotary is a social movement and as such is in danger of the blighting efforts of precedent. It has already suffered from the plague.

But Rotary is an organization of business men and modern business is almost revolutionary in its thoughts and methods. It does not hesitate to scrap millions of dollars worth of machinery in the interests of better business.

Social movements defend their precedents. Business ruthlessly demolishes them. To put it differently, social movements proceed on the theory that all is right. Modern business goes on the theory that all is wrong. The natural consequence is that one stands still and the other makes progress.

Business employs its own critics (research men) and pays them munificent salaries. They probe into the vitals of great machines to detect their weaknesses in order that they may condemn them. Rotary has no critics on its salaried list. They are all on the outside and while their work is not without virtue, it is also not without vice. Rotary needs a department for constructive criticism. Something comparable to the research departments of great business. If Rotary is to realize its proper destiny, it must be evolutionary at all times, revolutionary on occasions.

Rotary must be creative and not merely receptive. The genius of big business men must be directed to the task of finding new ways and means of making practical the term "The brotherhood of man." Rotary's internationality places us in a splendid strategic position for participation in activities not yet dreamed of in a manner adapted to our present program.

Rotary has conducted some important experiments, the advantages of which we may now enjoy. Other values are being discovered and if the spirit of youth and of adventure, the spirit of the renaissance, continues as it should and if convention and precedent are kept within bounds other great opportunities will be revealed to us. While suffering and want continue to be the order of the day in many parts of the world, there will be no dearth of opportunity. Starvation by the millions in one quarter of the globe while embarrassing surpluses of foodstuffs exist in others is abhorrent to the concept of a well ordered world and in violation of the principles of good business.

What time of day is it on the Rotary clock? It is the hour of daybreak. The day is before us and it is full of promise. In the freshness of hope which characterizes the research departments of big business, let us set about our task.

Business recognizes no unnecessary limitations short of the saturation point and even the saturation point is made to do obeisance to the urge forward. What would big business think of limiting its sales to six hundred customers in a city of three and a half million people, as Rotary limits its benefits to six hundred members? Has Chicago, Rotarily speaking, reached its saturation point?

Limitation of one Rotary club to each city has proved itself not to be of the essence of Rotary, nor has limitation to one nation nor limitation to large cities. Purposeless or merely traditional limitation has no place in Rotary.

The classification plan in the long run, makes for expansion, not for contraction. It is not the aim to make Rotary an exclusive movement, it is the aim to make its membership representative and to place this responsibility of representation upon the shoulders of each individual member. This principle observed, unlimited expansion is in order. London may continue to multiply its Rotary clubs until the saturation point shall have been reached. What is the saturation point? It is the point when every potential Rotarian shall have become a Rotarian in fact. New clubs need not necessarily be limited to any particular part of the city. There is room for a score of Rotary clubs in the downtown district of Chicago. Nothing except outgrown and outworn tradition stands in the way. Instead of one Rotarian for every ten thousand inhabitants as is the case in some of our large cities, there may be one for every one hundred inhabitants as is the case in smaller towns. Rotary need not necessarily be a small town movement, nor must Rotary confine its teachings to its membership.

Rotary suggests the happiness to be found in service. Rotary holds to the idea of the stewardship of wealth but we need not be wealthy in material things in order to serve others. Many a man's outlook is different after he becomes a Rotarian. He learns to see his opportunities for service here and there, at home and abroad. To a Rotarian opportunity for service is always at hand.

What time of day is it on the Rotary clock?

We are just in time to witness the break of day. The clouds in the east are slowly giving way. A roseate blush is beginning to mantle the sky. A meadow lark half wakened from its slumbers emits a sleepy trill of liquid tones. The grass is cool with dew and the sweet fragrance of wild flowers fills the air, the gladdest, happiest hour of the entire day it is, so full of praise.

Twenty‑five years is but an instant on the clock of time. Let us rejoice during this morning hour and make plans for the day when our children and our children's children will be carrying on. (Applause.)

Mr. and Mrs. Paul P. Harris were escorted to the platform while the audience stood and applauded.

President Newsom: And now, my friends, it is a tremendous pleasure to present to you in person, President Emeritus Paul P. Harris and his wife.

Gentlemen, it is regretted greatly that Paul can't speak to you this morning. He would love to, but you realize, of course, that in a gathering of this kind, after twenty‑five years of activity, there must be that emotion which would inevitably result should he attempt at this time to speak to you, but he is looking at you face to face. (Applause.)

Regardless of his physician's orders, Paul Harris stepped up to the microphone.

President Emeritus Harris: I think that if ever in the future a substitute is to be appointed for me as speaker, I hope that that substitute may be either one of the two gentlemen who have so ably represented me here this morning. I do, however, entertain fond hopes that on some future occasion I shall be able to appear in my own person and read or deliver a message to you.

The doctors tell me that I am not to say very much, only a brief sentence perhaps, but how under the sun could I in any brief sentence impart to you even a vestige of the sentiments that are welling up into my heart as I witness this vast concourse ?

I have tried to think what is there that I can say to you in a sentence or so that will be of more interest to you than any other thing that I might possibly say, and in order to determine what that something might be, I have tried to put myself in your places. I have tried to think as you would think. What is there that you would like particularly to hear from me? If I were standing where you are and a man who had been twenty‑five years in this movement were standing where I am, it seems to me that I would want to ask that old‑timer the question, "Well, how do you like it now?" (Applause.)

They say I have got to stop, so I will say merely, "I like it very well. God bless you all." (Applause.)

Mrs. Paul Harris: I just want to say how happy we are to be here today and to be with you, to meet you all, to meet those who have done so much. We who have done so little, deeply appreciate seeing you all and meeting you who have done so much. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. (Applause.)

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