THE INVENTOR of the first
Rotary club was more conscious of its deficiencies than anyone else. He
rejoiced to see it expand to helpfulness to others outside the membership
of the club, He dreamed of similar clubs in other cities.
Rotarians and other folks as well sometimes think that
Rotary advanced from city to city and from country to country very much as
Topsy grew. That it developed of its own accord and without effort on the
part of anyone. No, Rotary has not grown by virtue of the fact that a
suitable formula had been devised; it has become world wide in its
influence because of the untiring effort to extend it.
My relations with my friends of the Chicago club
constituted a remarkable illustration of the binding power of Rotary.
Notwithstanding the fact that Rotary had come to mean to me something very
different from what it still meant to some of them, our friendship
remained unaffected.
The Doubting Thomas's were ever present. There's but
one way to convince a Doubting Thomas and that is to do the thing he says
can't be done and on that basis the Doubting Thomas who said it would not
be possible to organize Rotary clubs in any city other than Chicago became
convinced that it could and should be done.
It was disappointing to me but most of my fellow
Chicago Rotarians refused to be stampeded into my "Rotary Around the
World" phantasy. Nothing is more disconcerting than the blank look of
friends to whom one's hopes are unintelligable. I soon learned that the
best way to get things done was to do them myself.
So I proceeded to address myself to the task of getting
Rotary Clubs started in cities throughout the United States. In this work
circumstances required that the effort be made by correspondence. My
classmates in the three universities, Vermont, Princeton, and Iowa, and
friends I had made in my five years of vagabondage were my natural
recourse.
It was a long and frequently a painful grind; there
were headaches and heartaches in plenty, but there were also periods of
joy and elation. And all the while I was trying to keep up my law
practice.
Three long years passed before the first victory was
scored. To find the right man to organize a Rotary Club in a given city
was not easy. Manuel Munoz proved to be the right man to carry the message
to San Francisco. He had been my room mate in the Del Prado Hotel in
Chicago and was fairly well versed in Rotary. While on a business trip to
San Francisco, then rebuilding after its earthquake and fire, Munoz
interested Homer Wood, a lawyer, and put him into correspondence with me.
The result was that in November, 1908 we had our second Rotary club. As if
that were not enough, alert San Franciscans organized Rotary club number
three in Oakland, club number four in Seattle, and club number five in Los
Angeles. New York and Boston were next and other cities followed. Some of
the Doubting Thomases were won over and joined in the extension work.
And so it went on from city to city and eventually from
country to country and my five years of vagabondage served me in good
stead. After all, I was only leading Rotary over trails I had already
blazed.
Had my leadership been more skillful or my plans more
definitely worked out in advance, I doubtless could have secured the full
cooperation of Chicago Rotarians and gone forward with a solid front. As a
matter of fact, my conception of Rotary was undergoing evolutionary
processes, almost revolutionary at times. I had preached the doctrine of
carefree fellowship. I had been freest of the free, gayest of the gay, my
voice had lead in song and laughter. Members were satisfied with that
order. Now was something quite different. In this dilemna, it seemed
easier to organize new clubs with new and progressive thoughts than to
reconvert old members.
Our success in the United States inspired us to project
Rotary over the boundary line into Canada. After two unsuccessful attempts
the right man eventually was interested and the first club outside the
United States was organized in Winnipeg, Canada. Other Canadian cities
followed Winnipeg's lead.
Flushed with success, we then felt that it was of vital
importance to get things started in Great Britain and of course, London
was the choice of all cities. To win London to the movement was a grand
objective and in course of time, the opportunity opened up.
My friend Arthur Frederic Sheldon had a representative
in London and was soon to visit him. Rotarian Harvey C. Wheeler of Boston
had his business located both in Boston and London. It was not difficult
for Sheldon to enthuse his representative, E. Sayer Smith, and with the
cooperation of Wheeler, the Rotary Club of London was organized. Wheeler
became its first president. There are seventy fine Rotary clubs in greater
London now and the total number of Rotarians in that city exceeds the
number of any other city in the world.
Having gotten their hands in. Sheldon and Smith went to
Manchester and duplicated their London achievement. I was pluming myself
on having initiated the first two British Clubs when Secretary Perry and I
learned that Stuart Morrow, an Irishman who had learned about Rotary while
travelling in the United States, had upon his return to Dublin proceeded
to organize a Rotary club there. He had already moved on to Belfast.
Needless to say we contacted Morrow at once and authorized and encouraged
him to continue his labors in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, and
Liverpool. The five hundred Rotary clubs subsequently developed in Great
Britain and Ireland have been a bulwark for the movement.
The Latin American countries were next to occupy our
attention and we soon interested an American business man who had business
which took him to Havana, Cuba. He was a man of high ideals and much
ability and though he spent some time for Rotary in Havana he was entirely
unsuccessful and returned convinced that Rotary was an Anglo-Saxon idea
that could not be understood or accepted by other races, but two members
of the Tampa, Florida, Rotary Club, Angel Cuesta and John Turner,
subsequently proved that my emissary to Cuba was mistaken and those who
have been privileged to become acquainted with our splendid Latin American
Rotarians of today know how erroneous his conclusions were. Cuesta and
Turner organized a good club in Havana, Cuba, and Cuesta, pleased with his
success, made a trip to his native country, Spain, and organized a Rotary
Club in Madrid; the first club on the continent of Europe.
Angel not only financed his trip to Spain but before
leaving gave a substantial sum of money to further community service in
the city of his nativity. Having accomplished his self-appointed task,
Angel returned to his adopted country with never a word of his exploits
except as the facts were drawn from him. This man knew not what he had
done. He had opened up both Latin America and Europe for Rotary.
Heriberto Coates of Montevideo learned of Rotary while
on a visit to the United States and went home to develop Clubs in
Montevideo, Buenos Aires and other South American cities.
Fred Teele, an American civil engineer gave up an
eighteen thousand dollar per year position in Mexico, after having served
as president of the Mexico City Rotary Club, to accept a five thousand
dollar job spreading Rotary in Europe on the foundation laid by Cuesta and
others who had sown the seed in France, Holland, Denmark and other
countries. Teele's labors culminated in the opening of an office of the R.
I. secretariat in Zurich, Switzerland.
Two Canadian Rotarians, "Jim" Davidson of Calgary and
Col. J. L. Ralston of Halifax, gave their time gratuitously to open up
Australia and New Zealand. Rotary had by that time become prosperous
enough to pay their expenses. Some years later Davidson undertook the
organization of clubs in Southern Europe, Egypt, India, the Straits
Settlements, Siam, China, and Japan, thus completing the round-the-world
chain. He worked without compensation other than the expenses of himself
and wife. This trip of the Davidsons took three years. Jim left America
with full understanding that he had not long to live. He lasted until the
completion of his task but died soon after his return.
While the cases mentioned above are conspicuous
examples it may in truth be said that many thousands of Rotarians of high
standing in business affairs have given of themselves generously in the
cause of Rotary. The gratuitous work of devoted Rotarians in widening the
sphere of Rotary's usefulness has been amazing.
Everywhere in North America Rotary Clubs came into
existence by the hundreds and the thousands. Professional organizers were
unnecessary. Every club had the impulse to pass on to other cities the
idea which it had found so beneficial in its city. Clubs were grouped into
districts and local Rotarians were elected annually as "district
governors." They accepted the responsibility for extension in their
districts and for the further advancement of Rotary's objects and
practices. They and their colleagues, the governors of districts in all
parts of the world, have been and always will be the great unifying and
steadying force of Rotary.
While the record of extension is one of the most
interesting chapters in Rotary history, the development of its ideals and
practices has gone on apace. Deeds preceded the written word. After
service had been rendered in manifold forms, the word "service" with all
its varied meanings and implications was written in the Rotary plan.
Rotary expanded from a local group, gathered together in the city of
Chicago for mutual advantage and fellowship, to an organization of
international vision and unquestionable nobility of purpose.
Hundreds of small cities and towns, all but dead so far
as civic consciousness was concerned, took on new life after they
organized their Rotary clubs. Clean-up campaigns were inaugurated, Boy
Scout troops were given leadership and support. Boys bands were organized.
Languishing chambers of commerce were revived and new ones started. Boys
camps were established. Rotarians were more than propagandists; they
frequently constituted the entire working force. Those who could not
contribute money, contributed labor. Rotarians in small towns became
jacks-of-all-trades during the construction of camps. Anyone who could
drive a nail could qualify as a carpenter, while druggists and grocers
became bricklayers and plumbers when occasion demanded. The women served
appetizing lunches and eventually won for themselves the endearing term of
Rotaryanns. There never had been such doings since barn-raising days.
Those who had stoutly maintained that it was sheer
idiocy to assert that Rotary was destined to make itself at home
throughout the civilized world finally had to lower their colors; and yet
that was my prediction at the first convention of Rotary Clubs held in
Chicago in 1910, and again at Convention number two held at Portland,
Oregon in 1911.
My contribution to the international scope of the
movement came as the direct consequence of my five years of romantic
vagrancy. How otherwise could I have had the vision of Rotary Clubs in
London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and other cities throughout
the world? Some other person might have had the vision but not I.
There is wisdom in the expression, "There is nothing
new under the sun." Perhaps the most unique feature of Rotary is its
so-called classification plan by which membership is restricted to one
representative of each business and profession, but two centuries before
the conception of Rotary a social club existed in London the membership of
which was based on vocational classifications, and Ben Franklin organized
his "Junto" in Philadelphia on the classification plan. Many years ago "La
Societe des Philantropes," with its headquarters in Strasbourg, France,
was almost identical with Rotary in its idealism and purposes. Needless to
say that knowledge of these organizations of the past did not come to the
attention of the founders of Rotary until long after its birth.
The question is often asked; "Why do Rotary clubs limit
membership to one man from each distinct business or profession?" Because
our experiment has proved in operation that it makes for congenial
fellowship, obviates business and professional jealousies, encourages
mutual helpfulness, stimulates pride in the dignity of one's occupation,
and broadens one's mind and sympathy with regard to the accomplishments
and problems of other occupations.
There are many organizations the membership of which is
confined to one profession or trade. Such organizations play exceedingly
important parts in the modern world. They enable men of a given trade or
profession to come together to exchange ideas and experiences and to
discuss problems of common interest. No one thinks of them as exclusive,
though they exclude all not engaged in their particular profession or
trade; their success depends upon their so doing. An association of
surgeons does not admit to their membership a manufacturer or a
merchandiser. The success of the organization and its promise of
usefulness depends upon its exclusion of men not versed in the science of
surgery.
And while it is true that a surgeon can gain much from
contact with his fellow surgeons, one who has social contact with surgeons
only would become a dull fellow. He needs the broadening influence of
contacts with those engaged in other professions and business
undertakings. He will obtain such contacts to a limited extent in his
church and social club, but the church and club are not organized to fill
the particular need. If one is admitted to membership in a Rotary club, he
will enjoy the broadening influence of contact with men of all vocations.
And it must not be overlooked that being a Rotarian
imposes upon a man an obligation to carry into his trade association the
ideals and precepts which he holds as a Rotarian. He should endeavor to
make them appreciated and get them accepted by all in his line of
business.
The writer is a member of the American Bar Association,
Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, and for two
years had the honor of being chairman of the committee on professional
ethics of the latter, a member of other committees, a delegate of the
Chicago Bar Association to the International Congress on Comparative Law
at the Hague, and a member of the International Committee of the American
Bar Association. All positions afforded remarkable opportunities to carry
the Rotary ideal of service to his profession. There are between eight and
nine thousand lawyers in the city of Chicago, and the Chicago Bar
Association has been doing titanic work in raising the standards of
practice. Nearly three hundred lawyers have been made to walk the plank
because they would not observe the canons of good practice.
Incidentally I was honored not only in being asked to
serve at the Hague Conference but also by the fact that America's greatest
legal scholar, Dean John H. Wigmore, was one of the two other
representatives of the Chicago Bar Association. Dean Wigmore's body now
lies in Arlington Cemetery in Washington but I am proud of my association
with him at the Hague where a deep and lasting friendship was begun.
