Telegram from the Convention
San Francisco, Cal., 19th July, 1915.
THE ROTARIAN
Chicago, Ill.
Sixth annual
convention, International Association of Rotary Clubs,
opened this morning with great enthusiasm and splendid
attendance. A wonderful convention is assured. The San
Francisco and Oakland Rotarians are handling everything
in splendid fashion. Sorry every Rotarian cannot be
here.
CHESLEY R.
PERRY,
Secretary International Association of Rotary Clubs.
A
Convention Message from Paul P. Harris
Read at opening Session of Sixth Annual Convention
of International Association of Rotary Clubs at San
Francisco, Monday morning, July 19, 1915.
To
My Fellow Rotarians in Convention Assembled, Greetings:
HIGHER and higher rolls the tide of Rotary and graver and graver
grow the responsibilities. It's a real man's job to be a
Rotarian this July day in the year of our Lord, 1915, and
It's a grand thing in this period of the world's history, when
great nations are at war, to see two such standards raised aloft
as have been raised by two of the world's great organizations,
The International Association of Rotary Clubs and The Associated
Advertising Clubs of the World. "Truth" and "Service" herald the
dawn of a new day.
There has been a time, within the memory of man, when confession
of worthy impulse invited accusation of insincerity, when to
absolve themselves from cant, men were wont to proclaim
themselves bold and bad, when manliness meant moral cowardice
and tenderness was a weakness is of which even women might well
be ashamed.
The day has gone.
Men, your kind of men, big, hale, hearty, happy, manly men have
found happiness in brotherly love, have stifled self in their
confessed love to serve and have exalted truth.
Whence comes this change?
It
comes from the realization of the fact that, even everyday,
commonplace business men may admit to themselves the possession
of some of the virtues without the necessity of charging
themselves with hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy in some has laid low many worthy motives in others.
Normal minded men want to be as good as they can, and still be
genuine. Let us have all of the virtues which we can assimilate
without the cant.
The two great standards "Service" and "Truth" have been raised
by business men. It is fitting that the regenerative influences
of the hour should spring from the ranks of business men.
I
say that Rotary is growing. Manifestations of its material
growth may be found in the rapidly increasing number of clubs
and facilities for handling business.
I
wish that it might be the privilege of all Rotarians to visit
Secretary Perry's office and to see the wonders be has achieved
there. He, who finds himself suited to his work, is more
fortunate than he, who possesses great riches. Chesley Perry is
pre‑eminently adapted to the great work he has undertaken.
Yes, Rotary is materially growing, but its spiritual growth has
kept pace with its material development. Rotary brings out and
develops the best that there is in men.
It's a real man's job to be a Rotarian this day. It has been a
superman's job to be President of the International Association
during the year 1914‑1915. Thanks to kind Providence, the
super-man, Frank L. Mulholland, has been on the super‑job.
You will realize something of his great work when I remind you
that during the past year, he has addressed upwards of one
hundred Rotary clubs; that he has, been in Chicago ten times and
in New York fourteen times. His correspondence has been
voluminous and he has handled successfully many delicate and
trying situations.
Frank Mulholland's administration has been a glowing
exemplification of the doctrine he has taught, the doctrine of
“Service, not Self.” The benefits of his self sacrificing
efforts will live on till long after his day. No man will ever
be able to mark the limit of the good he has done.
All hail to Rotarians assembled in San Francisco; all honor to
California and to the Rotary Clubs of the Golden West. Long and
perseveringly have they striven; and patiently have they waited
for this day. May their fondest anticipations be realized, and
may the record of the Rotarian Convention of 1915 constitute
many of the most luminous pages of Rotarian history.
Advertising Is Business News
MODERN advertising is a social service as well as an industrial
necessity. The human race is one big social organism of many
divisions and with each division made rip of myriads of
component parts ‑ individuals. The European War has driven home
more forcibly than thousands of years of preaching the fact of
the interdependence of nations and countries. No nation is
sufficient unto itself ‑ unless it is willing to go back several
centuries in the scale of industrial and social development.
What has brought the nations of the world so much closer in
their relations than they have ever been? An ever widening
circle of mutual knowledge. For instance, Americans could not
sell American‑made farm machinery in Russia until after the
Russian farmers had learned something about American-made
farming machines. This knowledge has been disseminated by
advertising ‑ advertising by letter, by traveling salesmen, by
the printed word. The railroads, the steamships, the telegraph
and cable lines, the moving pictures, the talking machines, the
printing press, modern postal methods and systems; all of these
have been mediums for the transmission throughout the world of
knowledge of the activities of the human race. All of this is
advertising. That it is a social service no one can deny except
he at the same time deny that it is a service to bring to a
man's attention something which will aid his progress.
Recently the advertising World has made much use of a new word -
publicity. Advertising, publicity, information, knowledge. These
words might be used interchangeably. Words express the idea of
the person using them. They may suggest a very different idea to
the one reading or hearing them. Thus, to many readers, the word
"advertisement" means an effort by a man with something to sell
to persuade someone else to buy it whether the second party
needs it or wants it, or not. To many people the word in the
past has been synonymous with "bunk" or "lies," or "fraud."
The action of The Associated Advertising Clubs of the World in
adopting as their emblem the world with the word "Truth" in a
band about it, is prima facie evidence of the existence
somewhere in advertising of that which was not the truth. This
action is not negative, however. It is positive. It is evidence
that a change has come about in the business of advertising. The
emblem reflects a better idea back of the word which more and
more people are coming to have.
More and more are the publishers of newspapers and magazines
coming to understand that they have a personal responsibility in
accepting and printing advertise merits. Many have come to see
that when they publish an advertisement, in effect they say to
their readers:
"Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Blank, who sells clothing. You
need clothing and you are my friend. Why not patronize him. I'm
sure you will receive satisfactory service. If I didn't think so
I should not introduce him to you."
An
advertisement, whether in a newspaper, magazine, letter,
circular, speech, or on a billboard, is a statement to the
public that the advertiser has certain things of a certain
standard to sell, which a certain portion of the public needs or
wants. That is news. It is news of interest to the people who
may need or want the thing advertised. It is news, but not
specially interesting news, to the people who do not need or
want the thing advertised. It is news to the smaller number who
are undecided ‑ frequently because of lack of information ‑
whether they want it.
Advertising, even in the narrowest conception, is news. It is
just as much news as the matter in the so‑called "news columns"
of the press, Or the so‑called "literary" pages of a magazine.
It may not be news to all readers but neither is the "news" in a
paper new to everyone.
Advertising is business news, and business activities consume at
least three‑fourths of man's waking hours.
Business is the method by which man works out his existence, It
isn't a mere matter of selling things for money. It is trading
things one has and does not need for things which others have
but do not need.
Back in the days when the weekly newspaper of four small pages
was "The Press" advertising was inserted in the "news" columns
because it was "regular" and vital news. Farmer Harding, with a
cow to sell, told all the people in the county about it through
the paper, instead of taking two or three days away from his
work to go about spreading the information by word of mouth, or
waiting until some one "happened" to hear about it and came over
to buy the cow.
In
time the advertisements became numerous enough to become a
department, just as the sporting news, the financial and
business news, the club news, etc., were segregated for the
convenience of the readers. So the advertising was segregated
into an advertisement department.
Much of the prevailing false idea of the nature of advertising
comes from the failure to realize that at bottom it is news
service. News service is the dissemination of information which
is of interest and value to some, even if not to all.
The notion that a man is something separate from his business is
rapidly disintegrating before the searching activities of an
awakening moral business consciousness. Those people are growing
fewer in number who bold that a man can be one thing in his
business dealings and an entirely different being when be closes
his desk. A man's personality is his at all times. He cannot
have two personalities, one for use in business and another in
his private life.
A
business man who uses advertisements that do not stand, without
shriveling, the severest test of truthfulness, or who permits
his agents to use such copy, cannot evade responsibility by
taking refuge in a so‑called irreproachable private life.
And what of the responsibility of the reader of advertisements
and the purchaser through advertisements? He has his place in
this wheel of service.
In
the introduction of advertiser and purchaser through the
magazine, only the purchaser knows the part the magazine has
taken. Would it not be a recognition of appreciation of the
service rendered by the magazine for the reader to tell the
advertiser the name of the publication by which they were
introduced? This would complete the circle of service. The
advertiser asks the magazine to introduce him to the reader‑,
the magazine makes the introduction ‑, the reader makes a
purchase and in making it acknowledges the introduction.
The reader pays for the news in the advertising pages when he
buys the magazine. If he does not read the advertisements he is
cheating himself.
When publishers began to realize that their responsibility for
advertisements did not end when they sold a certain space to an
advertiser, a great step was taken to put advertising upon the
solid, legitimate news basis where it belongs. The mutual
responsibility of publisher and advertiser is becoming more and
more recognized and acted upon.
When the reader and purchaser perceives his responsibility and
acts accordingly then will the social service of modern
advertising become a complete wheel. |
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