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The
Faith of Rotary
There is a vast
difference between the life of the man who has
caught the vision and taken it into his everyday
affairs and the life of the man who scoffs at it as
impracticable: and yet, as it has been said, the
best of us at heart are not so very much better than
the worst of us. What we are depends upon so many
little and seemingly unimportant things.
Can it come
to be the order of things that men shall view their trades and
professions primarily as opportunities to serve society? Rotary
must, above all things, be practical. Civilization has pressing,
imperative needs. Rotary has no time to waste in the pursuit of
impracticable ideals. Time is money, yes, and more than that.
Time represents values not measurable in currency. Time is
opportunity and opportunity is life's essence.
Whether the
aim of impressing the ideal of service upon the mind of men is
practicable or impracticable , certain it is that it is believed
by Rotarians to be practicable. Rotarians are successful
businessmen; men of vision to be sure, but men of practical
vision; men trained in the search for things valuable and
practical. After all, perhaps the verdict of sixty thousand
sane, hard headed business men is the best guaranty obtainable
that the thing will work.
Can it come to be the order of things that men
shall view their trades and professions
primarily as opportunities to serve society?
“To him who
has faith all things are possible.” But there are other reasons
why we may rationally believe that it can come to be the order
of things that men shall view their trades and professions
primarily as opportunities to serve society, one of which is the
fact that there have been and are men ‑ many men ‑ who have
already attained the coveted heights. They have been, of course,
the exceptions to the rule; but now comes Rotary with all of its
power, its enthusiasm, its organization, its team work,
determined to make the exception the rule. If Rotary achieves
its ambition, it will indeed have lifted the level of human
ideals a little higher than it found them and something tells me
that the only real failure possible to any organization or to
any individual is failure to do its bit or his bit in raising
the common level. No life is so impotent that it can not help
some one in some way, some time.
 I
say that there are men who have already attained the coveted
heights. Some are famous; more of them are obscure, I know a
little old man in my own profession who possesses a veritable
passion for truth, a passion so intense and so enduring that he
never seems even to be tempted to do an unworthy act.
Instinctively he turns to the truth. Needless to say my friend's
mind is stored with priceless treasures, treasures which make
yachts and limousines, diamonds, rubies and pearls but gaudy
baubles. To him and to such as he, there is nothing
impracticable about the ideal that men shall view their trades
and professions primarily as opportunities to serve society. He
knows no other viewpoint, tho I doubt not that he would object
to our rather high sounding phrase. He might admit that he likes
to get to the bottom of things. His is a happy life, rich in
blessings, yet simple and sane. He has learned to live. Theodore
Roosevelt knew the worth‑while life. He had a passion for truth.
He loved it for truth's own sake and he had a corresponding
hatred of sham. To him, insincerity was despicable. He at all
times lived the genuine, truthful life in spite of all things,
and he lived it in such close and happy union with his children
that they knew it; and his influence will never die.
 I
know another whose needs are many and whose life is complex. He
is far too busy to read books. He has little respect for the man
who does. He boasts that he hits the high spots only. As a
matter of fact, he has never hit a high spot yet. His feet are
in the bog and he doesn't know it. Social exactions, amusement
distractions leave no time for thought. When business booms he
sweeps employees into his shop and when business slows up he
sweeps them out again without one thought as to what the
consequences are to be. It has never come to his consciousness
what it means to the father of a large family who loves his wife
and his little ones, who is willing to slave for those dependent
upon him and who is ready and eager to work, to be told to go
into the office and get his envelope, that there will be no more
work this winter. He considers such a matter as not of his
concern, but in the sight of God it is his concern. No man has
the right to be indifferent to what befalls the men who have
made his success possible. Can we, in the security of our homes
imagine what it means to be penniless and without work; to see
loved ones - wife and babies ‑ suffer from cold and in want of
bread? And yet our industrial system involves that very thing
over and over and over again. There are men who had rather face
a firing squad and be shot dead than return home and say those
bitter words: "I have been laid off."
This
employer of whom I have made mention will not be interested in
what you may have to say about one's trade or profession being,
primarily, an opportunity to serve society. To him, business is
primarily, secondarily and all the time a means to another end,
the end of getting money enough so that he and his family may
continue their useless existences. His feet are not planted on
the rock of service, they are planted in the bog of selfishness
into which his pampered body will eventually be sucked.
There is a
vast difference between the life of the man who has caught the
vision and taken it into his everyday affairs and the life of
the man who scoffs at it as impracticable: and yet, as it has
been said, the best of us at heart are not so very much better
than the worst of us. What we are depends upon so many little
and seemingly unimportant things.
The
child‑mind will accept any impression a discerning parent may
place upon it and retain it until habit is formed and habit
eventually results in character. The child of self‑respecting
parents is taught that there are things dearer even than life,
as, for instance, national liberty. Does it seem far‑fetched to
assume then that the generations that are to come may be
characterized by the prevalence of the belief that men must view
their trades and professions primarily as means of serving
society and that it is a disgrace to view them otherwise? To
disbelieve in the practicability of the first object of Rotary
is to admit that our wives and we are inferior to Spartan women
and men; and that has not been demonstrated.
What we
need is a race of British, American, Canadian, Cuban Samurai;
men who have a passion for truth and who are prepared to make
sacrifices for it, men who have the vision to see our splendid
ideal and the determination to make it practicable. Rotarians
have volunteered to meet the demand. Rotarians are redblooded,
two‑fisted men ‑ and they never say die. |
