Speakers

A different perspective of the History of Rotary, by Dan Mooers.
District 7780, South Portland, ME
As presented in his session at the ICUFR Conference in Ithaca, NY in 2006
(Dan has done extensive Rotary history research and much of this is from original documents.)

1

It is a pleasure to be asked to speak to you at this conference about Rotary history. As we approach the 100th anniversary, I sense a growing interest in the history of the organization. I learned this week that, because of all the inquiries being received at the Chicago club, the club has hired its first archivist. Actually, given the confusion about the early history of Rotary (which, of course, is the history of the Rotary Club of Chicago), I wish that club had hired an archivist a long time ago.

Yes, confusion. While most Rotarians know something about the early history of Rotary, I am going to discuss some things about that early history that you probably have not heard and that you probably will not read in the new Centennial History Book, about to be published. However, everything I am going to tell you this morning is documented and, I believe, the truth.

I also want to quickly add that were it not for Paul Harris, we would not be meeting here as a Rotary District - nor would Rotary clubs be meeting in more than 31,000 communities around the world. Paul Harris performed a mammoth service for mankind. That said, what about the confusion?

It's very important, of course that the history of Rotary reflect the truth. Recently I was reading a letter Arch Klumph, a past president of Rotary and the father of The Rotary Foundation, wrote to a past director of RI about the early years of Rotary. I was struck by this comment:

Rotary has been publicizing a statement made by Herbert J. Taylor which they call "Four Way Test", the first rule of which is: "IS IT THE TRUTH?" So we should ask ourselves whether the numerous stories we have heard about those early days [of Rotary] "Are the Truth?"

For example, is it true that the first meeting of Paul Harris, Sylvester Schiele, Gus Loehr, and our Maine Man, Hiram Elmer Shorey, took place on February 23, 1905? That certainly is now the agreed upon date, but did you know that from 1906 to 1911 the mast head of the Chicago club carried the words:

When Paul Harris and Ches Perry put together the resolution for the call of the first convention in 1910, the material sent to clubs and then read at the convention, stated: "Whereas, on February 25, 1904, there was founded Rotary Club of Chicago, as association of businessmen . . ."

Throughout the convention, speaker after speaker, including Paul Harris, referred to Rotary starting in 1904. Confusion over the date of the first meeting prevailed for years. In 1911, the Chicago club appointed a committee to determine the correct history, including a determination of the date of the first meeting. It never published any recorded findings.

In 1919, because of the controversy surrounding the formation of the Rotary club and the National Association of Rotary Clubs, Paul Harris and Ches Perry requested that the RI Board appoint a committee to take testimony and investigate thoroughly the facts incident to" the founding of Rotary and Rotary

International, and to publish the findings. The committee, consisting of Past President Mulholland, Klumph and Greiner never published its findings, if they made any, or if they did, the report has never seen the light of day.

In fact, some nine years after the committee was appointed, Arch Klumph wrote to Paul Harris, of all days on February 23, 1927, and asked Paul the date of the first meeting and where it was held. The response by Paul Harris, on February 25, 1927, is curious at best. He relates how "the day before yesterday", "Shorey, who is not a Rotarian at present, called at my office and left his card in commemoration of the anniversary." Paul also writes:

"Now answering your question, I would say that the first meeting of the Chicago group was held on the evening of the 23rd of February… The meeting place was in the office of Gus Loehr in the Unity Building."

So far as I can determine, that is the first time Paul Harris wrote that the meeting was on February 23rd - because in drafting the Resolution in 1910, he wrote it was February 25, 1904 - a year earlier. Could it be that Hiram Shorey - a man who had not been in Rotary for some 21 or 22 years - leaving his

card to commemorate the anniversary, suddenly touched off Paul‘s memory that the date was February 23rd. I say, "Hoorah for the Man from Maine."

Continued from last month. We left you in a quandary as to when the meeting of the Chicago group was really held.

In any event, the date was settled forever when Paul published his first autobiography the next year. There he stated that the first meeting was February 23, 1905, and no one has since dared to question the date. An unwritten but firm agreement has since prevailed between Rotary International and the Chicago One club that the date will forever mark the beginning of Rotary.

2. Paul Harris had this new idea for a business, fellowship club based on allowing only one person from each occupation or profession.

Rotary clearly was not the first "service" club. I do not know which was the first, but I do know that the Civil Club was meeting in London by 1669. I know that Ben Franklin started the "Junta Club", initially a debating club that rotated among taverns to discuss scientific, moral and social issues in the early 1800 century, evolved into a service club, and founded the Philadelphia Library Company. I also know that Rev. James Woodford's diary for January 13, 1777 states that he joined a "Rotation Club" - named from meeting at members home and that in the early 1600s the Rota club of London took turns at

In fact, not only was Rotary not the first "Service Club," it had nothing to do with service when it first started. Even Paul Harris himself has stated that Rotary started for very selfish reasons, and those reasons are reflected in the very first "Objects of the Rotary Club" when Paul drafted the first club constitution in January 1906:

“Second: The promotion of good fellowship and other desiderata ordinarily incident to Social Clubs."

Even these reasons for a club were not original to Paul Harris or Silvester Schiele. Notably, the Two- Penny Club, "for the Preservation of Friendship and good Neighbourhood." had rules nearly identical to the first Rotary club. There could be only one person in the Two-Penny Club from any business or profession and it was required that members exchange business with each other. That's exactly how Rotary started. There was no idealism - no great social purpose - in the early years of Rotary. In fact, the most important officer in the Chicago Rotary club was the "statistician" - that man who sat that the front door, not to greet entering members but to record in the club's books how much business, in stated dollars, each member had done with another member the previous week.

This idea of mandatory business exchange was not readily accepted by all Rotarians. As Arch Klumph later wrote: "The first five years from 1905 to 1910 are nothing to be proud of except that they did start the Rotary movement." Some of the new clubs that were rapidly forming did not agree with the

Chicago "business boosting" purpose of the club. When they had the opportunity, they began to express it. That opportunity came when Paul Harris and Chesley Perry took steps to call a convention in 1910 of the then 16 Rotary clubs. Out of that came the National Association of Rotary Clubs, but there also came a cry from moving away from the business exchange. It came first in a speech by Arthur F. Sheldon, the grandfather of a Portland, Maine, Rotarian. Speaking at that first convention, Sheldon in his passionate speech said:

"It is our blessed privilege to be standing in the glow of the early morning of this Twentieth Century, upon which light of wisdom is beginning to shine, And its distinguishing mark of the commercialism of the Twentieth Century is to be cooperation, for as man comes into the light of wisdom he comes to see that only the science of right conduct towards others pays. He comes to see that the science of business is the science of human service. He comes to see that he profits most who serves his fellows best.”

"Again, Arch Klumph had his usual insight into Sheldon's talk. In the letter I have previously mentioned, he said:”

“From testimonials made to me during recent years by men who were in the Rotary movement from 1905 to 1910, and particularly one from whom I have received the most information (who was one of the first four members), I learned there was no thought to any idealism in the Rotary movement until the Sheldon motto.”

The very next speaker after Sheldon at the 1910 Convention was E. L. Skeel from Seattle, Washington, one of the clubs trying to gain acceptance of a different idea, and he carried on the Sheldon theme. Skeel said:

"We of the individual clubs should, of all people, be the most willing to give our time and our money to the advancement of those ideas which make for the uplift of our people."

While both these speeches received tremendous acceptance from those in attendance, the expressed idealism of service seemed for a time to be lost on Paul Harris and Ches Perry. Just minutes after these speeches, the committee to draft a constitution for the new organization, of which Paul Harris was a member, provided their report and a draft constitution. There in the purposes of the new association was the Twentieth Century, upon which light of wisdom is beginning to shine, and its distinguishing mark of the commercialism of the Twentieth Century is to be cooperation, for as man comes into the light of wisdom he comes to see that only the science of right conduct towards others pays. He comes to see that the science of business is the science of human service. He comes to see that “He profits most who serves his fellows best."

Again, Arch Klumph had his usual insight into Sheldon's talk. In the letter I have previously mentioned, he said:

Nonetheless, the debate continued. In the January 1912 issue in The National Rotarian, Ches Perry, now Rotary's General Secretary wrote an article titled "The Philosophy of Rotary." In the article Ches Perry wrote:

"The fundamental principle of Rotarianism is the belief that every man engaged in a reputable calling is entitled to all the business he can get and take care of on the "square deal" basis and that he should receive the active co-operation and support of his friends in getting it.”

“The primary purpose of a Rotary Club is the promotion of the business interests of its members."

“Perry concluded his article, as Paul Harris had similarly done a year earlier, by stating: ‘The debate is now opened.’ "

That article did nothing to quell the raising tide of revolt against the Paul Harris principal of business boosting. It was already clear that there was a rising discontent against the philosophy put forth by Harris and Perry. Minneapolis, for example, the number 9 club, believed that the primary purpose was to enlighten its members on questions of the welfare of the community. Allen Albert, a member of Number Nine and later the fifth President of Rotary, took the floor at the 1912 Duluth Convention and, as he recalled years later, “expressed our pulling away from the business exchange." While he described the "response" to his remarks as "general," "there was indicated an agreement that idealism, even though it should appear to be impracticable, was the one guaranty of long and useful life for Rotary."

The 1912 Convention was Paul Harris' last for a period of years. He had concluded his two years as the association president. His health turned poor and he suffered heart problems. But he also sensed that the organization he founded was moving in a different direction. And it quickly moved.

The next year at the Buffalo Convention, Allen Albert was asked to speak on "The True Meaning, Purpose and Ideals of Rotary." As Arch Klumph later described that speech by Albert:

"Then Allen Albert at the Buffalo Convention in 1913, exhibiting his powers of eloquence, everlastingly condemned Rotary for making compulsory business exchange a part of their program. This was followed by an avalanche of applause, showing that Rotary was leaning over backwards against this compulsory business exchange idea."

Thus, Rotary was finally becoming a "Service Club". Nearly a decade after the first meeting, the service club movement was born.

Years later, at the 1930 25th Anniversary in Chicago, Paul Harris finally ended his exile from Rotary conventions and appeared briefly with his wife, Jean. In a message from Paul, read before he appeared, he showed that he was well aware of the feelings of other early Rotarians about the business boosting. In his message, Paul wrote:

"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."

However, perhaps (an) even more revealing comment at that convention came from Paul's wife, Jean Harris, when she said:

"We who have done so little, deeply appreciate seeing you all and meeting you who have
done so much".

What was the first Service Project of Rotary?

4

Another Rotary history “fact” that is always related, is that the first service project of the club was the construction of a public bathroom. It was not!

Here is the first project, in the agreed words of the 5^th Rotarian, Harry Ruggles, the 2^nd Rotarian Silvester Schiele and Rotary’s first General Secretary Ches Perry.

“In 1906 Dr. C. W. Hawley, as eye specialist, told the Chicago club one evening that a young Doctor in a Chicago suburb of La Grange had lost his horse. He was a young and struggling doctor and the loss to him was great. The hat was passed and $150.00 (was) raised to buy the doctor a horse.”

That, my friends, was the first service project and if you read the Chicago Tribune obituary of our

Maine Man, Hiram Shorey (who, by the way, was the first Recording Secretary of the Rotary Club of Chicago), you will see that his family also knew that the doctor’s horse was the first project.

A year later, in 1907 the club was trying to find something worthwhile it could do. A member, who was not Paul Harris, as some record, suggested a public comfort station for downtown Chicago. At once the idea was accepted and with the approval of the Chicago City Council, the sum of $20,000.00 was raised and it was built at City Hall and, as late a 1959, was still in use.

Despite this confusion over some of the early history, Rotary moved forward. It spread to England and then to Europe, only to be interrupted by the Great War. After the war, it again rapidly expanded, spreading around the world. Then came the Great Depression and for three years, the number of clubs and the number of Rotarians declined.

There were other factors working against the development of Rotary. Here are some things you may not have heard before.

These problems seem to have started in Spain about 1928 when five Catholic Bishops laid charges that Rotary is “nothing else but a new satanic organization with the same background and teachings of masonry” and that “according to documents and reliable sources, Rotary is a suspected organization, and should be considered as . . . perverse”. The Church also criticized and condemned Rotary for showing a concept of life and of service without reference to church teaching.

Indeed, it seems that they believed Rotary to be a secret society with quasi-religious overtones as many in the Church thought was the case with Freemasonry. For whatever reason, the Vatican took up the reins and in 1929 issued a decree that “it is not expedient” for Catholic priests to participate in Rotary either as members or guests. This decree and its implications were worrying to the many Catholics in Rotary, not the least the then President Tom Sutton, who was himself a Catholic, and former Chancellor (of) Germany, Wilhelm Cuno, a member in Hamburg.

How did Rotary overcome these religious challenges?
5

Critical and at times disparaging articles regularly appeared in Catholic newspapers, especially in the official Catholic publications in Italy. Tom Sutton went off to Rome to try to convince the Papal authorities that Rotary was not Masonic, and that it was a movement which was not in conflict with any Catholic teaching.

Sutton's attempts to convince the Secretary of State in the Vatican, Cardinal Gaspari, were fruitless and the anti-Rotary articles continued to be published. An even more virulent article later appeared in a Paris Catholic publication, making allegations about both Paul Harris and the links between Rotary and Freemasonry. The article was later reprinted in a Baltic Catholic paper.

The factual errors could be, and promptly were, shown to be false, and by 1933 there was a mood swing in the Vatican, perhaps partly occasioned by the number of prominent and influential Catholics throughout the world who were joining Rotary. Priests were now allowed to use their discretion about

attending or even joining Rotary. Nevertheless, one of the results of the Church's attitude was the slow development of Rotary in some predominantly Catholic countries such as Ireland, and in other catholic areas like Quebec.

This uneasy peace between Rotary and the Catholic Church continued until 1951 when another Vatican decree warned priests that they should not join Rotary and that "the faithful should be aware of seditious and suspected organizations". By then, however, the world had changed and the decree caused

an immediate angry response, among others from the then Catholic President of RI from here in the Province of Quebec, Arthur Lagueux, and from the Rotarian Catholic Bishop of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who publicly declared the decree "quite incomprehensible". Fairly soon, the Vatican began to retract. The official Vatican newspaper wrote: "In some nations, because of a prevalent Masonic influx, the action of

Rotary Clubs has conflicted with the activity and the needs of the Church. It must be said, however, that such has not been the case in other nations where the attitude of Rotary has shown itself in practice tolerant and benevolent towards religious interests."

By the end of the decade, the Catholic Truth Society was able to declare that "Rotary is neither secret nor seditious". It was nevertheless still regarded as a "society banned under pain of sin only" but not of "sin and excommunication". Gradually there was a thaw in relations between the Church and Rotary. In 1970 Pope Pius VI addressed Rotarians in Italy, and in 1979 Pope John Paul II spoke to the International Convention in Rome, praising some of Rotary's humanitarian programs at a special audience in the Vatican. Later he accepted a Paul Harris Fellowship and a World Understanding and Peace Award from Rotary, while Catholic priests throughout the world were taking positions of authority in Rotary, even serving as District Governors.

As the world was beginning to recover from the depression, and Rotary was faced with challenges of misunderstanding, other world events seemed to be marshaling against Rotary.

What were these challenges?

As the world was beginning to recover from the depression, and Rotary was faced with challenges of misunderstanding, other world events seemed to be marshaling against Rotary. What were the challenges?

In 1932-33, Clinton P. Anderson, a young, 37 year old insurance man and Rotarian from New Mexico, became Rotary’s International President. In 1932, he was yet to serve as the State Treasurer of New Mexico, or for that matter, as a Congressman from New Mexico, or as the post war Secretary of Agriculture of the United States. Nor had he been a United States Senator from New Mexico, where he

served with distinction for 25 years, nor had he yet been a candidate for the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States. In 1932, he was just a Rotarian from New Mexico, but he displayed the strengths for which he would later be known worldwide. [As an aside, for a time I ran the elevator in the senate office building just across from Senator Anderson’s office and, as a young college student, had the privilege of talking with him almost daily. At that time I did not know, nor did I care, that he had been Rotary International President.

Let Clint Anderson tell you about some decisions he had to make as RI president, in the words he used in a private letter in 1951 to Past RI Director Joe Caulder.

He wrote:

“As I think back over things now, one of the most important things that happened was the decision of Adolph Hitler soon after he obtained power in Germany to bar non-Aryans from membership in the 40 Rotary Clubs of Germany. That decision came while I was attending the R.I.B.I. conference in England and since his action gave some time for further consideration I was able to deal with it. He had told the Rotary Club that unless at their District Conference in the next few days they passed a resolution barring all non-Aryans from membership in the Rotary Club, he would compel them to disband all the clubs. Since a few days would intervene I cabled to the District Governor of Rotary and to several German Club presidents notifying them that if they did take that action at the District Conference I would cancel the charters of the 40 German Rotary Clubs. They cabled me back asking for my authority to cancel the charters, and I told them that I would cancel the charters and find out if I had the authority to do so afterwards. I pointed out that we had taken something into Germany, which was Rotary, and if they wanted to make it something which was not Rotary they would have to call it by a different name.”

“The interesting thing was that Hitler permitted the German Rotary Clubs to continue without barring non-Aryans. I have thought of that many times since in connection with the explanations of appeasement.”

Rotary in Germany lasted for another 7 years relatively the same. Then it came to the year of Walter D. Head, who was president of RI in 1939-40 (Walter, by the way, was born on September 17, 1881 in Revere, Massachusetts). Here’s how Walter described what happened in 1939:

“Now as to ‘my year’: It was an unusual one due to the fact that Germany marched into Poland on December 1^st, 1939. We wondered if the Rotary house was falling down around our ears but yet there were very encouraging manifestation of loyalty. I wish I had saved some of them. . . . At any rate, there were numerous Rotarians and Rotary Club Officers who wrote in saying that although they had been officially banned, they would never give up their interest and would even in many cases, if possible, continue to meet clandestinely.”

“I remember particularly one letter from Otto Fischer of Stuttgart, Germany, saying about the follows: ‘Although we have been officially forbidden to meet, we continue to foregather from time to time in the same old restaurant where formerly we had so many happy reunions and also we are not allowed even to mention the name Rotary, but we look into each other’s eyes and understand.’”

Other RI Presidents faced similar challenges during these pre-war years. For examples, Ed R. Johnston, the 1935-36 president had to confront the situation in another Axis Country. Here’s what he wrote to Joe Caulder:

“It had been planned for months to have a Regional Conference in Venice, Italy during the latter part of September 1935. Shortly before that, the world became aware of what Premier Mussolini had in mind regarding Ethiopia. When his plan became known, we commenced to receive suggestions that the Conference be postponed or canceled and at the same time, we received communications from Italian Rotary Clubs or Rotarians to allow the Conference to proceed as planned. After another conference with Secretary Ches Perry in Chicago, and with Alex Potter after I arrived in London, on my way to the Conference, it was decided that no change would be made. . . . Also, it was an easy decision to let the Conference, which turned out to be a very fine affair, go ahead - - for to have done otherwise, would have, in the eyes of some (who were saying that Rotary as such) disapproved of the actions of Premier Mussolini. Temporarily, atleast, I think we saved Rotary in Italy…. I too remember, while I was in Venice, Alex Potter and myself saw Rotarian Bossi, who was really the head of Rotary in Italy, and got his agreement to allow R.I. to stand for Rotary International rather than Rotary Italiana.”

Sometimes I think we have failed to keep in our memory those great statesmen around the world who carried Rotary forward. For example, here is what the RI president in 1938-39, George Hager, wrote to Joe Caulder about his year.

“At the request of Cordell Hull, Secretary of State of the United States, and a long time member of the Rotary Club of Carthage, Tennessee, I was the first president from North America to visit Rotary clubs in Central and South America. Mr. Hull had ascertained at three Pan American regional conferences, where all but one or two member were Rotarians, that the Rotarians of lbero America resented the fact that North American presidents were not visiting their clubs. Therefore, Grace Hager and I visited clubs in every country in lbero America.”

What were the challenges to Rotary after the Second World War?

Certainly the challenges faced by Rotary did not end with the Second World War. The Korean Conflict effectively shut down Rotary in Korea for a time, the Cold War and the control of the Soviet Union of Eastern Europe drove Rotary out of many countries where it had flourished before World War II and for a period after the war. Rotary still faces challenges in the few remaining Communist Countries, like Cuba, where Rotary used to thrive, and in China where it also once thrived. And we face, seemingly at times impossible tasks, in Muslim Countries where Rotary is yet to be accepted.

And RI Presidents continue to have to make difficult decisions when a world crisis erupts. Imagine the difficult decisions faced by recent President Rick King when terrorism erupted on U.S. soil with the World Trade Center attack.

In spite of these continuous challenges, the idealism of Rotary has been, as E.L. Skeel said it would in 1912, "the one guaranty of long and useful life for Rotary." Maybe Paul Harris and the other Chicago Rotarians in 1905 did not at first embrace this idealism, and maybe at times, they even seemed to

fight it, but there is no question that the base idea of this organization, the fellowship and friendship with other people - the base idea that brought Paul Harris, and Silvester Schiele, and Hiram Shorey into Gus Loehr's office that evening, no matter which year it was - is the base idea that has carried Rotary strongly into the 21st century.

Let me just mention a couple of other Rotary facts you may not have heard about recently. The International Assembly, the meeting at which Rotary International trains all the incoming district governors, was held in Poland Spring, Maine, just before New England's only RI Convention in Boston in 1933. And in 1946, following the Atlantic City Convention, the International Assembly was held in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Maybe its time we bring it back to New England!

In his remarkable speech at that first convention of Rotary in 1910, Arthur Sheldon

concluded his speech with this comment:

“And so tonight, it requires no great gift of prophecy to enable us to look ahead and see Rotary nationalized and in time internationalized, its present membership added to by new clubs throughout the world, become a river of beneficial influence which shall flow around the world. It cannot fail for it is fed by the eternal snows of truth.”

One of the eternal truths of Rotary was contained in the Annual Report of President Paul P. Harris, at the conclusion of this Rotary presidency in September, 1912. In that report, he said:

"Whether we do much or little in the way of public work, it is apparent that there is a large and unique field of usefulness in Rotary. Possessing as we do red blood in our veins, it is fair to assume that we shall not be indifferent to the welfare of the communities in which we exist; nor unwilling to lend a hand to the doing of those things in the interest of the public which come within the proper sphere of our activities."

Ninety one years later, an RI President from a different continent, from a different background, and in a different time uses the same words as Paul Harris to define the work of Rotary. Such a simple term, "Lend a Hand", and yet it carries so much meaning, whether used in 1912 or in 2003, about the work of Rotarians.

So, bring on Rotary's next Century. Rotary will fulfill its destiny to become the most meaningful, most significant, most important non-governmental, non-sectarian, non‑religious community organization in the history of this uncertain world.

Thanks Paul, and Silvester, and Gus, and, our Maine Man, Hiram, for those roots you planted so long ago. May we do you proud.

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