by Lorine Parks
“We’re going to travel at warp speed,” Past District Governor David Moyers told us. “We’ll cover 126 years of Rotary History in just a few minutes time, so buckle your seat belts.”
We began with Paul Harris, as all Rotary history does, starting in 1891 when Paul graduated from Princeton with a law degree. Instead of applying himself to the law, Paul spent 5 years in what the English now call a “gap” year,” searching, David believes, for meaning in his life beyond the practice of the law.
By 1901 Paul settled down in Chicago but had not yet found the significant factor he was seeking. Then in 1905 came the inspiration which we now call Rotary, for “professionals to get together in fellowship.” Four men met on that February day at noon for an informal brown bag luncheon, in the office of Gus Loehr, a mining engineer, and the first club was born, Chicago One.
The idea of the Rotary club was spreading slowly, with a second club in Cleveland forming, were it not for a momentous event in 1908 on the West Coast of the United States – the San Francisco earthquake. Paul dispatched a fellow Rotarian to go and see what the Chicago business community could do to help their counterparts in San Francisco. It was a classic case of “form follows function” - the idea of service to others preceded the formulation of any Rotary slogans.
While on the West Coast, the Rotarian talked about the idea of the fellowship-type association of professional and business people, and that is how San Francisco came to be Club #2, Oakland #3, Seattle #4 and L A #5.
About the same time, Rotary began its association with youth, with the idea of “helping the boys” in Chicago. From that has grown the Boys and Girls Clubs, high school Interact and the older, college-student age Rotaract.
The next years were about growing: 1910 saw 16 clubs, and the first international one, in Winnipeg, Canada. In 1911, in this order, clubs formed in Dublin, Ireland, London, England and Belfast, Ireland. By 1914 the 100th club was Phoenix, Arizona; Honolulu formed in 1915, and 1920 saw the number climb to 500 with the addition of Fremont, England; 1,000 in 1921 when York, England was chartered. Downey, California was chartered in 1924. 1925, Ketchikan, Alaska was chartered as club #2,000.
When David told us that the first non-English speaking club was Havana, Cuba, in 1916, that drew a cheer from Mario Guerra whose father was president there, and Raul Lopez, who was born in Cuba. First generation son Alex joined in. First club on the South American continent was Montevideo, Uruguay in 1918. Argentina came in 1919, as did Mexico and Peru. The first Australian Club was Melbourne; the first in England was Manchester. First club in Africa was Johannesburg, Union of South Africa, in 1921, the same year as France and Mexico’s first.
In Asia, it was Manila in 1919, doubtless because after the Spanish American War in 1898, the Philippines were in the American sphere of influence, while Britain controlled so much of the rest. Our Tokyo Club opened in 1920, Hong Kong in 1930. By , for Rotary’s Golden Anniversary, there were more than 8,000 clubs in 89 countries and a million members. Today in 2017 there are 32,000 clubs.
Back to 1917, the ideal of service became official enough to be financed by Rotary, with the newly formed Foundation, which was started with a gift of $26.50 from the Kansas City, MO. club. As the dates and statistics unfolded, the pattern of giving through the Foundation began to grow until by this year, Rotary International has raised 1.5 billion dollars just to fight polio since 2007. Arch Klumpf, of the Cleveland Club, is forever associated as the man with the plan.
All these clubs starting up all around the world meant that Rotary was focusing in the International part of its name. So it was natural that the next all-encompassing area with which Rotary is associated would be World Peace and Conflict Resolution. Back in 1920, International Peace and Good Will were adopted as objectives at the International Conference in Edinboro Scotland, the first to be held outside North America.
Rotary Clubs in Austria and Italy were disbanded in 1938 because they refused to accept the principles of the new Nazi regime. Germany was not re-admitted until 1949 with a club in the Saar (It took until 1990 for the Moscow Club, the first in Soviet Union). Rotary helped with many war relief projects for European victims. By 1945 it is significant that there were 49 Rotarians involved in drafting the United Nations Charter.
But it is important to note is that the Rotary concept of world peace does not mean heads of state negotiating with governments. Understanding has evolved, so that now Rotarians see “peace” as beginning with the individual, with a need to concentrate on anger control issues, disrespect for the community and dysfunctional families. This is where the focus rests now, with Rotary’s world-wide workshops and Mediation teams.
As David racked up the years for us, we could see the outline of service developing. The first projects were about youth; then came world peace. Paul Harris died in 1947 but by now the Foundation was rolling and members contributed $1.3 million in his memory. The 1950’s concept of the Ambassador Scholar, now the Global Scholar, combines both concerns.
Rotary’s first grant in the field of health was in 1939, to Crippled Children. But it was in 1979 and 1980 that Rotary connected with the idea that was to be its biggest undertaking and the one the world has recognized it for: the eradication of polio, that scourge of childhood, which left its surviving victims cruelly crippled. When Sabin addressed the International Convention in 1980 and told of his oral vaccine, so easy to administer compared to the needle of the Salk vaccine, and inexpensive, the project took off. Later the name changed to “Polio Plus,” to show that now vaccines for other diseases are included with the original polio immunization.
Our supreme “that close” triumph is that this year only 21 cases of polio were reported in the world, as compared with 1,000 daily before. In 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates came aboard with a one hundred million dollars matching grant; two years later results were so successful that they raised it to a quarter of a billion dollars.
Right after the undertaking of the polio challenge, in 1987 came the biggest change in Rotary since Paul Harris and his buddies started their club. Any guesses? This reporter’s arm shot up with the answer: women joined Rotary. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled that no one could be excluded from a service and business-promoting group because of gender. The Rotary Club of Downey took in four women as members in 1988, and things have never been quite the same.
What to do now, for Rotary, now that polio is conquered? For answer, Rotary has defined 6 areas of concern. As David said he understood it, these are areas for individual clubs to plan their projects for change that is sustainable. “Sustainable” is defined as going on for 3-5 years after the initial funding. Actually, no Rotary projects have failed to fund themselves.
It is worthwhile to review these six areas, as this is the future for our club. Notable among them is access to good drinkable water for communities everywhere on the planet.
Paul Harris meant to do good, but he never wanted to lose sight of his original ingredient for the clubs’ mental health: frivolity, a word which PDG Doug Baker x 2 is fond of using.
For example, in the Johannesburg Club, they still tell this story. It concerns Prince George of England, the father of the present Queen Elizabeth II, before his brother Edward abdicated and he took the throne as George VI. It seems that in 1934, two years before he succeeded to the throne, the Prince lunched with the Rotary club there, where he was fined for “being a distinguished guest.” And then all guests present bearing the name of “George” were also fined a shilling, after which all those not named “George” were given a similar penalty.
The fine contributed by the Prince was a florin, which he had to borrow from his aide-de-camp, where it was subsequently mounted and auctioned on behalf of the club’s charity fund for the sum of 10 pounds. Two years later, when Prince George succeeded to the British throne, among his distinguished titles was that of Patron of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland.
Transpose the dates and the high birth of the visitor, and this story could take place in any Rotary Club, Downey included. It shows the Rotarian sense of purpose in making any occasion an opportunity to collect for the Foundation, and by any means. Rotarians having fun doing good.
David had begun with a quote from Paul Harris about Rotary being judged by the results of its accomplishments, and how they were achieved. “If you want to run fast,” David concluded, “run alone. But if you want to run far, run together.”
“Thank you, for being Rotarians,” David said. Thank you, David, for a refreshing look at where we’ve been, and where we are going.