A different perspective of the History of Rotary, by Dan Mooers.
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.)

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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:

"Organized in 1904."

             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."

 So what is the truth?   Continued in the next month’s newsletter.

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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.

There are two myths, however, that should be dispelled. They are that:

1.  Rotary is the first ever service club.

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

entertaining in homes and offices.

 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:

 "First: The promotion of the business interests of its members.”

“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.”

Continued next month.    What caused the concept of idealism to be adopted?

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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:  

“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 … organization. At the same convention, a club reported that its motto was: Service, not Self.”

 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".