When I joined Rotary Club over 45 years ago, I heard a speech by someone who was inducting new members say that Paul Harris founded Rotary for friendship. The speaker said, “It was a cold lonely night in Chicago and a successful attorney named Mr. Paul Harris realised that there were not many friends with whom he can hang out. So, he brought together three of his friends and they decided to meet frequently in the place of work of each one at fixed intervals. It was much later that the thought of service came up and the first comfort station was put up in the city.”
Nothing can be more frivolous while describing a visionary such as Paul Harris. Those who have understood his philosophy will know better. I believe that the story should be told like this: “It was a cold lonely night in Chicago and a successful attorney named Mr. Paul Harris thought about how to serve the society. He surrounded himself with three of his friends who had high aspirations. He soon discovered that they can be a mastermind group of likeminded people and that they could bounce ideas off and feel inspired by each other to do good to their community. This is why Rotary was founded.”
In my interpretation, I believe that the future of Rotary depends on our understanding of the actions and intentions of the founders of this movement. Frankly, as in any historical research, arriving at the absolute fact is difficult and often some persons may also say that it is unnecessary. But only constant research of what happened in the past will alone throw up interesting facts, especially when we are trying to understand the thinking of noble minds such as Paul Harris, Silvester Schiele, the coal dealer, Gustavus Loher, the mining engineer and Hiram Shoray, the merchant tailor. These people represented the American, German, Swedish and Irish ancestry and belonged to Protestant, Catholic and Jewish faiths.
I am not assuming that Rotary was singularly Paul Harris’ idea or brainchild. Historians say that the interplay of personalities, who were with him during the formative years, synthesized this great movement. People also interpret the history as written in a book titled, “Paul Harris and the Birth of Rotary” by Fred A Carvin and suggest that the origin of Rotary was not about service. But they acknowledge that Paul Harris wanted to expand the objectives of the movement to include ‘civic responsibility and civic pride.’
However, in the book titled ‘Adventure in Service – The Story of Rotary, its origin, growth and influence’ there is a discussion about what is that which brought these men together in the first club. Was it a selfish motive or was it with the thought of rendering community a service? Paul Harris is quoted as saying, “Personal ambition had been largely responsible for the grouping. United they would stand; divided they might fall. And so they helped each other in every way that kindly heart and friendly spirit could suggest. The purposes of early Rotary have been frequently described as selfish and so indeed they may seem to have been. Whether a member was selfish or unselfish depended, of course, upon where he found his happiness. If he found it primarily in gaining advantage for himself, he was selfish. If he found it in helping friends, he was unselfish. Naturally both types of mind were represented in the early days of club number one, as is true everywhere.”
It is possible that for a Western mind, the depth of the intention of the founder Paul Harris was not completely understandable at that time and they took the easy route of saying that Rotary was founded for friendship. The story of the blind men and an elephant, which originated in the Indian subcontinent from where it has widely diffused, is worth recollecting here. It has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies. Broadly, the parable implies that one’s subjective experience can be true, but that such experience is inherently limited by its failure to account for other truths or a totality of truth. At various times the parable has provided insight into the relativism, opaqueness or inexpressible nature of truth, the behavior of experts in fields where there is a deficit or inaccessibility of information, the need for communication, and respect for different perspectives. Similarly, in the earlier days, people would have just seen and understood only one side of Paul Harris. In the Orient people always attributed higher meaning to the thoughts expressed by a learned person. And as the story of the blind men and elephant goes, the king explained to the blind men, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned. Another addition to this story goes like this: A man with sight came that way and saw the full elephant and admired it. But as he was deaf he could not hear it trumpet.
Those who delved into the archives and writings of the founders did find that the ideal of service was the main motive for the people coming together since all of them had the ‘thoughtfulness of others’ which is the basis of service. Helpfulness to others was its expression. In 1906 the Rotary Club of Chicago added a objective to its constitution which was, “The advancement of the best interests of Chicago and the spreading of the spirit of civic pride and loyalty among its citizens.”
When we think about the core values of the movement, which are, ‘fellowship, integrity, diversity, leadership and service,’ the concept of ‘civic responsibility’ is what has sustained the movement and gave it a brilliant place amongst the various organisations. We can then assume that Paul Harris and his three friends had indeed this thought to look beyond themselves while deciding to give shape to the movement. This elite group of thinkers knew that they had two primary choices in life. The first was to accept conditions as they exist and the second was to accept the responsibility for changing them. They understood that they were one choice away from changing their lives and that of those who needed help. Paul Harris and his three friends decided that with a new choice they can change the direction that very moment. They met people from all walks of life and asked them to make life changing choices by giving back to others who needed their help the most.
Those were the days when it was hard to put one foot in front of the other. But those were the days when a Champion called Paul Harris was created. He unleashed the power of encouragement amongst his friends and by giving a gentle push he made the group think, “Where do we go from here?” Soon,
Mr. Paul Harris was engaging with many more citizens and he asked them, “What do you plan to do with the rest of your life?” If anyone replied, “I might just sit it out and relax a bit,” Paul Harris told them, “You can’t do that. You got too much to make a difference in the lives of too many people. You will be cheating yourself and others if you don’t use the talents God has given you.”
Even in 2014 we hear the same old wrong story that Paul Harris founded Rotary for friendship and no wonder that the persons who attend the PETS, District Assembly and other such introductory events take away a diluted concept of why Rotary was founded. How can you expect such club and district leaders to increase membership? There are many social clubs to engage people in fun and frolic that can build friendship.
What needs to be said is Paul Harris founded Rotary for Service Through Friendship. There were two updates in the Facebook by a Rotary member. The first one said, “Wasted the whole day fishing with Jimmy. Didn’t catch a thing.” The next post read, “Went to my Rotary club project site with Bob. Best day of my life.” It is obvious that everything that’s really worthwhile in life comes to us through service to the society.