"On to Ostend"

Six Cunard liners cleared from Manhattan last week bearing 3,000 much-maligned souls to Ostend, Belgium. From various quarters of the globe other ships bore 5,000 more souls, equally maligned, to the same destination. They were the world's Rotarians and--as they call their wives--Rotary Anns, off to their annual international convention to promote the Sixth Object of the Rotary.*

Of the fleet of North American Rotarians it was announced that radio communication--or "contact," as Rotarians say--would be continuous between ships all the way across the ocean so that the junket-ers could exchange messages and keep tabs on what all were doing. All six ships had their entertainment committees, to think up daily "programs" such as Rotarians enjoy at home only once per week. Each ship was laden with "inexpensive (and expensive) articles to be distributed as prizes." (Rotarians love to play games.) "Among other things sent in," announced The Rotarian (official monthly), "was a topcoat, rather a useful thing to have on an Atlantic trip. Sometimes the evenings are a bit cool and the regular constitutional round the decks has to be a brisk one."

But not all would be play. On the fleet flagship Carinthia members of the International Board planned to "hold several meetings," to clear up odds and ends left dangling after its big meeting, prior to embarkation, in Manhattan. International President Harry* H. Rogers was there, jovial but with his duties well in mind. He would be chief exchanger of greetings and ideas with Rotarians of all nations.

The Minnesota Rotarians-were there with booklets printed in colors to advertise Minneapolis as "host city" for 1928. Their most trusted member guarded "a beautiful, illuminated invitation for presentation to the convention."

Off they sailed--and behind their backs, in the U. S., flippant, shallow-minded cynics and "sophisticates" snickered at them privately and in smart-charts, or wriggled in cheap self-consciousness to think that these, the butts of so much "horse-laughter" at home, should "parade American crassness before the eyes of Europe."

But deriders of Rotary will learn better very soon now. As Rotarian Gardner Mack wrote only this month in the Rotarian, Rotary has "turned the corner." From a little lunch group brought together by a lonely Chicago lawyer, it has become a huge organization "covering 40-odd separate nations and claiming approximately 130,000 members!" It is outgrowing what Rotarian William Allen White calls its "boy complex," its "garish ex-ternals," its "supersentimentalism and noisy infanticism." It is not unembarrassed by members who say Jesus was the original Rotarian and even bridles when admirers say "there must have been something divine in the origin of Rotary." Its statements are dignified nowadays and Rotarians will smile indulgently if they read in the June American Mercury that St. Patrick has been claimed as "first real Kiwanian of the Celtic race."* Rotary no longer needs imaginary prestige. It has its own. Such men as Commander Francesco de Pinedo have accepted honorary Rotaryhood. Into the teeth of Novelist Sinclair Lewis' castigations Rotary now can fling George Bernard Shaw's retort: "Any sort of an organization is better than sitting in an office, trying to do the other fellow. . . ." This retort has had the approval of the sophisticated New York World, which said: "The Rotarian is not without his points." And does not President Glenn Frank of the University of Wisconsin write for the Rotarian among other publications--the same Glenn Frank whom that loudest anti-Rotarian toothgnasher, H. L. Mencken, has recommended, for U. S. President?

Rotarians have been called many names, from "grownup Boy Scouts" to "snouting imbeciles." But no one conversant with Rotary's inception and ideals could possibly give credence to such abuse.

Rotary was founded 22 years ago, when Percy Paul Harris of Chicago called three friends into his office and discussed the Golden Rule with them on the evening of Feb. 23.

Mr. Harris had led a lively life. From earliest boyhood he had been in and out of "hot water." Expelled for pranks from Black River Academy, expelled for "his love of fun" from the University of Vermont, he managed to finish his education at Princeton. The next few years he served as night clerk in a Florida hotel, acted in a Denver stock company, reported for newspapers, punched cows, mastered the traveling man's profession. He sailed to England on a cattleship, batting around at many an odd job and alwayssto this he attributes his success--always keeping "well-dressed and well-groomed." Satisfied finally that he had "seen life," he settled in Chicago, married,' began practising law . . . .

The friends whom lonely Lawyer Harris called to him were Sylvester Schiele, coal; Gustavus Loehr, mining; Harry Ruggles, printing. They sat long and late comparing notes, exchanging experiences. Then they invited 15 or 20 men, each from a different profession to minimize "shop talk," broaden the conversation and recruit "a further idea or a dynamic force."

It was the third club or the fourth that brought Rotary into civic affairs in a very definite way. . . . In the town where this particular club was situated were three civic organizations of the Chamber of Commerce character. They were intense rivals. . . . There came an occasion for community action. . . . The rest is easy to guess. "There was an exceedingly wise man in that town. This wise man simply explained that while the rivals bickered, Rotary went ahead and served."

That is the keynote, hub, axle, dynamo, driving force, central idea of Rotary--SERVICE--and Rotarians have sent emissaries all over the world to pass the word along and plant more Rotary Clubs, each composed of 50 to 200 representatives of separate professions and "lines."

With 130,000 Rotarians and nearly as many Rotary Anns behind him, and 8,000 of them actually crying "On to Ostend" last week, what wonder that founder Paul Percy Harris writes:

"Rotary has passed its adolescent stage. It is coming into its own as a world force. . . . What a wonderful goal there is before Rotary! . . . Each year we have been able to look back on steady progress and each year we can turn with renewed courage toward the great rising sun of that wonderful accomplishment whose rays are even now reflected on the horizon . . . harmony and prosperity and happiness for all the peoples of the earth."

*Sixth Object: ". . . advancement of understanding, good-will and international peace."

*"Harry" to all. Third principle of Rotary is "that every member should be addressed preferably by his first name or a nickname in some manner to indicate the close, intimate friendship among Rotarians."

*The Kiwanis clubs founded later than Rotary, much resemble Rotary.