THE FOUNDER OF ROTARY
PAUL P. HARRIS

PART I

On the shore of Lake Michigan, the second largest of North America’s great inland seas, sixty miles north of Chicago and twenty-five miles south of Milwaukee, lies a small city called Racine. It is known throughout the United States because it is the home of several nationally important manufacturing industries. The people of Racine, however, are not entirely devoted to manufacture; there are cultural interests of which Racine College is the center.

The second mayor of the city and one of the two most prosperous citizens was Henry Bryan, a lawyer whose father had been one of the early settlers of the western part of the State of New York, whose grandfather was born and raised in Massachusetts, and whose great-grandfather had emigrated from Ireland, incidentally and for reasons unknown to the writer, emasculating the family name which had been O’Brien.

Henry Bryan organized, financed, and led a gold mining expedition to California in the feverish days of ‘49, and as a result of this adventure, when Henry died he had naught to leave his widow except a family. The youngest daughter, Cornelia, married George H. Harris, a merchant, the son of Howard Harris of Wallingford, Vermont.

The first child of the union of George and Cornelia was named Cecil; the second Paul, who was born April 19, 1868. They played together and also with the boys of the neighborhood, Cecil generally having the frequently intractable Paul in charge. They often strayed from home down the steep river bank to the railroad and on such occasions the task of dragging Paul up the bank called for most of the boy power of the neighborhood.

There was one thing wrong with those summer days in Wallingford; they were not half long enough. While the swallows were still circling around the old church tower, and play was on at its most furious pace, the summons was sure to come: “Boys! the hot water and soap is ready in the mop pail. Wash your feet, it’s bedtime” But there was always the sustaining thought of the morrow with the breakfast of crisp fried potatoes, buckwheat cakes and maple syrup after the morning souse of hands and face in clear, cold running water from the spring.

On Saturday night, grandmother gave the boys a vigorous scrubbing in the old family washtub and on Sunday morning promptly entered them in Lottie Townsend's Sabbath School class.

In the fall the boys were taken in hand by Miss Sherman of the primary department of the village school. The first day was memorable because at recess time the older boys formed a circle around the unfortunate Paul and dancing in glee shouted, “Oh, see the little girl boy.” The humiliation was greater than he could bear. That evening grandmother tearfully clipped off the offending curls.

Neither father nor Cecil were destined to remain long in Wallingford. Family fortunes, or misfortunes perhaps, soon took them on their way. After several temporary residences in various communities the family settled in Fair Haven, where three other children were born to George and Cornelia. Guy Howard who died in 1889 at eleven years of age, Claude Harold who died in the service of his country in the Philippines and the youngest of the family, Reginald Clayton, who is a member of the faculty of the University of the State of Wyoming, and of the Rotary Club of Laramie.

In the year of 1917, Reginald sold his business and left his wife and young family to enlist in the World War. To his dismay, he was rejected because of physical disability. Learning, however, that his infirmity could be cured by a surgical operation, he underwent such operation and after lying two weeks in the hospital, again presented himself for enlistment and was accepted.

The separation of Cecil and Paul was a tragedy. Excepting only a period of a year or two and also excepting vacation visits back and forth, they never were united during boyhood days again. However, to Paul, at least, there was one compensation, he fell heir to the love and devotion of self-sacrificing grandparents in a well-regulated home, where the high ideals characteristic of New England’s early days prevailed. There was never any foolishness talked in that home. Morning, noon, and night the conversation was of the better things. Religious and political liberty was the order of the day. Echoes of the words of Brooks, Phillips and Garrison were still heard. The philosophies of Emerson and Holmes, the nature studies of Thoreau, and the word pictures of Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant had served to soften the rigors of Puritan thought. Prosecutions for witchcraft had assumed their rightful position as the most stupid blunders in American history and the last scar of the “Scarlet Letter” had long since vanished.

Grandfather was a man of few words. He had enjoyed limited educational advantages only, but valued education beyond all else. On hot summer afternoons, he frequently took his grandson with him to the barn and seriously pronounced words from the ancient spelling book. Even though he revolted against it at times, Paul’s subconscious mind was deeply impressed and later in life he chose the vocation which to his grandfather had been an ideal, the practice of law. If there has been anything of merit in any achievement of his, it is all attributable to the training received in that New England home. Words are not sufficient to express his appreciation of the benefits he derived from the devoted ministrations of those two good New England people.

The First Friendship

One day after Cecil had gone, Paul met a boy of his own age who had the reddest hair anyone had ever seen; hair couldn’t be any redder than Fay’s—his name was Fay Stafford; it was the red of a fiery flame and to him it was a source of considerable humiliation. If there ever was a boy who deserved the friendship of another boy, that boy was Fay and the friendship of another boy is what he got, the friendship of Paul. Before Paul could speak the name of his boy friend plainly, he used to call at his house and ask his mother if “Pay” could come out and play.

Fay suffered a great hardship; his folks compelled him to wear shoes even during the long hot summer days when going barefooted was such an exquisite pleasure; but the two raced the fields and hills together.

They knew no single-blessedness; they shared each others joys and sorrows. (seen in a rare photo, right at age 21 - Paul is on the left)  Paul’s life would have lost half its zest had he been deprived of the companionship of his red headed friend.

One day years later, Fay told a neighbor that it seemed at times to him that he was losing his mind. He became mentally unbalanced within two days thereafter and, was taken to the insane asylum at Brattleboro, where after spending several hopeless years be died, He was buried in the granite hills of old Vermont, and thus ended Paul’s first friendship.

Of life’s charms what is comparable with friendship? One may possess the wealth of a Croesus and yet, if friendless, how empty it all is.

The red-headed Vermont boy was the first of a long list of friends who have enriched and sweetened Paul’s life. He feels deeply indebted to them for the happiness they have brought him. They have indeed made life worth living and if there is any message which of all others be would send ringing down the aisles of time, it is the message of friendliness, the message of which mankind stands most in need.

The foundation upon which Rotary has been built is friendship; on no less firm foundation could it have stood. Perhaps when future generations think of Rotary and of the power of friendship, they will give passing thought to the red-headed boy of the granite hills.

The Lure of the Mountains

If the writer had been blessed in having a boy of his own, he would have turned him loose in the mountains of Vermont to strengthen his limbs in surmounting their heights, to gain inspiration from the exquisite scenery of ever-changing colors, and to cool himself on hot summer days in the clear, cold, sparkling waters of mountain lakes.

The mountains were a lure to Paul all the year round. His happiness was complete when, in company with other boys, he was climbing mountain peaks. But it was not often possible to have the companionship of other boys on his mountain expeditions. When not engaged in school or work, they, as a rule, had other and to them, more agreeable ways of spending their time. Most of Paul’s mountain expeditions were therefore enjoyed alone. Among other famous Green Mountain peaks which he ascended was Killington; he reached the summit on two occasions. Mountain climbing was not an exhilarating sport, merely. As such, it might not have met with the approval of grandfather and grandmother who believed that every shining hour should be turned to useful purpose. Paul was not averse to the economic view point and he therefore planned his mountain trips as far as possible so as to make them pay.

In the summer time, he picked more wild strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries than any other boy in the village, excepting only those who picked for hire.

He was frequently well on his way by the break of day and high up the mountainside when the early morning train, looking in the distance like a tiny worm, crawled down the Otter Creek valley.

Grandmother’s pantry shelves were always laden with the mountain berries preserved for winter use. And although she took little interest in the trout-fishing expeditions at first, she became reconciled after Paul had become fairly adept in the art of luring the wily trout from beneath logs and rocks in the cold swift running waters. Grandmother was wont to select the best of them, request her one and only household assistant to roll them in Indian meal and fry them in rich butter. She would then place them upon a platter, cover them with a dainty napkin and send Paul to deliver them to the sick folks of the village. The long days alone in the fastnesses of the mountains afforded excellent opportunity to dream of days to come.

The tramping habit having been once acquired, grew, and the walks became more and more extended. Paul frequently walked to Rutland and return, making a round trip of eighteen miles. On special occasions he walked to Fair Haven, twenty-five miles distant.

The winter sports in the mountains were even more fascinating than those of summer time. Skating on the surface of mountain lakes and the nearby creek; dare-devil slides down the mountain sides; all were joyous beyond expression.

During the holiday times the old house rang with laughter, brothers and sister and cousins many. Pandemonium reigned.

It was difficult to wait even for breakfast. There is no sweeter music to Vermont boys and girls than the ring of skates. On frosty mornings after a snowfall there was also other music to be heard, the hoarse baying of hounds as, in pursuit of fox and rabbit, they ranged over the mountain side.

The Love of Fun

But it was not all fun. There was of course school; it had to be endured. Paul put up with it in poor grace but he tempered its sorrows with his own special brand of mischief.

The village folks soon became so conscious of his weakness that whenever anything untoward happened they instantly concluded that Paul Harris was at the bottom of it. Some of the good folks of Wallingford were wont to speak of him as “that Paul Harris” with special emphasis on the “that.”

The writer is glad, however, to be able to say that among the last words which Mr. Will Shaw, principal of the high school, spoke before he passed to the beyond was a glowing tribute to this fun-loving boy. It meant much coming from him, for he must have been sorely tried at times.

Paul’s dominating characteristic was his love of fun and companionship.

Grandfather and grandmother were very punctual in their habits. Their motto was, “Early to bed and early to rise.” Paul was supposed to be in bed at nine o’clock and in fact he always was. It did not, however, necessarily follow that he was in bed at ten o’clock. Quite frequently he was not.

His bedroom adjoined that of his grandparents and when sounds familiar to his listening ear told him that they were asleep, he would rise and cautiously creep to the kitchen, raise a window and thence pass out to join his boy companions.

School Days

Paul took the second year of his preparatory work in the Rutland high school, living at the home of his uncle, Dr. George Fox. The following fall he entered Black River Academy at Ludlow where he found himself for the first time entirely free from parental restraint. He so loved his liberty that he celebrated it in a series of pranks which resulted in his expulsion. He returned to Wallingford with a considerable feeling of shame and with contrite heart. His excess of spirits resulted in another loss of which he was not at the time apprised. Had he but remained at Black River Academy a little longer, he would have been a schoolmate of the quiet youth from the other side of the mountain, heretofore referred to, Calvin Coolidge.

In course of time Paul expiated his offence, was forgiven by his indulgent grandparents and enrolled in Vermont Academy, a military institution at Saxtons River, where he rendered a good account of himself.

In the fall of 1885, he matriculated as a Freshman in the University of Vermont at Burlington and there also he demeaned himself in an exemplary manner during the first year and a part of the second. In his Sophomore year, however, his love of fun got the best of him with the result that he and three other members of the class were ignominiously expelled. The fact that he and two of the other three were innocent of the offence with which they had been charged was of little solace. Who the guilty ones were was a matter of common knowledge among the boys, but, of course, no self-respecting sophomore could turn informer.

Years later, the University, under the presidency of Dr. Guy Bailey, conferred degrees upon the four expelled men, certainly a very magnanimous proceeding for which all of the parties most concerned were deeply grateful.

Many happy memories of life in Burlington remain. The University is located on the heights overlooking beautiful Lake Champlain with the Adirondacks in the west and the Green Mountains in the east.

The winter sports, coasting, ice-yachting, tobogganing, skating, and snow-shoeing were found at their best.

After his expulsion, Paul continued his studies under a private tutor, took his examinations in Princeton in the spring of 1887 and entered that institution the following fall.

He was presented to Dr. McCosh, then entering upon the last year of his presidency, by Professor Huss. The venerable educator was sitting in the great living-room of his residence as Professor Huss and his charge entered. Paul was deeply impressed with his patriarchal and scholarly appearance. On Paul’s being introduced, Dr. McCosh, in his characteristic broad Scotch inquired: “And did you come here to have a good time?” To which the new student was sufficiently self-possessed to answer, “No, Dr. McCosh, I came here to study.” The answer being apparently satisfactory, the doctor arose, partially straightening his tall spare figure which had become greatly bent as the result of years of application to books, extended his hand in welcome and said: “Ah! that’s right, my boy.”

Dr. McCosh was succeeded as president of Princeton in October, 1888, by Dr. Francis L. Patton who remained president for fourteen years, resigning his post to Woodrow Wilson in 1902. Dr. Patton is the only one of the trio of famous men now living. Paul and his wife had the pleasure of taking tea with the distinguished Doctor and Mrs. Patton recently in Bermuda. Dr. Patton, now eighty- four years of age, is spending his remaining years in literary pursuits in his splendid ancestral home.

Grandfather’s Passing

One day during the month of March, of the year 1888, while at Princeton, Paul received a telegram informing him of his grandfather’s serious illness, and though he took the first train in haste to reach the bedside of his benefactor, his arrival was too late. Howard Harris was no more.

Grandfather had lived eighty-six honorable self-sacrificing years.

There has always been some sense of satisfaction to Paul in the thought that in that trying hour, though her son, daughter, and many grandchildren were present, grandmother chose to lean particularly on him. It was his arm which supported her at the graveside where she looked for the last time on him who had been her constant companion for more than sixty years.

After the funeral and while the two branches of the family were all assembled, Paul was called upon to read his grandfather’s will. It was a marvel of simplicity, high-mindedness and wisdom. Many of the village folks had predicted that, after a life interest to grandmother, Paul would be remembered equally with the two direct heirs, but their predictions were not realized. After specific legacies for the education of the grandchildren including Paul, the residuary estate was divided into two equal parts, the one going direct to the daughter, Pamelia, the wife of Doctor George H. Fox, of Rutland, and the other placed in trust for the benefit of George, the father of Cecil and Paul. The will was in no sense of the word a disappointment to Paul. Though conscious of the fact that the sober- minded village people had preordained him to failure, and though his confidence in himself had been considerably shaken by their conclusions, he nevertheless felt within him the desire to fight life’s battle single-handed, come weal or woe.

Grandfather’s death was the first great event in the slow but certain break up of this splendid New England home. None could have been more conscious of the seriousness of the tragedy which was being enacted than Paul. He visited the places hallowed by sacred memories and he tried to make his gratitude and love known to his grandmother. Together they walked during the hush of summer mornings, following the paths which grandfather’s footsteps had made through orchard and garden. Grandmother was very quiet at times during those summer-morning walks and Paul knew she was living again the events of sixty years of conjugal bliss and domestic tranquility.

Earning a Living

In the fall of 1888, after finishing his year at Princeton, Paul went into the office of the Sheldon Marble Company, quarries of Vermont marble in West Rutland, for a year’s business training. The former Princeton student was given the high and honorable position of office boy at the prodigious wage of one dollar per day. All he had to do was to get up at five a. m., breakfast, walk a mile to the office, attend to all of the stoves, sweep and dust and get the office in readiness for the coming of the officials and office men and then do his day’s work with the others.

Why Captain Morse, the manager, ever consented to give Paul with his known propensity for mischief employment, has always been a mystery. Cecil had been working for the company in the capacity of traveling salesman and that fact undoubtedly helped, but the captain knew Paul personally as the latter had served in his company in the Kingsley Guard and it was the opinion of the wise that the captain was taking desperate chances.

In the beginning, he told Paul that it was the job of the office boy not only to do what he was told to do but to find things to do when not told. The timely adjuration was sufficient. Paul knew that Captain Morse took him into the employ of the company with full knowledge of his character and qualities and he knew that the Sheldons had been fully advised. He knew that he had been given employment which many other more serious- minded young men would have been eager to obtain and he resolved that he would never betray the trust reposed in him; that he would fill the duties of that humble office as they had never been filled before. Within six months, he was drawing the highest wage that had ever been paid for the service he was called upon to render and before the year was closed, he was filling a more important position.

The writer hopes that the readers of this chronicle of events will not mistake his purpose in relating the following:

During the year of Paul’s employment by the Sheldon Marble Company, Mr. W. K. Sheldon chanced to meet Matthew Henry Buckham, the president of the State University at the State Legislature, whereupon President Buckham asked Mr. Sheldon, a graduate of the University, if he did not know that Paul Harris had been expelled. Mr. Sheldon replied, “Yes, President Buckham, I know all about it and it might interest you to learn that Paul is one of the most promising young men we have ever had in our office.” As the company then employed six hundred men, the tribute to Paul’s success in carrying out his resolution to justify the confidence of his employers was noteworthy. Mr. Sheldon never passes through Chicago, without calling on his former employee nor without making reference to the incident. Matthew Henry Buckham was a great scholar, a worthy and upright president of the State University but lacked the ability of Mr. Sheldon and Captain Morse to bring out the worthy qualities of young men. Is it not also noteworthy that these business men whose minds were full of important affairs thought it worthwhile to make such an experiment? Paul thought so and for that reason, he felt an overwhelming sense of loyalty.

Last Days in New England

There is always one great day in the life of every youth, one day greater than any other. Paul’s great day was at the same time the most sorrowful.

Grandmother had taken residence in the excellent home of her daughter in Rutland, where she had every service which loving hands could provide. It had been planned that Paul was to take up the study of law in Iowa and he and grandmother had been spending the few days in the blessed old home.

Grandmother and Paul spent the morning of the great day together while she revealed to him her hopes and ambitions for his future. She held up wonderfully, though she broke down at last. “Never mind, Grandma, I shall see you again soon,” said the boy. She shook her aged head tearfully. One more of life’s tasks had been completed. It had been left to her to make the final decision and she had made it without the slightest regard to her own feelings. Paul was to go to Iowa to study law.

Taking Horace Greely’s Advice

As he walked to the railway station, his thoughts went back to the night of his arrival eighteen years before. The future seemed full of uncertainties as he took the train for the West and of nothing was he more uncertain than of himself. Would his future justify the devotion and sacrifices of the two New England people.

He spent a week in Chicago with a college friend, Robert M. Johnson, who had become a newspaper reporter and who showed him where the Haymarket riot and the Cronin murder had taken place. He also showed him where George V. Hankins was then openly running his notorious gambling den. These sights created a profound impression upon the mind of Paul. He had seen a considerable bit of New York and Philadelphia while in College at Princeton, but the unrest of the western city possessed for him a weird fascination. Chicago seemed to him a human maelstrom where social battles were to be fought. The sights which attracted him also repelled him.

During the first year in Iowa, Paul read law in the office of St. John, Stevenson and Whisenand in Des Moines; but he spent the summer months at Lake Okaboja where he fished and enjoyed out-door life in general, reading law when there were no more urgent demands upon his time.

In the fall, he entered the law department of the State University in Iowa City and graduated in June of the year, 1891. In the Iowa University he encountered conditions quite different from any he had met before. The students were older than those in the University of Vermont and at Princeton. Most of them came from Iowa farms and many had taught school as a means of raising the money necessary to the completion of their education. They were earnest men who had for the most part, passed their play period.

The atmosphere was wholesome and groups of law students frequently spent their evenings in their rooms conducting quizzes; and discussing the theory and practice of law.

During the course of the year, Paul won the friendship of Will Mullin, a young man of brilliant mind. Will was two or three years Paul’s senior and whilst clerking during a period of years in his brother’s book store in Cedar Rapids, he had acquired a fine knowledge of literature. He became Paul’s literary guide and his influence was probably not diminished by the fact that he was more or less of a bon vivant.

Looking Backward

As Paul now looks back at his experiences in the various educational institutions, he is prone to question himself as to what, if any thing, he got out of them; what, if anything, was there to justify his grandfather’s sacrifices and hopes? Was it worth while?

Was it Dr. McCosh or Dr. Patton who once said that it is better to go to college and loaf than not to go at all? Whoever it was, he was probably right. One cannot fail to pick up some values where they are to be found in such abundance.

The best thing that Paul got from his experiences in educational institutions came from his contacts with other students. In scholastics, be cannot lay claim to have gotten much except, perhaps, a love of good books.

On the whole, he is certain that the great lure to him of educational institutions was the opportunity they gave him to study the ways of men. He was ever an experimenter. Was there some place to which men flocked? If so, what was the attraction? What were the underlying which influenced the lives of men? Why did men conduct themselves as they did? Why were some good and others bad? Why did some make sacrifices? Did they pay? If so, how? Why were others wasteful of their physical, mental, and moral resources? What did they get out of it? Was there wisdom in grandfather’s precepts—or was he simply out of date, a well meaning, but deluded old fogey? What was life? The mists of thirty-five years have obscured many of the occurrences and thoughts of student days and within that period of time many friends and schoolmates have passed to the beyond. How quickly some of them passed. With what expedition and with what thoroughness they “mined the mine of youth to the last vein of the ore.”

During his life in Iowa, Paul received many splendid letters from his grandmother but one sad day he received a telegram stating that she had peacefully passed on. On an autumn afternoon when the sugar maples on the mountain sides were in their most radiant colors, they laid her at rest beside her husband in the quiet cemetery in Wallingford. She had lived her entire life of seventy-eight years in the peaceful valley and only on very rare occasions had she ever left it.

Paul had not begun to see enough of the world to satisfy him and he made the resolve to devote the next five years to the study of life from as many different angles and in as many different cities as possible. He was aflame with desire to broaden his horizon. He longed to see the scenes of the exploits of his maternal grandfather in the golden west; the life of the plains; languorous Florida; and the land of his dreams, the tight little isles across the seas. He also resolved that on the termination of the five-year period he would settle in Chicago and practice law.

Westward Ho!

His friend, Robert Johnson, was at that time doing newspaper work in San Francisco. Paul visited the Yellowstone National Park en route West, spent a week in the mountains of Northern Idaho hunting and fishing for trout. While in the mountains he had the good fortune of bringing down a black bear. There was no rational excuse for spending any of his few remaining dollars in such pursuits, but he was realizing one of his objectives — he was experiencing life.

During the latter part of July, 1891, he arrived in San Francisco, his money spent. He was on his own at last.

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