This Rotarian Age

Rotary has been the subject of friendly comments without number and the target of a few animadversions not so friendly. Both have served purposes, not always the purposes the writers have had in mind. A phenomenon sufficiently luminous to attract the attention of millions of people in scores of nations should be better understood.

Mr. G K Chesterton, whose references to Rotary have revealed no inclination to flatter, has on one occasion at least, referred to the present period in the world’s history as “this Rotarian age”. To Rotarians there is some consolation in the thought that he concedes that the movement is making imprint upon the times, even though he does make it manifest that he considers the step from the Victorian age to the Rotarian age a step backwards.

It would not be fair to the critics of Rotary, who include some of the most brilliant of the British and American writers, to charge them with prejudice. It can, however, in truth be stated that thousands of the great educators of many nations, not less profound, even if less scintillating, differ with them in their conclusions. The enrollment of such men is testimony to the fact that insincerity and superficiality are not necessary qualifications for membership.

After having made due allowances, however, for the difference between the esoteric and the esoteric viewpoints, and admitting that a member of an organization is not the ideal person to whom to look for a fair appraisal of its qualities, even a member, by reason of long connection with the movement, may be able to marshal facts of interest to those to whom Rotary is a quandary, leaving the reader to commend or condemn to suit himself.

One desiring to make further study of the movement would do well to read “Rotary?”, a survey made by seven social scientists of the University of Chicago; “Rotary – a Business Man’s Interpretation” by Frank Lamb, formerly a member of the faculty of the University of California; and “The Meaning of Rotary” by Vivian Carter, a journalist of London, England.

As to this particular book the writer must admit in advance that he is distinctly partisan although he has tried to be fair. He is one of the one hundred and fifty-six thousand members who love Rotary and believe in it. Most naturally, the critics emphasize the things in Rotary which they do not like. Most naturally, the writer emphasizes the things which, in common with his fellow Rotarians, he does like.

A member who would write the story of Rotary must obtain suitable perspective. It is human to magnify the importance of the immediate, not easy to realize that the high values of today may be the low values of tomorrow. What a present is, in the minds of the majority, always will be. In the present lies the perfection which past generations have died for and which future generations will venerate. To such, civilization has attained its Ultima Thule. Viewed in improper perspective, the creations of Raphael and Angelo are monstrosities; viewed in proper perspective they are immortal. 

How can a Rotarian divorce his thoughts from the immediate, the international convention of yesterday, the club meeting of today, all so important, so impressive? Verily we live in the present and well that is so. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” and, if we may be permitted, the happiness thereof, also. 

But divorce himself from the present he must, if he is to obtain suitable perspective. He must think not only of rotary itself, but also of its relation to other things equally important. Is it of the eternal cosmos, or will it whiff out leaving nothing to challenge the attention of historians of the future except the epitaph, “Born February 23, 1905. Died ----. A brief but happy life”?  

We may properly think of Rotary’s ancestral and environmental influences. It is manifest that a movement, which has gone so far in the brief period of thirty years, must have been the result of slowly gathering forces; it could not have been the inspiration of any one man or group of men; it could not have been spontaneous any more than earthquakes or volcanoes can be spontaneous.