This was amazing as just two years earlier he had again nearly died from another serious heart attack. As noted in James Walsh's biography "The First Rotarian," it took two years to recover this time. At this point Harris was also unable to carry on with his law practice. Yet,  he and jean had 17 years remaining, and an entire world that they would visit. The bravery and strength of this man is amazing. The volumes of invaluable writing left behind is a treasure of these trips.

Suddenly, I'm reminded of the voice of Paul Harris, which you can hear at rotaryfirst100.org. He is introduced, on radio, from the 1933 Boston Convention. "Friends of the air." he says. He is speaking to non-Rotarians and he gives his definition of a "Rotarian." 

And that brings me to my  story: "The Spanish American War and How Rotary Came to Salt Lake City and on to my Home of Pueblo, Colorado."

From the Spanish American War many will remember future US president Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. But who remembers that President Roosevelt later said, "In order to prepare for our future we must learn from our past?"  Some may remember a small pamphlet call "The message to Garcia" that also came from that same war.

Rotary's Global History Fellowship has also a message to deliver from men long gone, important for all of us (and hopefully nobody has to cross a jungle for that purpose.) 

By some coincidence, two of the men who played such an important role in Rotary's future, were two fighting buddies from Cuba.

Who is Howard Harris?

They are going to be very important to us, but let's leave them and return to the end of Andrew Johnson's unremarkable term as president of the United States. Because none of this would be important were it not that two months after the impeachment of the president, on April 19, 1868, a child was born to the Harris family   of Racine, Wisconsin. George was not much of a father. But, in his defense neither was his father. Howard's fathering of George was to buy the young man a drugstore in Racine. A situation that caused him to feel no particular responsibility toward this enterprise. So, in 1871 taking two of the children to live with his father might not have been any more shameful than squandering his father's money. This he would do again.

But, where the elder Howard Harris might have failed his son, we owe Paul Harris' grandfather and grandmother everything we today enjoy in Rotary. "I think I inherited something of grandfather's broad spirit of tolerance. Grandfather was an ambassador of good-will in the eyes of the youngster who sat at his table during his impressionable years; he never spoke evil of any man nor of any man's religion or politics." My Road To Rotary page 208.

Howard and Pamela Harris allowed Paul the life of a child, boy, young man and young adult that his father George Harris and spendthrift mother Cornelia Bryan Harris could never have offered. It was Howard Harris' "love of man" that most impressed young Paul and shaped his life.  Paul's definition of a Rotarian, "One who has 'love of man' in his heart." Now we know!

Harris was gifted, a genius who created one of the world's most powerful forces and he was well prepared for it. However, he knew that he had the father in him and so before practicing law in Chicago he became a wanderer of the world for five years. From his graduation from law school until he arrived in Chicago in 1896 he slept in fields, picked crops, herded cattle, and wrote for newspapers in San Francisco, Denver and DC. He shipped out as a cattleman for the British Isles and describes living in conditions of sub-human squallier. He learned of suffering and of wealth. He also sold marble, was a hotel clerk, actor, business teach, but hungry lonely or happy he proved he was his own man.

His travels were gave him valuable experience, tested him and proved his determination.  Paul Harris, we might say he was the "right man at the right time," a man with an incredible determination to reach a predefined goal. In this first autobiography, just after his second major illness,  �The Founder of Rotary� page 58 �Secret of Success�  he writes "People have frequently expressed wonder at his ability to land almost immediately on his feet after arrival in a strange city; even men of considerable experience such as roving newspaper men have expressed amazement. Harry Pulliam, for instance, used to call Paul the �wonder man�. To those who have sometimes been out of jobs for months at a time in their home cities, Paul�s experiences would probably seem miraculous. The fact that he could do what he did was as much a tribute to the astonishing resources of the country in which he lived as to Paul personally. �"

Pulliam was one of many friends he met on his five year journey, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, who became the president of the National Baseball League.

We know him as the father of Rotary. He was highly decorated and celebrated in other fields and in law. He became one of Chicago's prominent attorneys. One evening, around the turn of the century, he took dinner with a fellow attorney.  (And, by the way, even his obituary, in the Chicago Tribune, says that Rotary was born out of loneliness. Don't believe it. He may have been lonely when he arrived in Chicago, but he made friends wherever he went. However, it is true that he and some of his friends did miss the society of the small towns from which they had come.)

As he and his friend were walking after dinner, the fellow attorney was being greeted by merchants and friends. It was then that Paul got his inspiration for an organization such as we have today. "The thought came to me why not in big Chicago have a fellowship composed of just one man from each of many different occupations, with no restrictions as to their politics or religion, with broad tolerance of each other's opinions? In such a fellowship could there not be mutual helpfulness?" Paul Harris, Page 230 My Road to Rotary.