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The True Story of the Eventful Life of our new President‑Frank L. Mulholland |
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By John R. Sprague, San Antonio Rotarian (Down in San Antonio the Rotarians publish a little magazine which is called "The Wheel of Fortune" and every issue contains a very cleverly written sketch of the life of some member. It is stated that “Jack Sprague”, their jeweller member, is the biographical raconteur. When the convention got to San Antonio on the circle tour the visitors discovered that weeks issue of "The Wheel" had accomplished a "scoop" in journalism by printing for the first time the following intensely interesting sketch of our new president.) THIS is the time I put one over on you. You opened your WHEEL OF FORTUNE languidly, expecting to read as usual the life of. some common or garden variety of Rotarian, when who should suddenly appear before your astonished gaze but the photograph and life story of the Big Boy of all Rotary, the Cicero of the International Association, the man who has just been elected president, in short, Frank Mulholland of Toledo, Ohio. It makes me mad to think how hard I have worked to make interesting reading out of the life story of some of you San Antonio Rotarians when the most exciting thing you ever did was to graduate from the local high school, and the longest journey you ever took was your wedding trip to Corpus Christi. But with Frank Mulholland it is entirely different. He is a live one. It is almost pitiful the way in which I have had to play up trifling incidents in the lives of some of you fellows in order to make any kind of a story at all. For instance if any of you got expelled from school I gave it half a column. But Frank Mulholland got expelled twice and in the mass of other incidents I pass it by with hardly an honorable mention. When our own Judge Archer started to run for Congress we were nearly tickled to death at the prominence of it. But Frank not only ran for Congress but got defeated as well. Frank was born 39 years ago in a metropolis of about 800 souls, called Disco, in the State of Michigan. By birth, therefore, he is a Ruben. He may have looked like a Ruben at one time but he certainly does not look like one now. Please take another look at the picture. By the way, Toledo itself is something of a Tank town in now I believe. It does not maintain a league ball team. Frank's father was a Methodist minister and as three years is the limit of a pastorate in the Methodist church, Frank will be in the same class with Homer when he becomes celebrated enough for the different towns he lived in to begin claiming to be his birthplace. When Frank was 19 he took his grand adventure which was in the guise of a trip across the Atlantic in a cattle ship and a bicycle tour of Europe a la Harry Franck, which means earning your way as you go. He was particularly fascinated with Greece and stayed long enough in Athens to write a lecture which he still occasionally delivers before high schools and Christian Endeavor gatherings. I have never heard the lecture but I will bet the opening words are: "I bring you a message from Acropolis‑crowned Athens, ancient mother of all the arts." Be that as it may, Frank finally came back to America and decided to be a lawyer. He went to night school in Detroit, and just to show that he was a real man, took a job in a laundry day times to pay expenses. After a year in Detroit he entered the law school at Ann Arbor and there took his degree. Then he went to Toledo (which was in the league at that time), and began to practice law whenever he could get a client. This was sixteen years ago and the clients have gotten a little thicker each year. When the right kind of a man gets his living assured he looks about to see what he can do in a useful way and that is the reason Frank became so active in Toledo's civic life. They do say he was the most efficient president that the Toledo Chamber of Commerce ever had. About three years ago Frank was attacked by Rotarians, and it hit him hard. He liked its ethics, its good fellowship and its opportunities for service. During the past year he has spoken before many of the clubs in the ‑United States and all of those in Great Britain. He has earned his presidency fairly and the Association is mighty lucky to get him. Just one thing more. Men are wonderfully alike, and women are even more so. You know when I write up the local members I often mention how pleased their wives are in giving the data for their husbands' life stories. Well I must confess that I approached Mrs. Mulholland in the Rice Hotel the other day with some misgivings. I was a little afraid that the wife of a man who had run for Congress and had delivered lectures about the Parthenon and who was about to be elected Rotary's president, might be inclined to belittle a story which was to be printed only in the San Antonio, WHEEL OF FORTUNE. But she was just as pleased as any of our wives have been in similar circumstances. She thinks Frank is the finest man in the world and is glad to have even the humble WHEEL OF FORTUNE tell folks about it. She has the true Rotary spirit. So have we. And that is why THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE says with reverence‑for Rotary rightly taken, is, as deep a religion as any‑God bless and prosper the career of Frank Mulholland, the new president of Rotary. From an article in The Rotarian |
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