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Another Opinion Regarding Rotary |
| By Raymond M. Havens Past President of Rotary International and Chairman of the Business Methods Committee WHAT is the weak point of Rotary? Is there a fade‑away element in its make‑up, from which it will perish, if it perishes? You know what I mean. But let's put it in plain words, I mean the weakness which tends to reduce Rotary to mere good fellowship, to leave it an organization without a basic or fundamental cause. Most incredible, the unfortunate thing, is that thousands of Rotary club members do not know what Rotary really means. Is the physical organization, Rotary? Is the Government, America? Does civilization consist in the government, the law‑makers, the law‑enforcers, the social censors? Or does civilization consist in the civilized state of mind of individuals? This opinion ran across the page from one by Rotary Founder Paul P. Harris. Never has there been such a multiplicity of organizations, associations, societies, leagues to reform and set right every imaginable thing. All of them have a certain more or less similar form. Each have a few active members, who break into print and claim to speak for a vast following. Is Rotary International one of these? No, certainly not, it is entirely different. It is the very opposite. Rotary International has its organized leadership, its organized machinery; but this leadership and this machinery are for the purpose of inspiring its members to keep the faith of Rotary. Rotary is a body that works through its membership as individuals. The faith of Rotary is individual responsibility. Where and how is the Rotary faith to be kept and practiced? Nothing could be more simple. The place is your own daily business, the time is now, and the way to do it is simply to realize that there is no such thing as passive, inactive good character. Some other manufacturer trimmed the cost by using a material he would not tell his customers he uses? He makes a larger profit. Are you therefore, justified in doing likewise? You have a number of men working for you, to whom you have never said as much as "good morning." Wouldn't it be more human to make occasional rounds of your own shop or office and get into personal touch with your men and associates than to pay a social worker to make proxied visits? Do you sometimes tell your typist that you must have those letters finished, and when they are finished, let them lie over until next week, because they are unimportant, while the girl sees red and green and blue, but tries to smile. That's a great advertisement the young advertising writer concocted. If he had known more about the goods, perhaps he would not have written with such enthusiasm. Almost a case for the Better Business Bureau. Well, you say, they don't know, or will not dare to kick. And the advertisement sure has the punch, Let it ride. There are worse mis‑statements getting by. Thus we seek to justify our action. But we fool few people ‑ least of all ourselves. Business is the everyday, universal, never‑ceasing aggregate of actions, small and big, trifling and important, forming an intricacy of life in which every individual is more or less similar; and Rotary means that, here and there, an individual shall stand out as an example: There is a man! WHAT constitutes a first‑class, decent, loyal upstanding man and citizen? Why does he stand out? Not because he is a member of Rotary, but because he has character. Character goes beyond qualities of mind; it exceeds what we call individuality. Character is the spirit of the man ‑ plus the state of mind springing from intelligence, education, experience, and moral conviction; and, above all, character demonstrates itself by action. Certainly, it cannot demonstrate itself by inaction. There is no such thing as passive good character. So when we ask the question, "What is Rotary?" we can well answer it in these terms: It is the character of the individual Rotarian. It is the character of the men who profess and practice Rotary in all of their daily contacts. It is the great need of the modern world. In this way, the purposes and objects of Rotary are to be gained, if they are gained, at all, by the influence of Rotary principles on the business morality of a community. Not by speeches, but by deeds, daily, hourly deeds. This is the mighty difference between the organization of Rotary and the organizations that are the spear‑heads of a cause. The cause of Rotary is to raise up men to practice honor, human feeling, good will, sympathy in the office and the shop, the factory and the store. It is idealism put into practical effect. It is business chivalry. Not in words but in the individual's acts. He, himself, is the cause. In its hey‑day, chivalry furnished an object lesson to the world which still exists in figures of speech and terms of action. Why? Because chivalry was practiced by individual knights errant, and it was only when it passed into forms of social organization and titles and tenure of office, that it became a sham and perished. Likewise, when Rotary fails to be the Rotarian himself; when it becomes a name, an organization, doing what other organizations do, supporting this or that good thing outside of the inner business life; when it becomes neglectful of the personal business arena in which each Rotarian must prove himself ‑ that is, his own office, or shop ‑ then Rotary, instead of qualifying to be the chivalry of business, will become a sham, a pretense, and deserve the oblivion of disuse. Herein lies the weakness of Rotary. Finally, how do we know this weakness of Rotary is being felt? How do we know that there are Rotarians who put on Rotary like a coat when they go to the meetings, and take it off like a coat, when they return to their places of business? We know it because of the constant disposition to take up something to boost Rotary, to get publicity. I heard a good brother measure the good of his club by the columns of newspaper space. We know it because ‑ I hate to say it, but I must say it, for I wish to make this so plain that it will hurt ‑ we know it because the men on the street, the men in any certain trade, do not appear to always regard Rotary membership in itself as evidence of squareness and integrity. They think that Rotary is all right, the Rotarians are good men ‑ they have to be, or they can't become members ‑ but they are good men like many other good men, no better than it pays. The spirit of Rotary, like the spirit of chivalry, is the rightness of the act, not the cost of the act. The payment is spiritual. Your acts make you a Rotarian. It makes other men realize that you are a Rotarian. By this code and no other; by the application of this code of business, not the other fellow's business but your own business; only in this way will Rotary stand forth as the escutcheon of the strong man, the brave man, the gallant business man, who, in the end, must uphold this civilization, or it will crash on our heads, burying good and bad in one common ruin. |
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