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July 1999 — 'Up to Good'
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Service clubs have a heart in an often heartless
world, and they should be honoured for the splendid work they
do. They embody idealism and the community spirit, two qualities
that are needed more than ever today...
The occasion was more suspicious than auspicious, coming
as it did in 1905 in Chicago. Though that city had yet to
gain its reputation as the gangster capital of the world,
it was nonetheless home to the extortionist Black Hand society,
various anarchist cells, and the powerful industrial cartels
that were then ruthlessly preying on the American economy.
And here you had four dark-suited men meeting in an office
building that had long been left to its overnight echoes by
its workaday inhabitants. Anyone hearing of this conclave
might be forgiven for thinking that, in the grand tradition
of men getting together after dark, these fellows were up
to no good.
But as Paul Harris and his three companions talked into
the night of February 25 in Room 711 of the Unity Building
on Dearborn Street, they defied the cynical view of human
association as a conspiracy of particular interests against
the general welfare. In a reversal of all-too-common form,
they were "up to good." For there and then they launched the
service club movement, which has since mobilized millions
of volunteer workers for the improvement of living conditions
for people virtually everywhere on the planet. Today, service
clubs are striving to eradicate childhood diseases, prevent
blindness among hundreds of thousands of Third World children,
provide medical equipment and personnel, promote literacy,
and do a thousand other things to benefit the mass of humankind.
It all started with Harris pining away for the sense of
fellowship and community he had known growing up in a small
town now that he was living as a lawyer in a big city. So
he brought together three acquaintances to propose that they
meet regularly for purposes of camaraderie, enlightenment,
and mutual encouragement and support. They agreed to form
a club of like-minded business and professional men, and decided
that their meetings should rotate among the members' business
premises. Hence its name: the Rotary Club.
As its membership grew, Rotary assumed the form of a modern
service club, hosting convivial weekly luncheon meetings featuring
guest speakers. But the defining point in its evolution came
in 1907 when it undertook its first community project, the
provision of comfort stations (public toilets) at Chicago
City Hall. The concept of reaching out into the community
set Rotary apart from the great majority of associations that
had gone before it. There was no shortage of clubs at the
time, but their membership tended to be specialized as to
religion, political affiliation, sports, occupation and what-have-you.
Many did good works, but they were inclined to keep the fruits
of their benevolence to themselves.
Even religious groups dedicated to aiding the sick and poor
either confined their activities to their own communicants
or acted in self -interest by seeking converts. The closest
approximations to service clubs were fraternal orders such
as the Masons, Odd Fellows and Elks. Members of these lodges
supported one another, but by and large they did not then
see their role as lending support to entire communities. (A
more recent exception is an offshoot of the Masons, the Shriners,
who sponsor children's hospitals and other good causes. )
Chambers of commerce bore similarities to service clubs, but
they tended to concentrate strictly on commercial matters.
Whereas traditional charities gave money to worthy causes,
service club members rolled up their own sleeves to work on
charitable projects, or gave their time to raise funds which
they passed on to those in need.
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"The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found out how to serve."
Dr. Albert Schweitzer |
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A can-do, sky's-the-limit attitude
The idea of performing community service through a non-partisan,
non -denominational and socially inclusive club was catching.
Rotary spread to other cities; the first Canadian service
club was a Rotary chapter opened in Winnipeg in 1910. In 1915,
the world's second major service club, Kiwanis (an Amerindian
word for "we make ourselves known") was formed in Detroit,
to be followed a year later by a chapter in Hamilton, Ontario.
Most service club organizations today have the word "International"
as part of their official titles. Almost always, they first
reached international status when affiliates in Canada sprang
up.
What is now the world's largest such organization, Lions
Club International, was founded in 1917 by insurance agent
Melvin Jones. Jones belonged to the Business Circle of Chicago.
Seeking a way to extend its activities into the community
at large, he and 11 other Circle members organized the Lions,
the name being an acronym for " Liberty, Intelligence, Our
Nation's Safety." Its first national convention put a distance
between its aims and those of existing business organizations.
Delegates passed a resolution affirming that "no Club shall
hold out the financial betterment of its members as its object."
As a present-day Lions International publication observes,
this stance "was startling for an era that prided itself on
mercenary individualism." It is indeed remarkable that the
age of the great tycoons (who had their own very exclusive
and self-interested clubs ) should see the birth of a movement
with selfless altruism at its core. Yet in a way, service
clubs could only have been born in the heady atmosphere of
early 20th-century Midwestern America, with its lusty enthusiasm,
its passion for progress, its can-do, sky's-the- limit attitude.
It was in the ebullient spirit of the times that, when another
group came together in 1922, its founders called it the Optimist
Club.
Though the major service club organizations had their roots
in big cities, they found their most fertile ground in smaller
communities and the suburbs. At present, they are not generally
prominent in downtown urban affairs. Perhaps because of this,
their tremendous social influence has been largely ignored
by the urban media and academia. Their activities get plenty
of play in the media in small towns and cities, but they are
pretty well ignored by the big daily newspapers and national
television networks. For the most part, sociologists have
treated their prominent role in community affairs as if it
did not exist.
Their boyish bonhomie, sing-songs, constant kidding and
ritual pranks are seen as irredeemably corny by urban sophisticates.
In 1922 novelist Sinclair Lewis subjected service clubs to
the send-up of the century in Babbitt, his savagely
funny critique of Middle American mores at a time when the
U.S. was full of adolescent "pep," as George Babbitt himself
would have said. Babbitt is a partner in a real estate firm
in the fictional Midwestern city of Zenith, and a member of
the equally fictional Boosters Club. At a luncheon meeting
which he attends, a ten-cent fine is levied for calling a
fellow Booster by anything but his nickname, and much ponderous
raillery flows from the fact that it is a member's birthday.
A Booster makes a speech urging the formation of a symphony
orchestra, not for its cultural value - he describes classical
music as "junk" - but because it will "impress the glorious
name of Zenith on some big New York millionaire that might
- that might establish a branch factory here!"
Doing well by doing good
Printed in the club booklet is the admonition: "There's
no rule that you have to trade with your Fellow Boosters,
but get wise, boy - what's the use of letting all this good
money get outside of our happy family?" Lewis did not become
the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature - in
1930 - because he lacked incisiveness. He put his finger on
what, on the practical level, makes service clubs tick: today
we would call it networking. Of course members do business
together; it's only human. The practice is a typically capitalistic
exercise of enlightened self-interest: doing well by doing
good. A most engaging book, Babbitt had a strong
influence on what might be called the liberal arts perception
of service clubs. This was especially so since it became a
stand-by on university reading courses in American literature.
It has the distinction of having added at least two mild pejoratives
to the English language, "boosterism" and "babbittry." But
Lewis was a caricaturist of the written word, and in using
hyperbole to make his points, he was unfair to his subjects.
He did not take sufficient account of the sheer good will
and honest idealism of the people who wear those service club
pins, and he offers no reason why they should not enjoy themselves
in their own boisterous way.
'The community at its best'
Not that the service club movement is above reproach. Lewis's
Boosters are all white male middle-class Americans of right
wing views, and they are furious when a strike breaks out
among the ordinary working people of Zenith. The movement's
colour and gender bars have long since been dismantled, but
it remains largely a white -collar phenomenon. One simple
reason for this is that business and professional people are
able to take time out to attend luncheon meetings, and blue-collar
workers usually are not. This apparent social discrimination
has been instrumental in giving service clubs a reputation
as "bastions of the smug bourgeoisie," as Southam News writer
Susan Ruttan called them in a recent column. But, she concluded,
"service clubs are the community at its best, providing bonds
of friendship to their members and serving the larger community
at the same time."
Still, the sniping persists. Up there with "booster" as
a pejorative for the service club type is "do-gooder." In
topsy-turvy fashion, the arbiters of sophisticated thought
have concluded that there is something bad about doing good.
This thinking reflects the pervasive power of negativism,
which seems to have grown ever- stronger over this century.
Service clubbers are anything but trendy. Intellectuals criticize
them for their naivety in sticking to a positive attitude
in the face of negative realities.
It is true that they are hardly likely to be subscribers
to modern philosophy, which tends to be complex and gloomy.
Rather they follow that simple philosophical tenet, the Golden
Rule, which decrees that you should do unto others what you
would have done unto yourself.
'To build up and not destroy'
In terms of morality, it is difficult to fault the Rotarians'
ethical touchstone, the Four Way Test: "Is it the Truth? Is
it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better
friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?" Or the
Lions' code, which contains such passages as: "Whenever a
doubt arises as to the right or ethics of my position or action,
to resolve such doubt against myself... To hold friendship
as an end and not a means... To be careful with my criticism
and liberal with my praise; to build up and not destroy."
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"What we need most, is not so much to realize the ideal, as to idealize the real."
Frederick Henry Hodge |
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True to their name, the Optimists urge members "to look at
the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true"
- also " to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own," to "forget the mistakes of the
past and press on to greater achievements in the future,"
and to "give so much time to the improvement of yourself that
you have no time to criticize others."
Dr. Courtney W. Shropshire, the founder of Civitan International,
set the tone for its intense community involvement when he
wrote: " A working force for civic betterment such as this
is a thing more valuable to mankind than great riches." Among
the aims of the Kinsmen and Kinettes is that "a spirit of
co-operation, tolerance, understanding and equality among
all nations and peoples be fostered and stimulated and that
unity of thought and purpose throughout Canada be established
toward this goal."
The made-in-Canada clubs
That phrase "throughout Canada" in reference to the Kinsman
and Kinettes is what distinguishes them from the big American-based
international service club organizations. Kinship is a distinctive
part of Canadian culture conceived by wounded World War I
veteran Hal Rogers in 1920. After going into his father's
plumbing supply business in Hamilton, Rogers applied to join
the local Rotary Club. He was turned down because Rotary's
rules allowed only one member per club per employment category,
and the club already had a member in plumbing supplies - Hal's
father. That suited the younger man, who already had the idea
of forming a club for men and their spouses in his own age
group. His Kin movement became dedicated to public service,
personal growth - and fun.
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"Amid life's quests there seems but one worthy one, to do men good."
Gamaliel Bailey |
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The Association of Kin Clubs now has an international dimension
through the World Council of Young Men's Service Clubs, included
in which are 20-30 Clubs in the U.S. and Mexico, Apex in Australia,
and Round Table Clubs in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The
Kin association itself says that its 600-plus clubs across
Canada raise more money for their communities per member than
any such clubs anywhere. In 1964 it began working to counter
a relatively unknown disease which struck down very young
children, and out of this grew the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis
Foundation. Among a great many other activities, it sponsors
the Kinsmen National Institute on Mental Retardation at Toronto's
York University.
At least one Canadian-based organization has grown into
an international movement all on its own: Richelieu International,
a francophone group founded in 1944 in Ottawa. In addition
to more than 200 clubs in Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes,
it has 18 chapters in the United States, 44 in France, Belgium,
Luxembourg and Switzerland, and affiliates in Africa, Eastern
Europe, South America and the Caribbean. Richelieu International
is responsible for a wide variety of cultural, social and
humanitarian works throughout the French-speaking world.
Around the world and close to home
The big international organizations do some of their most
effective work in developing countries. While Rotary's massive
vaccination programs are steadily making the five main preventable
childhood diseases things of the past, the Lions' SightFirst
program has saved countless children from blindness. The Kiwanis
Worldwide Service Project is working to eliminate iodine deficiency
disorders, the greatest cause of preventable mental retardation
and learning disorders in the world.
The service clubs' transparent good works and idealistic
aims have made them phenomenally attractive to people outside
of North America. Lions now has 1.4 million members in 43,000
clubs in 181 countries ; Rotary, 1.2 million members of more
than 29,000 clubs in 160 countries; Kiwanis, 300,000 members
in 7,000 clubs in 60 countries. Smaller movements such as
Y'sdom International, Zonta International and Civitan also
span the globe, as well as the youth clubs attached to all
the major inter-national organizations.
But the big-heartedness of service club members is best
seen close to home: in a young female Rotarian painting a
holiday cabin for children with disabilities; in an affluent
middle-aged Optimist going out in a city at night to see what
he can do to help out drug- addicted street kids; in a Canadian
Progress Club member jingling a tin on a corner in Newfoundland
to raise money for the Special Olympics; in a Kinette rising
at dawn to coach a children's hockey team.
Needed more than ever
Jimmy Carter, who went from tail-twister in a Lions Club
to President of the United States, got to the heart of the
service club movement when he talked about life in his home
town of Plains, Georgia. "Everything that happened in Plains,
the Lions did," he recalled. "If a widow had a problem with
her family, where did she go? To the mayor? No. She went to
the Lions Club."
Despite efforts to recruit young members through clubs in
high schools and the like, the movement has been hit hard
by individualistic attitudes that linger on from the "me generation."
Membership in at least some clubs in North America has been
in decline, and the average age of members is rising.
This is happening at a time when, because of government
spending cuts, the voluntary services the clubs offer are
needed more than ever. With their hands-on approach, they
always did a much better job than government agencies in the
same fields anyway.
Any weakening of service clubs is tantamount to a weakening
of the average community - and every nation, not only Canada,
is "a community of communities." Perhaps the way to make these
vital organizations more appealing to prospective members
is for the public to stop taking them for granted - to put
the men and women who wear those service club pins in the
place of honour among us which they have so richly earned.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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