Jonak / Sam Kiwanis Legacy

Building Communities, Serving the World
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-615-94287-2
Verlag: Kiwanis International
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

The Kiwanis Legacy focuses on the history of Kiwanis International, starting in the year 1914, and ending in 2010.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jonak, Chuck

Sam,

Leseproben

Chapter 2 The 1920s: Carving a Niche Mainvue club president Frank McCade moved to the next item on the meeting’s agenda. “As you gentlemen know,” he began, “our own Roger Palman returned this past weekend from the Kiwanis convention in Birmingham. I’ve asked him to deliver a report on the convention. Roger.” Striding to the front of the room, Roger cleared his throat, preparing to speak, when Glenn Sharrer called out, “How’s that new Buick, Roger?” The men laughed, and without a second’s hesitation, Roger replied, “Twice as smooth as my bald head and just as shiny.” The laughter doubled. “Anyway, let me begin by once again thanking all of you for the privilege of representing you. It was an inspiring experience. Birmingham is a fine city, and those Alabama Kiwanians are real live wires. I met men from all over the United States, and a few from Canada too. It’s truly impressive to see how our Kiwanis movement is spreading across this continent. Oh, and those Rotarians aren’t so bad either: They treated us to one tasty barbecue. “Now, as for the business of the convention, well, without going into details, let me just say things changed at the top. That Allen Browne fellow, the national organizer, he’s out; a new way of running the organization from the Kiwanis office in Chicago, that’s in. We’ll be hearing more about it—probably from the man we elected President, a lawyer from Montreal named Henry Elliott with a ‘KC’ on the end—and I guess that stands for ‘Kiwanis Commander.’” The men chuckled, and Roger continued: “We’ll be charged an extra dollar for two years to repay the Kiwanians who bought Browne’s contract out from under him, and that’s fair. Let’s see, what else. Oh yes: You men remember how we worked on the War Savings Stamp Campaign. Well, considering how much all the other clubs did, I’d say Kiwanis sure played a big part in winning the war!” The men burst into applause. Roger took his seat. You remember how the 20th century began all crazy like, right? Well sir, in the 1920s it went plumb nuts! It began with Prohibition and ended with the Depression, and in-between . . . well, they say it roared. You had flappers, skimmers, Greta Garbo and Mae West, dance marathons, Will Rogers, the Charleston, jazz, television, Al Capone and Al Jolson, 7-Up, Duke Ellington, women voters, Mickey Mouse, speakeasies, and Ernest Hemingway; the first Miss America pageant, the first Atlantic flight by Lucky Lindy, the first iodized salt, the first Reader’s Digest, the first forty-hour work week, and the first Academy Awards; and, don’t it beat all, those Yale University students tossed around Frisbee Baking Company pie plates like flying saucers. Course, the Twenties had its share of downright unpleasantness too: Leftists’ anarchy, the post-war economic depression, Negro lynchings, the Scopes trial, the racist Ku-Klux Klan marching in D.C., Mississippi Valley flooding, the divorce rate rising to one of every 6.9 marriages in 1924 (one of 9.3 in 1916), Sinclair Lewis lambasting “boosters,” and Black Thursday and Black Tuesday—the U.S. stock market crash of October 1929. Wasn’t much better ’round the world: famine in Russia and harsh life in Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky’s U.S.S.R.—followed by Josef Stalin’s brutal rule; communism, dictatorships, authoritarian monarchs, and military rulers in post-war-crippled Europe—with its 1924 economic optimism crushed by 1929’s economic collapse; fascism in Italy and Hitler’s Nazis—the National Socialist German Workers’ Party; and bloody conflicts between China’s Communist Party and the Kuomintang Nationalist Party. You’d think men’d know better. . . . In an April 1920 Kiwanis Magazine editorial, International Secretary O. Sam Cummings eloquently described his vision of the service organization for which he enthusiastically toiled: “Kiwanis ideals are the product of the collective idealism of those busy, practical men who are Kiwanians. Kiwanis ideals are an expression of the inner hopes, ambitions, and desires of average businessmen. These hidden, unexpressed but fundamental reactions of the human soul are the very fabric of life itself. They are the product of the moral and spiritual evolution of mankind. Those reactions are the hidden signs of that struggle in which every man engages, seeking to apply his philosophy of life to his duties and privileges as a member of society. “The past twenty-five years have written a wonderful development of the social consciousness. The average man of today has an infinitely greater appreciation of his fellowman, a more adequate understanding of his obligations as a citizen, and a more vivid realization of his responsibility to society than had his father before him. Kiwanis, first brought to the businessman as only a luncheon club, proved the means by which he might satisfy his hunger for fellowship and invest his life in practical service. Kiwanis acquired the aspects of a movement only when Kiwanians, without any suggestion or direction whatever, unconsciously used it as a vehicle by which they could express their real selves. The unusual spirit of fellowship and the quality of manhood represented in Kiwanis rendered the organization a fitting emissary of a great idea. J. Mercer Barnett 1920-21 • Birmingham, Alabama Lumber company owner “Membership in any Kiwanis club is a privilege. To be highly prized, a privilege must be jealously guarded.” From cramped quarters at the Webster Building, Kiwanis employees set up shop at the spacious Mallers Building in June 1919, where they remained until 1924. “Kiwanis is leading a spiritual renaissance in which the businessman is finding his own soul. He finds in Kiwanis an organization in which he can make application of principles that before seemed so theoretical and impractical as to be apart from the realities of human experience. “The Kiwanian accepts a new motive for life: service to his fellowman. The Golden Rule takes on a new significance when translated into terms of daily experience. To the true Kiwanian, his business or profession provides not only a means for earning a livelihood but also a means by which he may serve society. “There is nothing new about the Kiwanis idea—it is as old as the soul of man. But Kiwanis has put the breath of life into old ideals by translating them into terms which the average man may appreciate.” Coming out of the 1919 Birmingham Convention, the “new” organization needed new eyes for clarity of vision. Part of the Kiwanis phenomenon continued to be the natural manner in which clubs gravitated toward volunteer service, developing projects to meet community needs, stepping forward for civic improvement. In a very real sense, this initial independent proclivity entrenched the concept of club autonomy in service project selection, which remains a local prerogative to this day. Yet, if Kiwanis was to solidify its position in the service club movement on a national scale—in both the U.S. and Canada—it would need comprehensive foresight to achieve a cohesive public persona. The responsibility for this manifestation of purpose fell squarely on the shoulders of the International Board, with the able assistance of International Secretary O. Sam Cummings and his staff at the Chicago headquarters, as well as within the writings of editor Roe Fulkerson in Washington, D.C. First, the latter: When the Birmingham Convention’s delegates filed out of the Tutwiler Hotel at the close of the convention, many noticed—perhaps among them Fulkerson—the words “We Serve” written on a hotel bulletin board. With “We Trade” deemed an unacceptable slogan (and an inappropriate priority for members), Kiwanis needed a new motto. The willowy, balding, mustached wordsmith surely pondered this brainteaser during his train ride home: “What simple words represent Kiwanis’ purpose?” He revealed his conclusion for the first time in his September 1919 “The Editor’s Uneasy Chair” column: “In these days of reconstruction, it behooves Kiwanis clubs to build for civic betterment, build for national betterment, and International Secretary O. Sam Cummings works alongside his secretary, Alta Barnett (whom he later married), in Kiwanis’ second office in Chicago’s Mallers Building. A full-page promotion for the 1920 Portland Convention, with Mt. Hood beckoning, appeared in the September 1919 Kiwanis Torch. build for things which will add to human happiness. No organization ever progressed which was built along purely selfish lines, and the substitution of ‘we build’ for the obsolete ‘we trade’ should be one thing to keep Kiwanis on its road upward and onward.” At its January 1920 meeting, the International Board found an agenda item listed as “A Motto for Kiwanis.” When President Henry Elliott reached it, he asked for suggestions. Trustee Fulkerson spoke first, placing “We Build” on the table. After some discussion—during which an alternative “Builders” was mentioned—the original motion was passed. Fulkerson was asked to persuade the membership to accept the motto by promoting it in the Kiwanis Torch, which certainly wasn’t a difficult task...