Each week, Rick Kowey, ST Rotary Foundation Chairperson, provides a tidbit of information about the early years of Rotary. Paul Percy Harris was a Chicago, Illinois, attorney. He founded the club that became the humanitarian organization Rotary International in 1905.
According to Fred A. Carvin in Paul Harris and the Birth of Rotary, the end of Paul Harris’ hiatus away from Rotary Conventions coincided a few months after the stock market crash in 1929. The economic ripple effects were compounding, and in 1932 alone, twenty-seven Rotary Clubs closed their doors.
With industrial production falling forty-six percent from 1929 to 1932, crime and business bankruptcies were accelerating. As a result, many Americans were looking for work, including Paul’s youngest surviving brother, Reginald. Partly as a favor to Paul Harris for the break-neck international travel he had done, Ches Perry employed Reginald Harris at Rotary International. However, in 1933 as the effects of the depression intensified, the Rotary Board of Directors pressured Ches Perry to release three employees to contain expenses. While Ches Perry resisted and put up a contentious fight, in the end, Reginald was let go, causing Reginald’s wife May to write a scathing letter to the board. In a response to the letter, Harris renounced the board’s decision, concurring that Perry should have final decisions over staffing; he emphatically rebutted any inference from May that Ches and he were at loggerheads over the action, and he admonished his sister-in-law for implying any riff between Ches and Paul over the circumstances. Reginald landed on his feet, ironically accepting a position with Lions International before moving on to seek a fresh start in California. Lions International also had its roots in Chicago, started in 1917 by another Chicago businessman, Melvin Jones. His philosophy was different in that business reciprocity was not emphasized; instead, under the motto, “We Serve,” Jones asked, “What if these men who are successful because of their drive, intelligence, and ambition, were to put their talents to work improving their communities?”