Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1920-03-24
HOW AND WHEN
 THE FIRST ROTARY CLUB WAS LAUNCHED
Organized at Chicago in 1905 r.by an Attorney of That
 City

The organization of the Rotary club had its inception in the city of Chi cago, during the month of February 1905, when MT. Paul Harris, leading attorney, realizing the necessity for for& an organization where men could get together and exchange ideas for the betterment of their bus mess, etc., with three friends, met one evening, discussed the plans and some time later the club was organ ized. The name Rotary found favor and was adopted. The clubs have a fixed place for holding weekly lunch con meetings.
 That the membership has the ele- ment of rotating, in the sense of go- ing from one trade, profession or calling to another, until the whole round of business activity is includ- ed in the membership rolls, may have had some influence on the choosing of the name. At any rate the principle of membership which takes but one man from each line of business has become fixed in Rotary construction. The reason is simple and convincing. The principle was adopted at the start and has been found to be good way to bring re- suit, and so it has been continued. Possibly it was by way to bring Possibly it was by way of experi- ment that the first Rotarians thought it best to form their circle by choos- ing one representative from each of a number of callings. Born and bred as they all had been in the era and very atmosphere of cut. throat competition trade jealousies and the other attributes of the cave man in business, the pioneer Rotar- in community welfare naturally turn ed their minds to membership basis which eliminated the presence of pected to get on together. This uni was found to have many decided ad- vantages.
 Creates Friendly Atmosphere.
 It created immediately a cordial, friendly, peaceful atmosphere; it es- tablished spirit of helpfulness and friendly cooperation; it seemed to be admirably adapted to the effort to establish and maintain a real, live, helpful club; it seemed to offer the safest basis for permanency of that very desirable club spirit. There were number of other features in favor of this representative method of selecting membership in the new organization. Among these were:
 The plan offers natural and au- tomatic basis upon which to recruit membership. So long as any line of business, calling or profession remained open, members would be wanted. When no line was vacant, the membership automatically clos ed.
 Interest in the club and it's activi- ties is sustained and melted, be- cause each member is compelled to be live, active member or he may find himself promptly dropped and some other representative of his line invited into membership.
 There is little, likelihood, and no tesaptation to make the Rotary clubs to& large, so long as the automatic membership provision is in force, With but one representative from each line, any Rotary club can be large enough to be success. ano it sis kept from losing efficiency by tho limitation of it's size.
 Responsibility is Awakened
 Responsibility is early awakened inathe individual member. He real izes that he is not merely an in dividual member of Rotary, but that his own trade or calling or profes sion is represented by him alone in the club; and observedly, he carries toAhis fellows in his trade or calling the message of Rotary. A certain dignity is given to each man by his Rotary membership, for at leas, among his fellow Rotarians he is looked on as a leader in his particu. lar line of business.
 The very bringing together of men of widely divergent callings resulted in exchange of ideas, broadening of5mind with knowledge of other in. terests than that which occupied each in his daily life. Through Rot ary, it's members learned something