The Rotary Balita no. 731 (October 8, 1953).

“............I think we have a lovely little world. It is not a tremendous little world with planets and heavenly bodies, but it is a lovely little world just the same and we really ought to find ways to keep it in order. Oh, there are so many things about this physical world of ours that is so wonderful, even looking down there at the stars, even the placid waters of Manila Bay, the beautiful mountains in the distance, and taken as a whole we cannot but be enthralled by the beauty. of it all, and be convinced that there is no part of this world of ours that is not beautiful. Of course, if a person comes from the mountain and has occasion to go down the valley, to the flat spaces, he misses his mountain, but if he stays long enough to get attuned with the infinite, he will be accustomed to the plain, and eventually come to love it as the mountains. And even the desert with the great wastes of sand, the vision seems to be desolate and dreary, but if he stays there long enough. and get to commune with the infinite out there in the desert, he will eventually find splendid days, lovely days, which will show him once more that through it all, we have a lovely world and there are lovely people in it anywhere and everywhere. What wonderful things they do at times. And how responsive the rest of the world is to the impetus of any good idea that someone, somewhere may evolve. For instance, that wonderful English girl, Florence Nightingale, out in Crimea, wandering about and around the fields, seeking the wounded soldiers, do you suppose she ever thought of the many possibilities of the great movement which she started—the Red Cross, the greatest humanitarian service the world has ever known? How about the Boy Scouts? This also was started as an idea and it found response in the human heart all over the world, in our country and in other countries, so great that this fine idea was taken up and has swept the entire earth............

“............And this movement has dedicated itself to the ideal of service............ Sometimes I think that that word has been used too much, that we must find something else that is more common-place and understandable. Sometimes I think that we ought to call it merely usefulness. There is such a thing as becoming hackneyed and trite for a word loses its force, much of its force, when repeatedly used. I think we have a very lovely motto. He profits most who serves best. I feel highly honored in that some think I was the author. I would like to have been the author of that motto, but I am not. The author of that motto is a very dear friend of mine. He was formerly a traveling salesman, one of those experts in high-pressure salesmanship, selling goods by high-powered methods, and enticing customs by his usual and received rigmarole, although knowing that half of what he said was not true. He could not resist it any longer and one day, while he was walking through the streets he was seized with the desire to end it all. But he went back to Chicago and began thinking about it, about high pressure salesmanship and decided that it was not necessary to use high pressure methods, that there could be such a thing as honesty and at the same time profitable business. He eventually came to the conclusion that chicanery was not really a part of successful business and he wanted some little sentence to crystallize that entire philosophy of honesty. Then he thought of that cryptic sentence: He profits most who serves best. The philosophy went on and has established schools in England and South Africa and Australia, and everywhere I go, I am constantly finding salesmen who are converted to the theory that fraud is not the essence of life and of good business, but its bane and its curse....

...Now, how about Rotary? I met Frederick Shelton, member of the Rotary Club of Chicago, my club, and I asked him at the Portland Convention to send a little message about business methods, and he wrote those words: "He profits most who serves best." And those words were adopted as the motto of Rotary. It may be ancient history to most of you, but perhaps you may not object to go over it again. Of course, Rotary does not concern itself so much with dollars and cents and profits.

"Sometime ago Roger Bebtson met and asked Charles Steinmetz, the great electrical wizard, what in the latter's estimation was the greatest invention that may be of the highest importance to business. Steinmetz, that wizard of electricity, the greatest electrical engineer of the world, the great mathematician, the man that measures infinitesimal things, after he had heard the question propounded, answered: "Well, I ask you if you know what you mean. If you mean to ask me what I think there is in the offing that will be most valuable to mankind, I will say that it is not any invention at all; I will say that it is the discovery of the better ways of life." His ideas are now the ideas of nearly all the greatest scientists.

"There is something of the spiritual reality, something that they cannot understand, and yet they recognize it as an important factor. When Shelton sent his message to the people of the United States, the thing that bothered him most is to find the words to convey to their minds the strength of his conviction. ‘He profits most who serves best’ is a natural law that is not subject to controversy, not subject to change. It is just the same as any other natural law, as the law of gravitation, for example, I remember one time he was talking before an audience. He picked up his napkin and let it fall, and said to the audience: There is the law of gravity and you cannot break that law. If one were to fall from a ten-story building in defiance of the law of gravitation, he could not break the law, but the law would break him. It is as inevitable in its working as the law of profits is exemplified or expressed in the doctrine, 'he profits most who serves best.’

"Of course, there may be some great national calamity or something of that sort to prevent the operation of the law, but the law in his mind was a law just the same. And the more I have thought of it, in the years past, it seems to me that it is a law not in the sense of dollars and cents, but in the profits of the higher things of life, the profit of life given to the service of one's fellowmen.
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"There have been many people who think that there should not be any philosophy in Rotary or that philosophy is a thing of the past or right back in the days of Confucius or Buddha, some of the greatest prophets of yesterday, but not today. But there is a philosophy in the life of every single in- dividual and I do not think that we should have a particular antipathy against philosophy. It is merely the ordinary plan of our life if you and I were going to build some house or home somewhere, we would make a plan, secure the services of the best architect we could find, we talk with our brothers, sisters and the whole family, we welcome their ideas, one wants a room here, another there, and we plan our building like that like we plan our lives.
"I do not wonder that it is so difficult if it is contrary to the ordinary run of things. Rotary counsels the planning of our lives to get the most of life. It seems to me that you men who are gathered here from all parts of the Pacific area have demonstrated the fact that you are interested in things outside of your sphere and you highly value all the spiritual side of life. I was talking with a man here who stated that he traveled hearly 10,000 miles to get to this meeting and at the same time visit some other countries in this area. It is nice to travel 26,000 miles like I did last year on a journey to South Africa and I feel that people are getting kindlier and more considerate the whole world over. When that great ambassador of ours "Jim" Davidson was asked the thing that bothered him most he said that it was the estimate of man by other men of other countries.... I think that the people of every country is bound to underestimate the good qualities of other countries. When I was in England they talked about the custom of the Japanese people who eat their fish raw, But the Chinese retort— and they are right— but you eat your oysters raw, don't you? Oh, yes, but you don't perhaps know that the Chinese clean their fish, and you don't clean your oysters.

"And then I heard of another incident that Jim very frequently used to allude to, an American who was travelling in the Orient and he asked a Chinese of culture how long he thought will it take his father to come out of the ground and eat some of the cakes and drink some of the wines placed upon the grave of their departed ancestors, and that fine cultured Chinese answered, "Oh, well, I do not know.... Well, I suppose that it would take my father about as long to eat the cake and drink the wines as it would take your father to smell the flowers that you placed on his grave.

"Last year we were in Mexico.... was accompanied by a man, his brother and his brother's wife and his wife, and a party of six and they never left us and they travelled with us for 3,000 miles. They tried to get us see a bullfight, and I told them that I could not see my way clear about it, and that I would not enjoy it. They leave the horses running about with their entrails out, I said. 'Well, they answered, 'don't think about it, just think about the expert toreadors. Keep your mind on something else, keep your mind somewhere else. Why cannot you think about bull-fights in the same way that you look at your prize fights in America?" I remember how a Scotchman was fined 15 shillings for having been brutal to a dog. One might readily say it is the very height of civilization and the other is the very depth of civilization. But is it not rather a matter of viewpoint, background, and circumstances?'...

"Some years ago I was travelling with Mrs. Harris and we stopped at a certain place called Penseco and we were being shown the sights by the reception committee which consisted of three men, one was a Presbyterian minister, another a Catholic priest, and the third was a governor of a district up in Alabama. We were a jolly party looking at the sights. The Presbyterian minister was explaining the sights and the Catholic priest assented to everything the Presbyterian said.

"It seems to me that there was an exemplification of the fine qualities of Rotary. When we got to the hotel that night, we got to talking. I said to Charlie. you know, I admire your broad-mindedness and tolerance. That is something inspiring, your friendship and understanding, a Presbyterian minister and a Catholic priest. Charlie never said a word. He was silent. Then he spoke: 'I am glad to hear that because my love of Gene is genuine. I have just been in the corner talking with him right now. What I said to him was this: 'Gene, our baby is going to be operated on tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. I want you to offer a prayer for our baby."

"And I thought that if ever there was a prayer that would be heard and rise to the very throne of God, it was that prayer. Despite all the bitterness, all the animosity between those two sects, bitterness and animosity that have been accumulating for ages, they have been swept away by the power of friendship. It was a beautiful example of love of one of God's children for another one of God's children.....”

"It says here in the paper," said the husband, "that a man is run over in New York every half hour."
"Poor fellow," murmured the wife.