The birth of Rotary

Transcript :

On February 23, 1905, after having had lunch with his closest friend, Sylvester SCHIELE, coal merchant, Paul HARRIS, lawyer, and his friend went to the office of Gustave LOEHR, mining engineer. There they met Hiram SHOREY, a tailor.

Paul HARRIS proposes to form a club: “a very simple project of mutual cooperation and informal friendship such as each of us once knew it in his village”.

The four friends, of American, German, Swedish and Irish origins, and of Protestant, Jewish and Catholic religions, then decided to meet periodically in a spirit of trust and fellowship, both for the pleasure of meeting but also in order to “make themselves considerate and helpful towards each other” and to widen the circle of their business relations.

They did not then imagine that this would become a great international organization of friendship and service.