Rotary Club of Denver
A Club and a City

by PDG Bill Hornby

A 75th Anniversary History
(1911 - 1986)

1987-1991 suppliment

Preface

The "75th" is a respectable birthday for an institution in the West, since Denver itself is but 125 years old. If Denver Rotarians wish to contemplate longevity, they can reflect that as a club they have existed well more than half the life of Denver, and for practically all of the period in which it could by any definition be termed a modern city.

A 75th Anniversary history of the Denver Rotary Club is therefore quite appropriate, if only to indicate to newer members that they inherit a distinguished tradition. The principal threads of that tradition are the customs and objectives of Rotary as a world institution; the service of club members to the community, especially its youth; and the providing to all levels of speakers -- local, state, national and international -- of a forum for reaching the business and professional leadership of the city. From Year One, the Denver Rotary Club podium has been prime habitat for civic leaders of all descriptions. Their talks to Rotary comprise a chronicle of the city as well as of the club, and such records as we have of them chronicle Denver Rotary's genuine contribution to urban history.

A number of fellow Rotarians over the years have attempted to gather club history on various occasions, and their efforts are part of this latest narrative, too. So thanks to Wesley Towne, Dan C. Paxton, J. Stuart Moore, Peter Bowes, Milton Burnet, Lew Barbato, Charles Kall and the other unsung heroes of the files. And to whoever takes the job on in twenty-five more years when our club will be 100!

Thanks also to Rotarian Publisher Dick Schlosberg of The Denver Post for making the time and type for this booklet available, and to Rotarians Robert K. Timothy, Nick Del Calzo, Jerry Tewell, Richard Gooding and C. Grant Wilkins for urging the project along.

Bill Hornby
Senior Editor, The Denver Post
October 1, 1986

Denver in 1911

When pioneer Denver photographer L. C. "Lou" McClure, an avid Rotarian, climbed the State Capitol dome in 1911 to take the old skyline photographs of this booklet, he looked out on a major American city, one of the top 25 in population in the nation. In the fifty years since its frontier founding, 213,000 people had settled at our Platte River gateway to the central Rocky Mountains.

One of the milestones of Denver's first decade in this century was the grant of home rule to the city by the State Legislature in 1902. At that time, Denver occupied 52 square miles of the arid Great Plains, a size it essentially maintained until World War II. Mayor Robert Speer, ("Bob" to his Rotary comrades) was elected to the first of his three terms in 1904 and thrust Denver into the national "City Beautiful" movement with a vigorous campaign for parks, parkways and viaducts across the railroad-dominated Platte Valley.

Speer foresaw the implications of the automobile, of which there were only 3,000 in town by Denver Rotary's birthday in 1911. He may also have realized those of the airplane, which made its first fitful Denver flight in 1910. He certainly was inordinately proud of Denver's new Municipal Auditorium, completed after considerable civic hassle, in time for the Democratic National Convention of 1908.

The year 1911, when the Denver Rotary Club was founded in the fall, saw a number of symbolic events. The D&F Tower was going up, and some of Denver's businessmen looked up from their buggies, cars or trams to wonder if the Queen City's skyline was getting too tall. A number of businesses that were to flourish for decades got to their feet in 1911 -- Gates Rubber, Van Schaack Realty, Neusteters, City Floral and Mountain Bell, to name a few.

This was also the year of David Moffat's death. The old First National banker died in New York, still trying to raise money for his dream of a railroad-across-the-Rockies. His was the symbolic last gasp of a 19th century Denver economy inordinately based on mining, smelting and railroad development. Although these pioneer industries remained of crucial importance to the "Queen City of the Plains" far into future years, they were no longer to be unquestionably dominant.

From now on, Denver was to shift roles toward being a center of administrative and professional services that would complement retailing and wholesaling to the wide farming and mining hinterland. Establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank regional headquarters in Denver at the turn of the century had settled where mountain West finance would focus.

Growing agitation for better roads, national parks, and tourist and recreation promotion showed that Denver's business community was aware of the region's recreational strengths. To gain national respect for Denver's image as a beautiful place to live or visit was a key civic desire of the day. To aid in projecting this image, it was a happy fact that national communications were improving. Rotary's birth year was that of the city's first long-distance telephone call, perhaps the best indicator that Denver businessmen were linking to the commercial and professional network of other cities with the message that Denver was just as modern as any of them.

(Denver Rotarian Charles J. Kall has kindly provided research into the content of Denver's newspapers in the first full year of Rotary operation, 1912. These new items give the flavor of what Rotarians were talking about in those birthday times:)

Dr. Allen, director of the Bureau of Municipal Research, opined "woman's fundamental part in government is to do efficiently what her position requires of her as an individual member of society No woman has the right to be a problem or a problem creator." (Remember that women didn't get the vote national until the boys were "over there" in World War I a few years later.)

Agitation was afoot for state ownership of the coal mines to cut costs to the consumer. (These were the years of "progressive" -- some said "socialist" -- urban and state politics; 1912 was the year Woodrow Wilson snuck in against the GOP split between Teddy Roosevelt and President Taft, who bellied up to a DU podium that year.)

To give you a pocketbook feel for 1911, The May Co. advertised $17 suits for men and boys. Highest price in years paid for five lots for the new Oxford Hotel, $75,000, or $1,000 a front foot (which ) established new value for frontage on 17th Street new the new Union Station.

Thomas A. Edison said the greatest achievements of 1911 were the attempt to establish a Chinese Republic; rapid progress on the Panama Canal; improvements in aerial navigation; important discoveries in surgical technique at the Rockefeller Institute, and the near perfection of the diesel engine.

Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, superintendent of Chicago schools, left a trustees meeting because of the cigar smoke, but said she would never ask trustees not to enjoy themselves at board meetings.

The Enterprise Liquor Co. at 2200 Larimer St. has installed one of the largest individual lighting displays in the city -- eleven 400-candlepower tungsten lamps.

Seventy-five thousand Model-T Fords, four cylinders and five passengers, would be produced this year to sell at $690.

Whooping cough was the most deadly disease in Denver last year, with typhoid fever next, and diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, smallpox and chickenpox still problems.

Officers of the Colorado National Guard are prepared at any time for a call to service in Mexico or on the border.

Mrs. J. J. "Molly" Brown of Denver is a hero of the Titanic on April 19. "Tell my Denver friends I'm safe."

In short, Denver Rotary was born in an era when the city's and American's insularity was ending for the great mass of the people. As historian Carl Abbott put it in Colorado Magazine in 1973, "by 1900 Denver had successfully completed a transition from small to large city the city's economy had diversified, its public services had been improved and expanded, and its internal structure had grown more complex.

"Denver's businessmen shared the values of their compeers all over the country and its citizens could choose among scores of fraternal societies, ethnic organizations, literary groups, religious and charitable associations and the like. Visitors, indeed, could find little except its setting to differentiate Denver from other American cities."

As these American cities of the early century were becoming larger and more complex, their business and professional men felt the need for better communication. They yearned for better forums for effecting civic causes, and better contracts for learning about their counterparts in the nation and the world.

It was from this common need that the National Rotary Association was founded in Chicago in 1905. Its distinctive technique of bringing representatives of the many business and professions together in regular meeting was a solid answer to a growing need of the new urban fathers. They wanted to regain the sense of acquaintance and community they had left in the hometown settings of youth.

Denver's business and professional community, against the unfavorable odds of frontier isolation, had in 50 short years moved from tents and huts to being one of the 25 largest cities in the country. So it was perfectly predictable that this hustling group would get wind of the innovative Rotary idea.

But that the Rotary Club of Denver would survive meager beginnings to become one of the leading movers and shakers of a giant metropolitan area was probably beyond the imagination of G. E. Hancock, a typewriter salesman who in August of 1911 inquired of Chicago headquarters as to what the Rotary idea was all about.

The Founding Years

The first Rotary Club was founded in Chicago in 1905, the brainchild of Paul Harris, a young lawyer who had once lived briefly in Denver as a newspaper reporter. When Grattan E. Hancock, manager of the Smith-Premier Typewriter Co. of Denver, wrote to ask about starting a unit in Denver, he was sent the Chicago club's 1908 brochure on organizing principles surprisingly similar to those of our million-member Rotary International today.

In 1908, there was emphasis on business solicitation in club rhetoric which later was Rotary grew was gradually outweighed by the ideal of community service. The Chicago club told Hancock to "cultivate your fellow members and use them to get business, they in turn to do the same for you. The spirit of reciprocity is strong in Rotary."

Strict attendance requirements; fines rather than dues as a source of income; membership from all lines of endeavor; and of the top "proprietors, partners, or corporate officers only; regular meetings; Ladies Nights; and a club independent of political influence (to give) moral and educational support to great questions of public interest" -- these were the suggestions to Hancock for his fledgling group.

By 1911, Rotary had formed a national association of which Paul Harris was president, and he wrote to Hancock on Aug. 1, 1911:

"The Rotary Club is a forceful idea and seems to take root wherever it is given a reasonable opportunity . . . so far as the altruistic side of our curriculum is concerned, we can as a National Rotary bring to bear the same insistent force in national matters that as a local Rotary we can on municipal matters. The force of a combined Rotary operated from all the large cities . . . would be almost beyond conception."

"... the most vital consideration is the class of people whom you ask to join. Aim to secure the leading businessmen in each line of business. Above all things make no mistake in the banker, the printer, the lawyer, the physician, the dentist, the insurance man, and all those who will get the most direct benefit out of the club . . . some broad lines you should subdivide (in classification) so as to secure that many more members."

On Oct. 19, 1912, Hancock; George Harris of the Harris Curio Co.; H. E. Barnes of the Barnes Commercial School; A. L. Chandler of American Multigraph Sales Co.; Sam Dutton, proprietor of the host Albany Hotel, and Robert Willison of Willison and Fallis, architects, held a first discussion of the Rotary idea, followed six days later by another meeting which 24 men attended.

At this time Hancock sent a general letter to further prospects. He quoted from the Chicago club's constitution these three main purposes of a Rotary Club, "the promotion of the business interests of its members, the promotion of good fellowship, and civic and commercial development of the city."

"Rotary is a quality organization of quality men producing quality goods. Or if professional, dispensing quality thought, word, and deed. Every member is active." He underlined "quality" at every point.

Hancock also listed the 30 Rotary clubs which were in existence before Denver's, namely, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Kansas City, Hartford, Los Angeles, Lincoln, NE; Minneapolis, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Providence, St. Louis, St. Paul, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Salt Lake City, Winnipeg, Oklahoma City, Buffalo, Duluth, St. Joseph, Mo., Harrisburg, Indianapolis and Newark.

Thus Denver was soon issued Charter No. 31, in an organization which today mothers 22,144 clubs. By Nov. 2, Denver Rotary had formally organized, elected officers and directors, and happily sent to Chicago a list of 40 charter members.

These included William J. Peete, motor supplies; C. W. Franklin, attorney; John J. Jacobs of the highly popular O. P. Baur Confectionary Co.; George M. Harris, curio shop; Capt. A. H. Hardy of Peters, Cartridge Co.; John L. Hunter of A. T. Lewis Dry Goods Co.; William Cocks, Cocks-Clark Engraving Co.; C. A. Kares, United States Express Co.; and C. G. Adams, filing devices and cabinets.

Also Sam Dutton of the Albany Hotel; Jesse Wheelock, Northwestern Life Insurance Co.; Fred Syman, Jewelry; A. L. Chandler, American Multigraph Sales Co.; George Turner, Turner Moving and Storage Co.; J. A. Ossen, photo supplies; R. A. Kincaid, Denver Rubber Co.; Carlton A. Moon, Rock Island Railroad Co.; G. T. Hull, Pennsylvania Railroad Co.; W. H. Kistler, Kistler Stationery Co.; Harry E. Barnes, Barnes Commercial College; and Hancock, who was duly formalized as first president.

Also Theodore Marx, tailor; D. T. Robling, Pittsburgh Water Heater Co.;' C. E. Wells and Clarence G. Campbell of the Knight-Campbell Music Co.; George Mayer, Mayer Hardware Co.; M. J. Leary, Smith-Premier Typewriter Co.; Robert Willison, architect; M. L. Mowry, Rock Island Railroad Co.; Dr. C. W. Clarke, dentist; H. M. Beatty, First National Bank.; John L. Barr, Ayres Milling and Grain Co.; Newcomb Cleveland, insurance; A. T. Lewis, A. T. Lewis Dry Goods Co.; Charles C. Martin, butter, Frank McLister, paints and glass; Bert C. Reeves, barber, C. R. Root, Barteldes Seed Co.; Dr. George C. Schumaker, dentist; and T. C. Hitchings, investments. These worthies were joined three weeks later by George W. Olinger, undertaker; L. S. Pennington, millinery; Fred W. Standardt, fire insurance; and Henry Isenberg, clothes cleaning.

In a news story Nov. 20, 1911, The Denver Times wrote, "A new organization of representative businessmen has just launched in Denver. Its purpose is to concentrate into its membership the executive power of the leading trades and professions in the city.

"The Rotary Club is to be a sort of mental clearing house of ideas. Membership is limited to one representative of each line of business. Fifty-three men are now enrolled."

Simultaneously with formal acceptance of the Denver club by the National Rotary Association on Dec. 16, Hancock sent his new flock a letter in which he was already beginning to substitute civic service as a priority motive of membership over business solicitation.

"We have started with a class of men who are broad-gauged, public-spirited, active toward the welfare of the city and too intelligent to let personal interest predominate in the deliberations of our organization. If there are any such whose ideas permit the predominating of self rather than service, this club is the wrong place for them, for sooner or later they will find themselves out of harmony with their surroundings."

"The benefits we will receive (will be) from closer acquaintance (and) meeting with men in diversified pursuits, and from the desire and intention to profit by the motto of our national organization -- 'He Profits Most Who Serves Best.' We must dedicate ourselves to mutual service and the problems and questions of the day. The matter of mutual commercial advantage will just as surely follow as the sun rises and set."

In the Dec. 7, 1961, Keyway, the late Frank McLister, at the time one of our last surviving charter members, recalled the first meetings, and was quoted by the late Milton Bernet in a never-published history of these first club decades:

"Our early day meetings were sometimes held at noon and sometimes in the evenings to better accommodate the membership . . .. we depended on each other for fun and entertainment and craft talks to build interest in our business endeavors. (Craft talks in which the members spoke about their own businesses were a constant part of programs well into the 1930s.)

"One of the first meetings I remember was in the Grill Room of the Albany Hotel. In the center of the room was a large tile pool filled with Rocky Mountain trout. After the son and prayer we were each provided a fish net and told to select our trout .. one of our members slipped and fell in the pool, to the consternation of the trout."

(The club atmosphere and concerns of these early decades can now only be reconstructed by excerpting and summarizing records of early meetings. As throughout our history, these were kept in varying styles, depth and accuracy by whichever club forefather was tapped as scribe, later to be called "Observer." These records do show that club rules, customs and general interests have endured the years in amazingly consistent fashion. Since our oldest members in 1986 joined the club in the 1930s, it is obvious we cannot count heavily on reminiscence and must depend on extracts from minutes, newsletter, documents files and newspapers to recapture for memory the founding times.)

Some extracts from the minutes, grouped by years:

1911

• Dec. 1 ... "Mr. John Doe of Los Angeles spoke for a few minutes about his part of the country. The inference members received was that Los Angeles is a promising city.

"It was moved and seconded that a committee talk with the Governor regarding the condition of roads near Denver. George Mayer moved that a committee be appointed to investigate the movie shows, a danger to the morals of the community."

1912

• Jan. 24 - "Mr. Latcham of the Benight-Latcham Carpet Co. pointed out that his store was the only exclusive carpet, rug and drapery store in the city. . . . Mr. Harris of the Harris Curio Co. explained that he was the largest retail dealer in Navajo rugs in the world and assured members that his blankets were genuine."
• Feb. 1 - "Brother Franklin of the Denver Convention League made a most splendid address on Denver as a convention city."
• July 18 - "With the publicity that has been given to the work of the Rotary Club on the Good Roads proposition, other commercial organizations are following in our footsteps."
• Aug. 8 - "Dr. Ellis moved that the club immediately start a Good Roads Fund, part of which would go toward the road leading south to Colorado Springs; $200 was subscribed.

The Secretary was asked to state if we were ever going to have a roster and if so, when?"

• Aug. 12 - "Many beautiful trees are dying by the hundreds . . . a committee was appointed."
• Oct. 10 - "The secretary was instructed to employ an assistant at $50 a month.: (The next week annual dues were increased from $6 to $12.)

1913

• Feb. 13 - The club appointed a committee to wait on the Governor urging the naming of a Denver man as chairman of the new state highway commission.
• March 27 - Badges were adopted by the club, and Merle Turner was appointed to distribute them at each meeting. (Thus fathering a long and distinguished line of sergeant-at-arms.)
• April 21 - A committee was appointed of four members to join a Chamber of Commerce delegation to "get together" with businessmen from Colorado Springs and Pueblo. The secretary was ordered to protest to Governor Ammons a pending state income tax. (This was the era of progressive state and local politics, and insidious things like the income tax were raising their head.)
• (From here on, the minutes are full of references to inter-city meetings, Ladies Nights, Annual Picnics and Father-Daughter dinners. And with the national Rotary association in increasing touch, great emphasis was placed on attendance, even in these earliest days, and also upon the recruiting and financing of Denver delegates to national conventions. One delegate reported that his train and meals to Buffalo, NY, and back would be $89, and the club voted him a $150 expense budget!)
• May 1 - A committee was appointed to promote the proposed Colfax and Larimer St. viaduct.
• May 29 - Present membership was reported at 121.
• June 26 - Mr. J. C. Evans was introduced as a new member. Mr. Adams, captain of the "Fat" baseball team gave his lineup, and Mr. Van Schaack, captain of the "Lean," said his team showed progress.
• Aug. 7 - As to the second Annual Picnic, receipts were $173, disbursements $268.90. The club appropriated $100 to the Citizens Protective League for its work in inducing Denver newspapers to decrease scandalous and unfit reading matter.
• Aug. 21 - The club first accepted a challenge to a baseball game from the Ad Club, and then rejected it when scheduled for the Sabbath.
• Sept. 18 - A committee reports it has protested the new billboard ordinance to city authorities without avail.
• Oct. 2 - During a eulogy of deceased brother Charles W. Franklin the entire club stood, the first reference to this long and lovely tradition of respect for departed members.
• Oct. 23 - U.S. Senators Thomas and Shafroth and Representative Kindel wrote the club they were more than willing to aid Colorado manufacturers in getting contracts for equipping the new Federal Building.
• Nov. 20 - At the annual meeting, the club treasury still held $401.15. The secretary's report further recommended a permanent headquarters, and a monthly house organ.
• Dec. 18 - A communication asked moral support of the National Western Stock Show, and a motion passed to give $100 to the Federated Charities, forerunner of the Community Chest and United Way. (The bulletins begin to be filled with yearly references to such hallowed institutions as Christmas parties, banquets, stag nights and Stock Shows.)

1914

• Jan. 8 - President Ellis made a short talk on Enos A. Mills, at present working to have Estes Park set aside as a National Park, and the club voted Mr. Mills honorary membership. Mr. Cleveland moved endorsing an upcoming water bond issue, and after considerable discussion it carried. "The new method adopted for Roll Call proved that two of the oldest members found it very difficult to call members by their right name even though they were looking squarely in their faces."
• Feb. 26 - After a considerable discussion of a particularly disputed membership classification, the Chair ruled that such matters were entirely up to the Membership Committee and not for discussion on the floor. (Hereafter membership hassles took place at off-the-record committees.)
• April 12 - "Members present 72, absent 87. Dr. Hamm gave a most interesting talk on the care and treatment of the teeth infected with Pyorrhoea." (Program chairmen obviously had their problems right from the start.)
• April 16 - The Club moved to support Estes Park becoming a National Park and to urge this on Congress.
• April 23 - Colonel Verdeekberg of the National Guard canceled his speech because of the growing tension in the "Civil War" in the southern Colorado coalfield. On June 14, he appeared "flatly and frankly contradicting the unfounded statements that were given out by the Western Federation of Miners."
• June 18 - The president asked the club to approve its delegates to the Houston national Rotary convention giving a true picture of the coalfield strike to non-Colorado Rotarians, which suggestion was approved.
• Aug. 6 - "The Entertainment Committee reported on the picnic, and as the interest has been so lax there was a motion made that we do not have the picnic . . . some enthusiasm developed and the motion was withdrawn."
• Sept. 17- Motion made that Civic Committee take up with the city the matter of large lamps on automobiles causing accidents by their blinding effects.
• Oct. 15 - "During the course of the meal Billy Sunday, the Evangelist appeared.
• Nov. 12 - Mr. Lamorn spoke on the "Wet" and "Dry" proposition and said that Colorado would not be "Dry" until January 1, 1916.

1915

• Feb. 18 - Mr. Cleveland said of the proposed Workmen's Compensation Act that if the present State Senate bill were not made law something more socialistic might be passed in two years.
• Dec. 7 - The club adopts rules that the books should be audited; the Secretary and Treasurer placed under bond; that meetings should be a different hotels with the member Albany Hotel getting 25 percent of the business; that directors' minutes should be read to the Club; and that no solicitation of funds be permitted at any meeting. The Secretary was given a $75 monthly salary, but must pay for his own assistant.

1916

• Jan. 20 - Rotarian W. F. Hild spoke of the Tramway revenue troubles, to which Merle Turner added materially by stating that 430 Fords had been sold in Denver since the first of the year.
• Feb. 25 - At an evening meeting in honor of wives and daughters, Miss Evelyn Johnson, Toe Dancer, "had the married men standing up and looking down." An electric United States flag was unveiled, and dancing and card playing held the boards until 12:30 a.m. (The tradition of both bridge and dancing on Ladies Night held until recent years.)
• March 23 - Initiation fee was raised from $25 to$50 and annual dues to $15.
• May 11 - The Resolutions Committee was instructed to congratulate Rotarian Bob Speer on his re-election as mayor. (Speer had been mayor from 1904-1912 and then sat out four years.) "The club and all its members will work shoulder to shoulder with him in building, beautifying and enriching our city."
• May 25 - Annual banquet of 168 members and visitors including delegations from Pueblo and Colorado Springs. The auditor's report was interrupted by a porter bringing in a large trunk out of which popped the Gold Dust Twins who sang several songs. The Rotary Quartet offered "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup."
• June 22 - Mayor Speer got an ovation for his speech on the "Abuses Visited Upon Denver Taxpayers."
• July 6 - The custom of having each member address the club about his line of business was continued, but "when Andy Niles got to his feet he did not remember what business he was in, but he was as fluent as if he was loaded for the occasion." (The custom of sleeping through some of the speeches began early, according to other asides.)
• July 13 - Dr. W. W. Grant, former president of the State Board of Asylum Commissioners, addressed the club on "The Difficulty of Caring for Loose Nuts."
• Aug. 10 - Jesse Wheelock told the club what is the matter with the present automobile ordinance. Everyone had a brick for the present ordinance, but nobody had a satisfactory substitute.
• Aug. 24 - Miss Emily Griffith told of Denver's new Opportunity School and ask for the club's cooperation in making a success of this new venture to give an opportunity for grade and trade schooling to people who work. (Emily was a fixture as a Rotary speaker thereafter and drew constant club support.)
• Oct. 5 - Rotarian Downs had just driven a car up Pike's Peak and told the club how this could be managed.
• Oct. 12 - Mr. Stanley Holmes, aviator representing the Field Service of the American Ambulance Corps, told what a small group of Americans were doing in the Great War under the French flag.
• Nov. 23 - ...Tom Botterill urged the club to act as Santa Claus on Christmas Day. The directors have approved this activity and have each offered $5 to help (From here on the Christmas giving to the underprivileged was a continuing activity.)

1917

• Jan. 11 - The club met at Lakewood Country Club "on time and as expected there were machines galore. The Traffic Squad came from 15th and 16th Streets and took care of the confusion . . . the new viaduct is a gem."
• Jan. 18 - Jack Zahn and Charley Wells talked about the organ for the Municipal Auditorium for which Rotary is raising funds, and said Madame Shumann-Heink will hold a benefit concert on Jan. 31.
• Feb. 1 - Madame Ernstine Shumann-Heink was made an honorary member by rising ovation. At meeting's end, "instead of making a speech, Ernestine sang two songs for us and then ended one of the best meetings the club has ever had."
• Feb. 8 - "Joe Shoemaker brought the stockyard industry from the time of Noah and his yards down to the present and then into the future. Joe was rapidly raising prices and lambs had just reached $9.60 when the president in the interests of the meat-eating public stopped the performance. The meeting adjourned at 1:30." (Beginning this early, references to the insistence of the chair that meetings end on time at 1:30 p.m. sharp is constant.)
• Feb. 15 - Jack Zahn announced subscriptions to the organ fund had reached $45,000.
• March 8 - 145 members and 15 guests attended, the largest number ever attending one of the club's luncheons.
• March 22 - Rotary National President Klumph sent a message regarding the use of flags and the general encouragement of patriotism.
• March 29 - "Charlie Hendy offered to raise a regiment for the impending war, but as it appeared likely that in case of war Charley himself would be interned . . . his offer fell on barren ground."
• April 5 - "Ralph Smith spoke on patriotism, calling particular attention to the credit due those citizens who were born in countries now on unfriendly terms with the United State, but who are true and loyal to their adopted flag." (The U.S. Senate had voted war with Germany the day before, and the House was to finalize matters the next day.)
• April 12 - "King Worthington moved that Governor Gunter be informed that the Rotary Club is ready to serve in any way in the present crisis and that the membership and finances of the club are entirely at his disposal for any purpose which will serve our country in her present need."
• May 3 - The president read various communications regarding the food situation and outlining the work to be done in increasing crops, and how Rotary could help.
• May 31 - The club had a letter of thanks for a donation to Belgian War Relief, Harry Barrett explained the War Chest idea and Mr. Cornell discussed the State War Council and preparedness in Colorado.
• June 21 - Mrs. Larkin in charge of the Rotary Club's Far Bureau Labor Office said that farmers have been very pleased with the work of Denver boys and men sent to help getting in the crops. (Four hundred men and boys were so placed by the end of the season.) Captain Doke "reminded us of the necessity of filling up the Colorado units . . . and asked that the Rotary Club do all in its power to encourage enlistments."
• July 12 - "On account of the hotels no longer being willing to serve luncheons at 50 cents per plate, the price of 75 cents will prevail until further notice."
• Aug. 16 - "Sergeant Breckenridge gave us a wonderful account of trench warfare, reminding us of our duty and told us that if we could not dig in the trenches or into our pockets that our place was in Germany and not in the United States."
• Sept. 20 - "Jack Zahn brought greeting from Bax Lanius whom he met in Chicago on his way to the Training Camp at Rockford, Ill. The secretary announced that Cleon Brown and Mac McGrath were leaving with the National Army Friday. Paul Weiss announced that Mack's sister would be in charge of his filling station during his absence and earnestly requested all Rotarians to patronize this station."
• Oct. 18 - The members marched to the Albany Hotel to the regular meeting of the Liberty Loan Committee, where it was announced by Chairman Kountze that the Rotary division had won the banner for the day for the most subscriptions.

The biggest club event of 1917, and indeed in its young history so far, was the presentation of Mme. Shumann-Heink at the Municipal Auditorium on Jan. 31 as a benefit for the huge organ which the club was funding at Mayor Speer's behest.

The surviving program of the Schumann-Heink concert tells us a good deal about the lifestyle of Rotarians of that day. The good madame in flowery hat adorns the cover with a member's ad for Meadow Gold butter -- "Spread It On Thick." The program is full of ads, including The Denver Rubber Tire Co. moving to 1554 Broadway; the Hoff-Schroeder Cafeteria; Mountain Motors Co. at 25 Colfax, offering "Packard rhythm," and Knight-Campbell's at 1615 California, offering windup Victrolas.

"After the Concert, let's go to Baur's at 1512 Curtis St." or dancing at the Tally Ho at 1555 Grant, "a floor with a spring to it." The Broadhurst Shoe Co. was depicting lace-up, high-top ladies evening boots and the Birmingham Specialty Co. "comfort and style guaranteed corsets." A real estate agency proposed a square brick home with "oak floors throughout" for $4,500.

As for the concert itself, Mme. Shumann-Heink rendered among other numbers "My Heart Ever Faithful" by Bach; several numbers from Beethoven, Schubert and Strauss; and "Dawn in the Desert," the "Cry of Rachel" and "The Rosary" by Ethelbert Nevin.

Shortly after the big concert, the club fathers in their Second Annual Banquet at the DAC in February 1917, presumably enjoyed Miss Alice Forsyth, lyric soprano, rendering "All the Leaves Were Calling Me" or John C. Wilcox, baritone, in "Oh Happy Day." Max Fabish, manager of the Orpheum Theatre, produced "vaudeville specialties."

And after the Colorado Brook Trout and Roast Milk-Fed Chicken, and the Ignnacia Haya Bonita cigars, George Morrison's orchestra offered the one-steps "Pretty Baby" and "Wicki Wacki Woo," and the foxtrots "Yaaka Hula Hicki Dula," "Poor Butterfly," "There's A Little Bit of Bad In Every Good Little Girl" and "Pray for the Lights To Go Out."

The lights were indeed going out on a simpler era for Denver, its Rotarians and the whole country, but most of the fast-steppers at the ball didn't realize it. Unfortunately, the club minutes for 1918 have disappeared, so we cannot know how Denver Rotarians celebrated the Armistice. But we do know that Denver and its institutions, including the Rotary Club, were shortly injected into a between-the-wars era far different from the innocent tone of the founding years.

Denver Until WWII

World War I, entered with so much innocence as to its eventual significance, was the first watershed event of this century for the nation, for Denver as a core city still very much dominant in its immediate region, and even for a 165-member service club. But the war's effects were only slowly apparent at the regional and local levels.

Everyday life was pretty much the same as the city's population grew by 20 percent from Denver Rotary's founding in 1911 to 256,000 people by 1920. These good folk were getting around in 30,000 cars as well as by the streetcar lines that still dominated the city's transport. The last annexation of land to the core city had been in 1902, and there was not another until this period ends with World War II in 1941.

As our before-cited historian Carl Abbott points out:

"The economic and social stagnation of Colorado after 1918 deprived Denver of an external stimulus for change. The growth of its population slowed, especially after 1910, and the increase . . . to 332,412 in 1940 took place within the (city's) physical framework established in the previous two decades."

Public services remained essentially the same in this era, commerce was the core of the economy, Denver's reach into its hinterland was unchanged, its ethnic neighborhoods and the business district stable. The middle-class Anglo-residential area, undoubtedly the habitat of most Rotarians, grew into the quarter of the city marked out as early as the 1880s for elite residences -- Park Hill, Montclair, Cherry Creek, and the Country Club.

We must remember that Colorado, and hence Denver, and hence Rotary, did not "boom" between the wars. Marginal mines and farmlands, forced into heavy production by the war, went "bust," with an era of low prices and displaced people. The hard times of the '20s turned into the worse times of the '30s with its Great Depression and New Deal politics. Yet if there was not spectacular growth, there was plenty of civic change, and considerable innovation whose mass impact was only realized much later.

Leroy R. Haren notes in his history, "Colorado and Its People," that "the skyline of the Denver business district was greatly transformed during the decade following the War. The most notable building activity occurred in 1926-27 when the Republic, the Security, the Midland Savings, the Cosmopolitan Hotel, and the Continental Oil buildings were erected. In 1929 the set-back, skyscraper-patterned Telephone Building arose; and in 1932 the crescent-shaped Municipal building was completed."

There was a steady increase in the number of cars, from 30,000 in 1920 to 100,000 in 1940. The first radio station, KLZ, went on the air in 1922, the first sound film was shown at the Paramount in '29, and Stapleton Airport was dedicated the same year.

The airport was named for Ben Stapleton, who was to dominate the city's political life through the whole period as mayor from 1923 to 1947, with a time out for one term in the early '30s. Stapleton, like Robert Speer before him, was an enthusiastic Rotarian and cooperated with the Denver club in a continuous manner unlike any administration since. He was particularly proud of the City Hall, completed in 1932, and of the numerous expansions of the city's park and street system, including the famous mountain parks, engineered by his lieutenant, George Cranmer. Despite the economic problems of the times, the beautification of the Denver oasis was a persistent theme of the era.

In 1917, just as America entered the war, the Russian Revolution introduced an era of political unrest and agitation throughout the world that had some fretful offshoots in Denver's first concerns about "Reds" and "Bolsheviks." Super-patriotism inspired by the war and militant labor agitation springing from the postwar economic slump led to labor violence in the Denver Tramway strike of 1920. Later Denver had an overemphasized flirtation with the Ku Klux Klan.

Consolidation of water supply under the city's Water Board and of the utilities in Public Service Co. were early marks of the period, as were a clean-air campaign, founding of the Community Chest, the coming of natural gas and the opening of the long-dreamed Moffat Railroad tunnel through the Rockies in 1928. The 1930s saw, against a backdrop of the nationwide Depression and extensive drought in eastern Colorado, the great Cherry Creek flood of '33 and the massive snowstorm of '36; the first transcontinental air service to Denver, and the beginning of skiing at Winter Park.

Denver had its share of Depression hardship -- 10,000 families qualified for relief in 1933, and there was plenty of political turmoil as the New Deal began its injection of federal relief funds and legislation. Indeed, Colorado's relief payments were halted for a time in 1934 when the conservative legislature under the prod of Governor Ed Johnson refused to match the feds' largesse. But there was good news for Rotarians to chew over, too. The first water from the Western Slope came into Denver in 1936, and the Colorado Big Thompson Project was begun, which was to revolutionize Denver's northern hinterland.

When the war started in Europe in 1939, mining revived in the mountains, and federal employment expanded in Denver with the Remington Ordinance plant, later the nucleus of the present Federal Center. From 2,000 federal employees in 1930, the number grew to 6,500 by 1940, and was to triple as America entered the war.

Many of the newcomers settled in the suburbs and the West 6th Avenue "freeway: was built to connect the federal activity in Lakewood and Lowry Field. By 1940 the Denver Planning Commission fretted that the suburbs were growing five times as fast as the core city, though the latter still had twice the gross total. The Hispanic population of the city was not at 12,000, almost entirely the product of this era between the wars, and the federal Works Progress Administration issued a study raising the question of substandard treatment.

As the U.S. came nearer to war, Fitzsimmons Hospital, Lowry Field, Camp Hale in the mountains and Fort Carson near the Springs began to be more apparent factors in the community, and many of their servicemen began to enjoy the hospitality of the city.

Summing up this period from War to War, Gerald D. Nash has written in his new book, "The American West Transformed," that at the end of the 1930s, the mountain West, of which Denver was prototypical, was still economically dependent on the industrial East, had a minority position in American politics, and imported almost every aspect of its culture.

"On the eve of World War II, the West reflected the cautious and hesitant outlook about the future that swept America as the result of the economic crisis . . . within four years, wartime experiences transformed the erstwhile mood of pessimism into undaunted optimism."

For other details on this fascinating period, consult Lyle Dorset's "The Queen City," which exists due to the generosity of Rotarian Ben Stapleton Jr.

The Denver Rotary Club, expanding locally on a base of custom adopted in the founding era and deeply influenced by Rotary International's evolving role as a world-class institution, reacted to this changing between-wars America in a manner we shall now try to reconstruct.

Rotary Between Wars

On Jan. 1, 1916, just before the First World War began, Denver Rotary had 165 members. In January 1942, just after Pearl Harbor, the count was 332, almost precisely doubled. (For comparison, today in 1986 it's almost 600.)

Among the highlights of the club's history in this period were the beginning of its organized work with Denver youth which led in our time to Denver Boys and Denver Girls; the hosting of the Rotary International conventions in 1926 and 1941; a significant expansion of the club's regional work through development of district conferences, inter-city visits and sponsorship of new clubs; and formal organization of the Ladies of Rotary in 1926-27. Add to this regular promotion of and attendance at international conventions.

The last regular minutes of the meetings of Denver Rotary were taken in 1919-21. After that, from the evidence of the club's fragmentary files, minutes were abandoned and newsletters in the tradition of today's Keyway, often more pointed toward announcing the next meeting than reporting the last, became the club tradition. They moved slowly from mimeographed single sheets to today's printed wonders.

The documents are full of Rotary idealism, messages depicting the service activities of the club, the founding of Rotary International's specialties, and the emphasis on attendance and civic service as the core of Rotarian life. Club customs were such that a Rotarian of today would have felt at home at most of the last generations meetings, whether they were at the old Albany, Shirley Savoy or Cosmopolitan Hotels, or at various institutions throughout the city. But the concerns of those meetings were different in detail from those of today despite the core of common principle and practice.

Highlights from between the wars:

1919

• Jan. 2 - Rev. Boyle spoke for a few minutes on the need of funds for Armenian and Syrian relief . . . Elmer McPhee was fired up from his recent job of sawing wood for Uncle Sam and hopes, with outside influence, to induce his brothers to give him a job at home.
• Jan. 9 - Paul Armstrong, chief Naturalization Examiner, made an excellent talk on the duty of all true Americans toward our alien inhabitants. (The war and the Russian Revolution had stirred up considerable fervor about aliens and radicals.)
• Jan. 16 - Mayor Mills requested that a committee of five Rotarians be named to act with other businessmen to find some solution of the Tramway trouble. The committee named included Frank Ashley, W. L. Loveland, Charles C. Gates, C. A. Kendrick and H. Brown Cannon.
• Feb. 6 - Lt. Wells gave a most interesting talk on his experiences in a German prison camp . . .in his honor the Glee Club sang "Uncle Sammy, Here's To You!"
• Mar. 6 - On account of the extreme importance at this time of this subject, all other business was suspended and Mark Skinner explained the phases of the Income Tax.
• April 24 - All other business dispensed with. Carlow Cole was allowed the balance of the time to present a plan for improvement of our public schools system -- a proposition to vote $8 million in bonds for new buildings and improvements to old.
• May 22 - At the annual stag night, L. Trotsky from Petrograd was introduced and gave an idea of the Rotary Club of Petrograd.
• June 19 - The War Chest committee was authorized to spend $600 to care for tubercular children, and the president to appoint a committee to confer with the governor on a state Tubercular Hospital for the poor.
• Sept. 4 - E. E. Somers brought joy by telling what the State Highway Commission has done in the way of road improvements to cure the corns we all have acquired by riding over Federal Boulevard to Estes Park this summer.
• Nov. 13 - The clubs of Denver, Boulder and Longmont sat for the first of the inter-city meets suggested by the district governor . . . we had a talk on the signing of the Armistice, which made us feel exceptionally satisfied.

1920

• Feb. 5 - Be it resolved by the Denver Rotary Club that the plan of establishing a House or Home for working boys in Denver be carried out . . . sponsored and financed by this club and that the club pledge itself to carry the plan through to a successful conclusion. (After a counting of ballots, it was decided to delay adoption until absent members could vote. There is no further mention of the particular project in the minutes, but this was a forecast of the club's interest in youth work.)
• April 22 - The Denver Rotary Club hereby declares itself unqualifiedly favoring the American Principle of the "Open Shop" as affording equal opportunity of employment to all law-abiding citizens.
• July 29 - Herman Coors of Golden detailed the growth of their business during the war period on Chemical Porcelain . . . the particular business has grown from five or six men to several hundred and represents one of the best manufacturing industries in our state.
• Aug. 5 - The club resolved it was heartily in accord with Mayor Bailey's attitude toward the Tramway strike, and 125 club members signed up to visit him in support.
• Oct. 26 - Fred Marvin, who has investigated the status and recommendations of the Non-Partisan League (socialist), left no doubt in our minds of the ruin that might come to our state if their power was underestimated. Bill Wright denounced the indifferent attitude shown by some citizens in a crisis such as this, and it is certain that no member of the club would dare admit any but a full American spirit and attitude after listening to these two individuals.
• Dec. 9 - A. S. Peck, district forester, outlined various federal plans for establishment of parks and highways and the preservation of the fast-decreasing national forests.

1921

• April 21 - The Rotary Club expresses its confidence in the Board of the Finance Corporation, which is making federal aid available to farmers and stock men in the West, and commended the Denver Clearing House (banks) for support of this movement.
• Sept. 14 - There was a report on boys work programs in other cities, and the constructive work of Kansas City Rotary in this regard was described.

In 1923, Denver Rotary began its long record of service to youth in the community, although the present structures of Denver Boys and Denver Girls were not organized until after World War II. The early-day youth work was described by the former club executive secretary, Wesley Towne, on the occasion of the club's 50th anniversary as follows:

" . . . at that time (1923) there was much discussion as to whether we should contribute to some existing organizations or select a special activity and devote our energies to some particular work with boys. We began in a modest way to assist underprivileged boys in the high schools of Denver to buy adequate lunches, pay car fare, and furnish shoes, clothing and other needed items. The money given these boys was a gift and they did not assume any obligation.

"In the early 1930s, it was decided to enlarge our endeavor and, while not forgetting the economic side, place some responsibility on those receiving assistance from us, so scholastic standards were put in effect. During the Depression years we had as high as 127 boys on our scholarship rolls. Each scholarship boy was assigned a Rotarian sponsor for counsel and guidance, creating the mentor tradition in youth work which has been the distinctive contribution of Denver Rotary in this field ever since."

By the 1920s, the international Rotary organization had grown apace with its units such as Denver. The 2,000th club charter (of which Denver's was 31) was issued in 1925, many of them overseas. The international organization was becoming more effective in giving local clubs guidance, in setting common standards for club performance, and in urging attendance at national conventions.

1925

• May 28 - All Rotarians going to Cleveland will wear cowboy hats, and a contest is afoot for a hatband slogan that will welcome Rotarians to Denver in '26 . .. . "Sunshine and Snowballs Denver '26 Ask Me" was the eventual winner.
• June 25 - The greater portion of time this week has been spent on the members' need to know how to entertain and run a national convention.

Rotary International has required additional hotel space if it was going to come to Denver, and many club members kicked in a total of $80,000 to finish financing the new Cosmopolitan Hotel to enable it to open its doors just in time.

Denver's first international convention began on June 14, 1926, with an extravaganza in Denver University stadium, the entertainment including, to quote the program, "a kaleidoscopic vision of the universal and international character of Rotary, tinged with the atmosphere of Western Indian days."

Aiding in the "tinging" were members of the Zuni, Navajo and Blackfeet tribes; the Black Horse Cavalry from Fort D. A. Russell in Cheyenne; the Denver Municipal Band, Rotarian H. Everett Sachs, conductor; about 1000 Highlander Boys, Boy Scouts, DeMolays, and Denver High School cadets; and numerous members of Rotary and other service clubs from the Queen City and its neighbors -- in all a cast of 2,000, quite an achievement in hospitality.

As Wesley Towned recapped it, "The plenary sessions of the convention were held in the Auditorium, and the House of Friendship across the street in what was then known as the Bon Ton Dance Hall. The entire block of Champa Street from 14th to 15th was not opened to traffic." The municipal organist, Clarence H. Reynolds, thumped forth in a manner that would have delighted Mayor Speer, including a ditty written just for Denver by a Kansas visitor, "In Denver, In Denver, Your Air's so wonderfully clear, No wonder it makes us, All wish we could live here."

The ladies of Denver Rotary, who formally organized after the convention, did their part with a pageant on "Wild Flowers of the Rocky Mountains," and a fiesta a tea in Cheesman Park. The Denver Post greeted the "from 12 to 15,000" visitors with a special edition. In all, the July 8, 1926, newsletter concluded, the convention just closed was a great success from "the standpoint of the goodwill created toward Denver and the West." The club that was just 15 years old felt it had made the Rotary big time.

By the mid-20's, club bulletins were beginning to stress District Conferences, most of them at Colorado Springs in the manner of this day, and were listing club members' makeups at other clubs across the country. Attendance at international conventions was also being urged. The one following Denver's in 1926 was held in Ostend, Belgium, and there was much discussion of steamship reservations. The club bulletin states that the eventual delegation for 1927 to Belgium included the Jack Gardners, Barney Desjardins, the Ralph Mayos, the George Phillips, the Bill Russells, Finlay Macfarland, the George Olingers with son and daughter, the Brown Cannons and two sons, the F. C. Cullens, Lou Hellborn and Russell McCallister.

1928

• March 29 - Mr. Arthur H. Carhart of the Denver Planning Commission will speak on "Major Street Planning for Denver."
• April 18 - Hon. Benjamin F. Stapleton, we call him "Ben," will speak.
• April 26 - "Aviation Day" . . .you'll get a lot of good information on what may develop into the second-greatest game in the world.
• May 3 - "Rocky Mountain Transportation" the subject of a craft talk by Roe Emery, our own "Roe" of the Denver Cab Co.
• July 10 - The president sends the membership a letter which includes this statement from an unidentified business leader:

"Colorado is in real competition with Western states and I do not believe is advancing as fast as it should . . . I have just returned from a trip to the Pacific Coast and we are not making the progress we should, comparing Denver with other Western cities. We have the resources, we have the climate, we have the location, but somehow or other we are not holding our own . . ."

• Aug. 2 - "The Romance of Radio" promises to be a very interesting program.
• Aug. 16 - The International Horseshoe Pitching Tournament at the Annual Picnic at Elitch Gardens prompts the suggestion that members check their side arms at the gate. There will also be a Ladies' Slipper Kicking Contest and a Whist Tournament.
• Sept. 6 - Architect's plans for the new city hall will be discussed by Mayor Ben and other. Get the inside dope.
• Sept. 11 - "This talk about Rotarians being so busy they can't attend an inter-city meeting is all bunk. They waste more time in one week lighting cigars and discussing politics that it takes to attend two inter-city meetings. We ought to have 90 to 100 Rotarians at Pueblo," says the committee chairman.
• Oct. 25 - For those wishing to stay at The Broadmoor for the inter-city meeting, a room for one with bath, including lodging and breakfast, will be $5; for two with twin beds and bath, $8. (The meeting is subsequently postponed due to an appearance of Candidate Herbert Hoover in Pueblo.)

1929

• Jan. 4 - Roger W. Toll speaks on the bill before the legislature to cede state jurisdiction over Rocky Mountain National Park. The club has been interested in this for many years back.
• April 25 - A speech by the head of the Tourist Bureau, Harry Burhans, extols the progress the West is promised because President Hoover is from west of the Mississippi. "The eyes of America are turned and the tide of progress is moving westward. One of the goals of the Tourist Bureau is to have Colorado and Denver occupy the same position to the traveling public that Switzerland does to Europe" . . . both a gateway and a point of destination. In 1915 there were 300,000 tourists in Colorado; in 1928, some 700,000.
• Aug. 15 - All the service clubs will have a timely address on the "Prevention of Industrial Panics" by the Babson Institute. (The Stock Market crashed in October.)
• Oct. 17 - A special meeting to honor the golden jubilee of the invention of the light bulb by Thomas A Edison. A treasurer's report to the club listed a yearly budget of $24,500, about half for meals, with $1500 for the Boys Work Committee and the same for RI.

1930

• Jan. 23 - Dr. Ben M. Cherrington speaks on the London Naval Conference which opens this week.
• Nov. 9 - Prosperity Week. Says Winfield Hartzell, a Rotary member in a statement distributed to the club, "There surely must be something wrong with a system that makes it possible for $5,000,000 men to be out of work, and 10,000,000 working only part time . . . an emergency has always produced men capable of turning a crisis into a victory . . . let America this week again produce this leadership (to) turn this needless depression into lasting prosperity."
• Nov. 26 - A letter from club President W. F. R. Mills to every Rotarian urging them to exert "every effort possible to stimulate employment . . .. until a more definite plan should be determined upon, each member of our Club is urged to keep all employs possible on the payroll, and if any improvements were contemplated at the home or place of business, that such improvements or odd jobs be done now."

1931

• Feb. 16 - A campaign to raise $40,000 for the Convention Bureau of the Denver Chamber of Commerce is called to the club's attention, with the thought that in the season past 234 conventions brought the community $4 million in sales.
• Aug. 27 - The club's expenses for the Boys Work Committee have grown to $9,401.
• Oct. 22 - The bulletin notes "it is resolved by Rotary International . . . representing some 158,000 business and professional men in 67 countries, that it favors every step being taken by all governments to insure that the forthcoming Disarmament Conference at Geneva in 1932 shall succeed in bringing about a really substantial reduction in world armaments."
• Dec. 24 - ". . . it is not so difficult to think that we shall presently emerge from the present recession and be prosperous again -- perhaps more prosperous than ever before. To carry us through these trials, we need to hold fast to two things -- our faith in the future and our friends."

1932

• Jan. 21 - The bulletin states that Rotarian Ben Bower is released by his kidnapers, and the club subsequently pays a $1,000 reward it had raised, divided half to individuals who aided in his release and half to the police pension fund. (Charles Boettcher II was kidnapped the next year but contrary to legend there is no record of club reward in his case.)
• Jan. 28 - The bulletin carries a suggestion to President Hoover from a California Rotarian that he let foreign nations settle their war debts in kind or by barter, since payment in gold would strain their economies.
• Feb. 25 - National Rotary appeals for helping President Hoover's campaign against the hoarding of currency.
• July 28 - Rare, for a club publication, was a listing of several AP items said to indicate brighter business prospects, including a $10,000,000 contract signed in Denver for starting work on Hoover Dam.
• Aug. 11 - President Fong See of the Shanghai Rotary Club sends the message that "Our Japanese and Chinese members are big enough not to allow their nationalism to override their internationalism: in relation to the war clouds between Japan and China.
• Sept. 11 - Hon. James M. Curley, mayor of Boston, speaks on economics and states that "truth is might and must prevail, even in this Republican city."
• Dec. 8 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, president-elect of the United states, is a member of the Rotary Club of Albany and is quoted from a district conference speech as saying he sees Rotary as a "powerful and stabilizing factor" in world relations.
• Dec. 15 - The new Rotary International president, Clinton P. Anderson of New Mexico (later a Cabinet member and U. S. senator), addresses a meeting at the Cosmo . . . The club adopts constitutional changes allowing for Additional Active Members.

1933

• Jan. 5 - The time is nearing when the Century of Progress fund for Colorado must be completed if we are to be represented in the World's Fair next June to September.
• Feb. 9 - Hon. Ed C. Johnson, the new governor, "held his audience until a few minutes past closing time . . . partisan politics are losing ground."
• March 9 - Under the heading "A New Deal," the club bulletin says "our hope comes up again . . . For a generation Rotary has been stressing the ideal of service as a business keynote and now the President of the United States (in his inaugural) has definitely given consideration to this principle."
• June 22 - William V. Hodges, attorney, addresses the club on "The Industrial Recovery Bill," known as the NRA, and stated by the bulletin editor to be "the most revolutionary act ever passed . . . we all now become partners in a great industrial enterprise."

1934

• Feb. 15 - Dr. George Norlin, president of CU, talks on "Germany and Hitlerism." Says the Observer, "what a strange conception of personal rights Germany has . . ." Judge Haslett P. Burke of the Colorado Supreme Court spoke on the "King" and the perils of autocracy, and the Observer said, “are the Rotary Clubs of America to hide behind the skirts of non-partisanship in politics and take no part in defending and preserving the ideals of Americanism? (Reference to FDR?)
• Oct. 25 - James Crowther, pastor of Trinity, reporting on a trip to the Soviet Union, "found that Russian people enjoying things that Denver people wouldn't like very well, enduring hardships and performing menial tasks .. . . happy in the thought that they are building a new Russia."
• Nov. 15 - Federal Relief was explained to the club by a regional official, and members were asked to support a $715,000 Community Chest goal.
• Dec. 6 - The club notes with sorrow the passing in Richmond, Va., of Grafton E. Hancock, first president. At this point there are 281 in an organization Hancock started 23 years ago more or less on the back of an envelope.

1935

• Jan. 15 - Rotarian Charles C. Gates tells the club that business is certainly better right now and constantly improving under the New Deal.
• March 28 - "There's a lot more to air conditioning that meets the eye," said Rotarian Harry Herman in one of the craft talks about new product developments.
• April 18 - James Grafton Rogers, dean of the CU Law School, talks on "War and the Munition Makers." He sees little cause for complaint in the conduct of the American phase of the situation, as the club viewed war clouds with alarm.
• June 20 - Railroad transportation is now more comfortable and less costly that at any time in its history, and all you boys are invited to try a train ride sometime.
• June 27 - Eben Fine, a Boulder photographer, gave a show on the Rockies. Said the Observer, "If we were all as enthusiastic over Colorado's business resources as Fine is of its natural wonders, Washington, D.C. would be far away in our minds and the Depression would be given back to the Indians."
• July 11 - Count Di San Marzano gave us a very clear and interesting idea of the workings of Fascism in his country.
• Aug. 22 - May Ben Stapleton, just re-elected after sitting out a term due to a political miscalculation, is welcomed back to the club.
• Sept. 26 - Chesley Perry, international Rotary's secretary who gave Denver its charter, is saluted for 25 years service. When he started in 1910 (the year before the Denver Club), there were 16 clubs; today there 3,842 with 161,000 members in 80 countries.
• Oct. 10 - The Civic Symphony Orchestra will give a series of six concerts on Sunday afternoons in the Municipal Auditorium, season tickets $5, Rotarian attendance urged.
• Nov. 7 - Dr. Bushee's address on "Social Security Legislation" was splendid . . . he's given the subject a great deal of study.
• Nov. 14 - Club sponsorship of a new unit at Brighton is highlighted.

1936

• March 12 - Roy Samson (Law-Mining) told us about the Social Security act, its provisions for old-age pensions, unemployment, insurance, etc. "I for one agree with Roy -- it's a mess," said Observer.
• Dec. 1 - A most impressive party at the Silver Glad Room when Denver Rotary celebrated its 25th Anniversary. It was quite a sight to see the charter members, Harry Barnes, John Barr, Clarence Campbell, Newcomb Cleveland, Charles Martin, George Mayer, Frank McLister, Bert Reeves, C. R. Root, George Schumacher, Charlie Wells and Fred Syman surrounding the birthday cake . .. . we look back on 25 years of accomplishments by Denver Rotary, and those of us who are young in the Club look forward to the next 25 years, knowing we have many goals to attain.

1937

• Feb. 11 - President Will Grant told us we are now numbered among the Rotary big shots, the club having 300 members.
• March 11 - Hon. Henry W. Toll, executive director, the Council of State Governments, speaks on "Can We Save The States" . . . for the first time in history, state governments are now organizing to harmonize their policies.
• May 13 - After a speech on the presumed ability of the British government to control strikes, the Observer said "in view of the recent developments in regard to labor in our country (strikes and organization of the CIO) it seems to be the consensus of opinion that some such position must inevitably be taken by our government." (A fiscal report for the end of 1937 showed club income of $28,394 and expenses of $26,404. Just more than 100 boys were receiving grants from the Boys Work Committee at an expense of $7,457.) <P<
• Aug. 5 - An Ohio lawyer gave us most revealing facts of what has been and is transpiring among crime racketeers and the alliance of crime in politics in some of the most important cities of America. He paid a splendid tribute to Warden Roy best of our State Penitentiary as being a very able man of courage.
• Aug. 19 - A Rome Rotarian, Prof. Luigi Villari, tells what Italy has accomplished thru the Fascist form of government and the people are well satisfied.
• Sept. 16 - Dr. James Bryant Conant, president of Harvard, speaks on "The Role of Privately Endowed Universities." Says the Observer, "few of us realize the potential forces in a great university for the molding or corrupting of moral character."
• Oct. 21 - L. Ward Bannister explained a government proposal to expand activity in natural resources conservation, which led the Observer to rule that "Regulation is a many-headed dragon. We have just seen a financial debacle in the Stock Market by the academic regulation of this market by the Securities and Exchange Commission. As is inevitably the result, the little fellow . . .. was the most drastic loser."
• Nov. 4 - L. M. "Lean Meat? Pexton tells of the Colorado livestock industry and what it means to the state.

1938

• Jan. 13 - Bud Knight introduces movie star Buck Owens and his horse "Goldie" as a promotion for the Stock Show.
• Jan. 20 - R. H. Markham of the Christian Science Monitor speaks on the "Meaning of Developments in Europe."
• Feb. 3 - Quigg Newton Jr., a son of our Jim, a former SEC staffer and instructor at DU, speaks on fair trade practices as stipulated in the Patman Act. The Observer felt that "for most of us, Quigg's recital was over our heads, but he convinced us that he knew what he was talking about."
• March 17 - After a speech on the value of the Federal Home Loan Bank system, the Observer quotes Will S., "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
• June 23 - Rotarians join in the Salesmen's Crusade Mass Meeting sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce to increase business in Denver. Similar mass meetings were held throughout the country to hear an inspiration message brought in by "leased wire" from Milwaukee, Wis.
• Aug. 18 - Major John R. Hermann, commanding officer of the Colorado-Wyoming Civilian Conservation Corps, speaks of the constructive work of the CCC. A visit to our Mountain Parks and elsewhere in the state confirms his story.
• Nov. 3 - Sandy Buell, the "Streamline Specialist" describes the five orders of architecture, but the Observer said, "Sandy forgot to tell us how we could build and keep one of those model houses shown in Life Magazine on $3,500 per year."
• Nov. 17 - Clark M. Eichelberger, director of the League of Nations Association, spellbound the membership with a talk on "Europe Today." The Munich Conference did not establish a way to permanent peace, but resulted only in a yield to the bluff of a dictator. Peace can no longer be taken for granted.

1939

• Feb. 16 - Will Grant, with the logic of Aristotle, showed how futile has been the attempt to streamline our 1876 model of state government. He described a reorganized plan which the Observer feared "politics will prevent."
• Feb. 21 - At annual Ladies Night, "Major Bowes" was the master of ceremonies, "The Desert Song" and "Rio Rita" were the light operatic hits, and the dancers indulged in everything from La Varsuviana to the Lambeth Walk.
• Aug. 31 - WAR-WAR-WAR "That bitter pill followed our fun-filled evening (Annual Picnic at Elitch's) with our beautiful ladies and happy children. Rotary and war are antipodal, moral and intellectual opposites. Let's KEEP AMERICA OUT OF THIS WAR! Maybe Rotary can help. I hope so." The Observer (World War II was starting in Europe with Hitler's invasion of Poland.)

1940

• Jan. 11 - Mayor Ben speaks on Denver -- Not a silver-tongued orator, but he KNOWS his stuff, puts IMPORTANT THINGS FIRST and does the BEST HE CAN, says "O."
• June 13 - Lawrence C. Martin, manager editor of The Denver Post, talks on "War News and Propaganda." with special reference to the Nazi "Fifth Column." Martin "is about the first really good thing I've heard about The Denver Post." (A number of members had resigned in the 1920s when F. G. Bonfils, The Post's founder, became a member, but the matter was smoothed over, and he eventually dropped out.)
• Oct. 10 - There's going to be a Rotary International Convention next June hereabouts.
• Oct. 24 - W. A. Harriman, chairman of the Union Pacific, and its president, W. M. Jeffers, address the club at its joint meeting with the Denver Chamber.

1941

• Jan. 16 - Colonel Duncan, commandant of Lowry Field, told us of the Army Air Corps. Lowry and Fort Logan are coming to be an important part of our community.
• Jan. 30 - Mayor Ben let us in on some tag ends of city government .. . . water situation and the munitions plants.
• March 6 - A joint meeting with the Chamber to Honor Leopold Stokowski, conductor, Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.

At this point, club records begin to be dominated by the forthcoming international convention, scheduled for June 15-20. In 1980, Lew Barbato and committee assembled a history of the club to celebrate Rotary International's 75th birthday, and the following description of the 1941 convention and aftermath is taken from their excellent work:

"The convention theme was "The Rotarian Amid World Conflict" and a highlight was a concert and dedication of the Red Rocks Theater. On the program was Miss Helen Jepson of the Metropolitan Opera, the Denver Municipal Orchestra under Henry Everett Sachs, and a Denver Festival Chorus of 100 voices under the direction of Rotarian John C. Kendel. The program was broadcast internationally throughout the Western Hemisphere.

"Plenary sessions were in the Denver Auditorium as well as the Reception and the President's Ball. The House of Friendship was located in the newly completed annex of our Auditorium . . . total attendance was 9,817."

A memorial to the convention was to have been dedicated on top of Mt. Evans during the festivities, but bad weather intervened and it wasn't until August that the following plaque was installed:

"Presented by the members of Rotary Clubs in the 113th District, Rotary International, dedicated to the service and pleasure of all mankind. Unveiled by Armando de Arruda Pereira, Sao Paulo, Brazil, president Rotary International, 32nd Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June, 1941."

It would be nice to leave our Rotarians in the friendly if somewhat breezy atmosphere on the top of Mt. Evans celebrating their successful convention attended by Rotarians from 26 countries. But the winds of war were also blowing. The first meeting of the new administration on the next July 3 was an Independence Day Rally featuring the commandant of the new Denver Ordinance Plant, the next heard more discussion of the Nazi "fifth column" and later the club heard again from Clark Eichelberger of the League of Nations Association. Said the Observer, "Anything that happens in the world is our affair, and this war is our war and has been from the start!"

But Rotarians were ambivalent as they watched the Western European nations have at each other. After a discussion led by Dr. Ben Cherrington of DU in October, the Observer wrote, "Regardless of the winner, and it could be either, the world will be sorry place. We will be in the driver's seat, the most powerful nation in the world, unless we get further into it and deplete our resources and economy as the other nations are doing."

On Dec. 4, 1941, the club celebrated its 30th birthday, with T. Chester Hitchings, William R. McFarland, M. Eliott Houston and Lewis J. Todhunter enacting the high points of the three decades. The Charter members cut a huge birthday cake, and went home unaware that the Japanese were marshaling for the attach on Pearl Harbor three days later. As club president Frank P. Spratlen Jr. put it at year's end, "Never has Denver Rotary had better opportunities for real service ... each of us should highly resolve to work in complete accord, with unreserved strength, for our national welfare, to the ultimate victory of our beloved country and our way of life.

The Rotarians could not foresee that ultimate victory would be achieved, but that the way of life of their country, city and club would be fundamentally altered in the achieving.

World War II and the West

It is generally agreed by historians that World War II was the most important single event in the history of the mountain West, and hence of Denver as its growing capital. That is, if by "important" you mean bringing permanent changes to the largest number of people.

The massive investment of federal funds and the in-migration of thousands of people, both to support the all-out war effort in the West, affected the region and its capital far more profoundly than had other national traumas such as the Gold Rush, the Civil War, the silver strikes, the First World War or the Great Depressions. From 1940 to 1945, Colorado's total income more than doubled from $617 million to $1,317 million, and Denver's population increased 20 percent, by 100,000 people, including for the first time significantly large numbers of Afro-American and Hispanic-American citizens.

As to the processes of military service and effort, much was reminiscent of World War I - the training camps, the pressure on farmers and miners to increase production, the bond drives, the hospitality canteens, the anxious ear for the doorbell and "bad news." Some of the Denver Rotarians could be excused for thinking they had been this way before, since by now they were one of the older organizations in a booming city, few of which went back to the "last war."

In economic life, the change in Denver was far more intrusive than anything that had happened in World War I. The grain mills, sugar refineries and meat-packers were back at capacity after the long depression; mining equipment companies re-geared to war material. New war plants included Remington at the present-day Fed Center, with 20,000 employees making munitions - half of them women! The Rocky Mountain Arsenal had 14,000 at work on chemical weapons, with no one questioning the effect on the environment. Desert Denver even had a fling at shipbuilding, producing pre-fab parts for 31 destroyer escorts and 301 landing craft. These were shipped out by rail to Mare Island in San Francisco Bay for assembly and launching.

Many of the war workers were minorities, including women, with all that portended for changes in habits and customs that had been in place for the hundred years since the Anglo frontier. Unlike World War I, there was a huge establishment and revival by the government of a military complex that was to be a permanent part of the postwar Colorado scene - Lowry Field and Buckley Naval Air Station, Camp Hale for the mountain troops, Fort Carson for the infantry and tank corps, military training programs at the region's colleges, Fitzsimons General Hospital. Many of the service men and women who went through these centers and sampled Colorado's wartime hospitality came back as permanent residents after the war.

According the George V. Kelly in his history of Denver administration, "The Old Gray Mayors," Rotarian May Ben looked out on the Civic Center throngs one 1946 after-war afternoon and said, "If these people would just go back where they cam from, we wouldn't have any problems here." NO doubt Stapleton mirrored the "growth" shock of some of his Rotary fellows. In 1940, Denver had 322,000 people and the surrounding counties (Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder and Jefferson) totaled 123,000. Denver was still ahead more than 2 to 1.

In just 10 years, by 1950, Denver had 416,000 for a growth rate of 29 percent. But the suburbs out on the "crabgrass frontier" had 196,000, for a 60 percent increase. Between 1950 and 1960, Denver grew 19 percent to 494,000, but the suburbs were up 122 percent to 435,000, almost level with the core!

The period between Denver's hosting of Rotary International in 1941, just before America was thrust into the war, and 1966 when it again welcomed an international convention was the birth period for Denver as a megalopolis. Among the significant indicators of this was the growth of automobile traffic - 153,000 vehicles in metro Denver in 1946, compared to 540,000 in 1960. (A million plus today [1986]!) The first King Soopers market catering to the car went up in 1947, the last trolley gave way to buses in 1950, the Cherry Creek Shopping Center opened in 1953, University Hills in 1955. Ike signed the Interstate Highway bill in '56.

Elwood Brooks began to challenge the 17th Street banks with low-interest consumer loans in 1943, Ben Stapleton was defeated by Quigg Newton for may in 1947, with the help of Rotarian Palmer Hoyt at a modernized Denver Post. And all sorts of other gauntlets were being thrown before old Denver business and political practices, but within, generally speaking, the ownership patterns familiar to pre-war Rotarians.

The war-induced surge in mining and farming might have drifted off as in the 1920s except for the international situation. This saw the Marshall Plan and the Cold War with the Russians turn to hot with the Korean War of 1950. This reinvigorated all the Colorado military installations. Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952 and helped his wife's hometown bring the water across the mountains (Big Thompson, 1954; Roberts Tunnel, 1964) and get the Air Academy, 1954-58. The year Ike headquartered his first campaign at the Brown Palace, 1952, was also that of Denver's first television broadcast, the beginning of a major shift in the city's communications structure.

In 1955, Denver voters OK'd a $25 million water bond issue that lifted its restrictions on service to the suburbs, and in the next year the Martin plant set up shop and started the Front Range on its way to space glory.

In 1960, the Denver Urban Renewal Authority began planning to revamp half the downtown business core. There were then six buildings on the Denver skyline higher than 320 fee, the limit placed by a restriction that went back to the 1920s. (The restriction had been lifted with the immediate postwar advent of the Texas Murchisons and Bill Zeckendorf with their Mile High Center and Denver club building, the latter built on the site of the Old Guard's torn-down brownstone citadel. Six high buildings in 1960 and 18 by 1970! It was the decade of the crane as the Colorado state bird.

Speaking of the war and postwar developments as they affected Colorado and Denver, Ubbelhode, Benson and Smith in their "A Colorado History" sum it this way:

"Startling changes came with this federal infusion of jobs, agencies and money, including more intense urbanization of the Front Range corridor, a higher standard of living, the influx of highly skilled workers and different political, social and cultural attitudes. . . . Colorado made the transition from an extractive economy based upon mining and agriculture of the 19th century and pre-World War II years to a sophisticated service economy of the 1950s and beyond. It did this without going through the intermediate state of heavy industrialization typical of the eastern United States."

In 1930, mining and agriculture accounted for 31 percent of total Colorado employment; in 1970, those traditional sectors accounted for only 6 percent. The comparable figures for manufacturing were a stable 18 and 15 - manufacturing held its own. But for the government, trade and services sector, a whopping increase from 20 to 50 percent showed the basic change that the Second World War brought to Colorado.

These changes had a fundamental effect on Denver Rotary, which grew in size but did not change its habitual customs or practices. However, the character of its membership and of the issues it was forced to confront, and the size of its operations, were very much affected. We turn back to the documents and Keyways of the period to get a taste of this substantial change in a club which had yet to live more than half its life up to age 75.

1911 Gratton E. Hancock

1912 Jesse M. Wheelock

1913 T. C. Hitchings

1914 Dr. C. A. Ellis

1915 Walter J. Spray

1916 J. Claire Evans

1916-1917 Harry M. Barrett

1917-1918 William R. McFarland

1918-1919 William D. Wright, Jr.

1919-1920 Clare N. Stannard

1920-1921 Dr. Harry C. Brown

1921-1922 Harold W. Moore

1922-1923 Finlay L. MacFarland

1923-1924 Harry A. Marr

1924-1925 H. Brown Cannon

1925-1926 Ralph B. Mayo

1926-1927 M. Elliott Houston

1927-1928 Craig Davidson

1928-1929 John E. Zahn

1929-1930 Emory Afton

1930-1931 W. Fitz R. Mills

1931-1932 Howard S. Robertson

1932-1933 William N. Haraway

1933-1934 Louis F. Eppich

1934-1935 Herbert S. Sands

1935-1936 Lawrence C. Blunt

1936-1937 W. W. Grant

1937-1938 Lewis J. Todhunter

1938-1939 William E. Russell

1939-1940 Guy W. Faller

1940-1941 L. Ward Bannister

1941-1942 Frank P. Spratlen, Jr.

1942-1943 Eugene Revelle

1943-1944 Rueben J. Chadbourne

1944-1945 Roger D. Knight, Jr.

1945-1946 Hugh B. Terry

1946-1947 Donald D. Keim

1947-1948 Lloyd E. Yoder

1948-1949 Dr. Cyrus W. Anderson

1949-1950 John J. Sullivan

1950-1951 William Grant

1951-1952 P. Hicks Cadle

1952-1953 Mortimer Stone

1953-1954 John G. McMurtry

1954-1955 George M. Hopenfenbeck

1955-1956 Milton E. Bernet

1956-1957 Robert L. Stearns

1957-1958 Ray Jenkins

1958-1959 Chester M. Alter

1959-1960 Richard W. Wright

1960-1961 Nicholas R. Petry

1961-1962 Walter C. Crew

1962-1963 Dr. Bradford Murphey

1963-1964 Shelby F. Harper

1964-1965 Eugene E. Dawson

1965-1966 Thomas M. Tierney

1966-1967 Walter K. Koch

1967-1968 Robert H. McWilliams

1968-1969 John H. Amesse

1969-1970 Richard M. David

1970-1971 Peter D. Bowes

1971-1972 John J. Vance

1972-1973 Earl S. Stone

1973-1974 C. Howard Kast

1974-1975 John D. Hershner

1975-1976 Kenneth W. Caughey

1976-1977 William H. Hornby

1977-1978 Preston Smith

1978-1979 Grant Wilkins

1979-1980 James B. Warner

1980-1981 Richard P. Koeppe

1981-1982 Peter D. Smythe

1982-1983 N. Berne Hart

1983-1984 Gary F. McMahon

1984-1985 Kermit L. Darkey

1985-1986 Junius F. Baxter

1986-1987 Robert Timothy

Rotary in World War II

A Rotarian who attended international conventions in Denver in 1941 and 1966 visited two very different cities. The first was a large but rather quiet regional center with one or two tall buildings breaking the clean air of its skyline, surrounded by some small towns, the whole conveying the compact atmosphere of an isolated city oasis on the arid plains. The second was the core of an obviously exploding metropolis, buildings going up everywhere on a skyline often obscured by traffic smog, with freeways slashing out through smog, with freeways slashing out through suburbs that stretched along the Front Range mountains and crept up their ravines. One could argue that in these 25 years Denver had gone through more of a transformation than its first quarter-century had brought to the frontier emptiness of 1859.

No more than a third of our current membership belonged to Denver Rotary during this period, its "middle age" from birthday 30 to 55. And most of these joined in the 1960s. So to recapture the flavor, we cannot count on the personal recollection of a majority but must turn again to the weekly Keyways, extracting them regularly for the World War II period and intermittently from then on until we get to days that more of you remember.

1942

• Jan. 8 - After hearing Dr. Ludwig Hamburger describe the absolute control of all Business and Labor in effect in Nazi Germany, the restrictions placed on us in this country seem like the rules of a Parcheesi game. It is pretty certain that we are going to have more now that we have a rather serious job to do.
• Jan. 15 - A message from international president Tom Davis stresses that Rotary International expects individual Rotarians to be loyal, devoted, serving citizens of their own countries, fighting for "home and heritage, ideals and traditions, and common decency."
• Jan 29 - Rotarian Caleb F. "Turk" Gates Jr., chancellor of DU, tells us what the universities must do in the Defense and War program, "and even more in the Peace that will follow." . . .
• March 5 - Mrs. Charles C. Gates describes the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, which she and her husband experienced.
• April 9 - Ben Cherrington and other DU professors analyzed "Key Spots in the Grand Strategy of the War," of more than ordinary interest on the day we learned that the gallant defenders of Bataan had at last succumbed.
• July 9 - Sgt. Ray Shane of the Denver Police Department gave a graphic description of the civil defense organization, plan and preparations that have been completed for safeguarding our city. Honorary Memberships, Military Service are being extended to more members.
• July 23, 30 - John G. Gates of Gates Rubber Co. and Frank A. Kemp of Great Western Sugar Co. give back-to-back talks on the shortages in the country's rubber and sugar.
• Sept. 17 - Col. Harvey Burwell, commanding officer of Lowry Field, emphasized Denver's importance to the all-out war effort, and left us thinking of our future importance in the world of aviation that is sure to come.
• Oct. 1 - Denver has a War Chest goal of $1,245,195 to meet U.S.O., Navy Relief War Prisoners Fund and regular Community Chest needs. Rotary is pitching in.
• Oct. 8 - The Keyway lists 36 sons of Rotarians in the service in an "Honor Roll."
• Oct. 22 - Dr. Osgoode S. Philpott solicits club support for the Blood Bank. Members are urged to turn out their personal cars and ride streetcars to take orphans to the annual Orphans Party; wartime regulations forbid leasing buses running on scarce rubber.
• Dec. 3 - Four of the finest specimens you ever saw talked of their experiences -- a veteran of Dunkirk, a sailor who survived the sinking of a destroyer, a Marine who fought in the battle of Midway and a friendly Norwegian flyer.

1943

• Feb. 13 - Ladies Night at the Silver Glade of the Cosmo included Milton Shrednik's orchestra and the singing of Mary Kendel, Lauretta Louise and Ivan Schooley. The bridge players enjoyed the orchestra, too
• Feb. 18 - Rotary International appeals for support for its new Foundation, and the club receives a surprise visit from Gen. Carlos P. Romulo of the Philippines -- "a little package sometimes contains a lot of power."
• Feb. 25 - Congrats to the Ladies of Rotary for selling more than $50,000 in war bonds at last week's meeting. The speaker talks about aviation; imagine that we're only 60 hours away from anyplace on the globe!
• March 11 - Rotary scholarships extended to Fitzsimons General Hospital will now also be offered at Lowry Air Force Technical School.
• April 1 - The people were again cheered by news that MacArthur's flyers have won a victory off the coast of New Guinea -- has this one man acquired more military knowledge than any other?
• May 20 - Friends, for one buck you can buy a copy of Wendell Wilkie's "One World," which you all should read.
• July 8 - The speech topic, "What Will We Have to Eat Next Winter?" The answer seemed to be that we won't have the same things that we didn't have last winter, only more so.
• July 15 - Sen. Joseph Ball of Minnesota and Congressman Albert A. Gore of Tennessee talk about the Hatch-Ball resolution favoring formation of a United Nations after the war.
• July 29 - The program was the crew of the Memphis Bell, a Flying Fortress that had completed 25 missions over Nazi Germany. We can all respond to those fellows by buying more War Bonds.
• Aug. 19 - The club's sympathy is extended to Rotarian Harry Rosenbaum on the death of his son, First Lt. Alvin Rosenbaum, the first club son lost to the war.

Justice Wiley Rutledge of the U.S. Supreme Court states that the country can no longer operate as such on the basis of local authority and must surrender some traditional rights to the federal government.

• Sept. 9 - The Keyway now lists 72 Rotary sons in service.
• Oct. 7 - "Soldiers -- Assets or Liabilities" seemed to "O" to be a tribute to May Ben and his foresightedness on the Soldier Problem. Lee Moe set forth an intimate picture of the hospitality being extended at the Servicemen's Center.
• Oct. 21 - "Naval Activities at the University of Colorado" by Capt. Frank Roberts. Staff Sgt. Hamilton gave the club the opportunity to send Christmas presents to men overseas.
• Nov. 11 - Rotarians observed Armistice Day this year by working and buying War Bonds -- $6,175 at the meeting.
• Dec. 14 - Rotarians will work at the Servicemen's Center over the holidays, giving out an estimated 10,000 postcard portraits to servicemen for them to send home.
• Dec. 16 - Rotarian Jack Foster gave an inside picture of the German and Italian prisoner-of-war camps in Colorado and Wyoming, many of which he has visited.

1944

• Feb. 24 - "Winning the Peace With Lend-Lease" and "Has Colorado a Japanese Problem?" were speech topics.
• March 9 - Hon. John C. Vivian, GOP governor of Colorado, introduces Democrat Lester Hunt, his counterpart from Wyoming. "One peach of a chief executive," says "O."
• March 16 - Wing Commander Raymond H. Harries discusses the Battle of Britain and his 300 operational flights. "If the rest of his countrymen are like him, there will always be an England."
• April 20 - Mayor Stapleton, George Cranmer, manager of Improvements and Parks, and others of the city cabinet discussed city government. "Mayor Ben kept them right in line -- if they talked too long, he gave them a little nudge."
• May 25 - There are 373 members in the club at this point, with 12 charter members still active.
• June 15 - Flashy Jack Foster gave us the news of the invasion (of Europe), straight from the Rocky Mountain News.
• July 13 - Philip Lin discusses the impact of the War on Chinese life. "O" says, "didn't you catch the spirit of these fine people?"
• Sept. 21 - Capt. George Saunders reported on Allied Military Government in Italy.
• Sept. 28 - Paul Burbank of UAL Air Cargo spoke on the future of air cargo. "O" said that "D-26 plane carrying 56 passengers certainly is a whale!"
• Nov. 2 - Miss Facht of DU, an original UNRRA executive (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) gave us a good picture of how we are spending $1,350,000,000 of our hard-earned money in relief and refugee camps in liberated countries. Could there be any finer objective?

1945

• Jan. 18 - Dr. Horace Campbell talks on "Imperialism, Curse of the Western World." He says it's all very nice to talk about fighting for democracy, but we're apparently fighting to protect the imperialism of certain of our allies.
• Feb. 8 - War correspondent Ben Bezoff tells of witnessing the German breakthrough at the Battle of the Bulge, and criticized civilian grouching over shortages and rationed items. "I thought that hit right," says "O."
• March 1 - Dr. R. G. Gustavson, president of the University of Colorado, talks about "Science in War and Peace," and mentions "liberating atomic power."
• March 15 - Six men from the 101st Airborne who helped turn back the Germans at Bastogne are the club speakers.
• April 12 - Rotarians are asked to pray for delegates to the forthcoming United Nations conference in San Francisco. (But there is no mention of President Roosevelt's death the preceding week).
• May 7 - Germany surrenders to the Allied forces, but for some reason no mention of this appears in the club's bulletins.
• June 14 - Jan Hollander, Dutch journalist, speaks on the postwar control of Germany and seems to counsel extermination. The "O" says, "You may be right, Jan, but we practically did that to the American Indian. I'm not so sure we have made much better use of the country than he was making."
• June 21 - J. S. Penney speaks on the "Application of Christian Principles in Business." The Observer says that success in his case was not a matter of luck, as he had surrounded himself with men like Denver Rotarians Homer Torrey and Ray Jenkins.
• Aug. 2 - Dr. Robert Stearns, president of CU, speaks to the club on the air war in the Pacific, but there was no hint of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima four days later.
• Aug. 16 - Dr. Joyce Stearns of DU gave a report on the meaning of the atom bomb, the race with the Germans for its discovery, and on the possible peacetime uses of nuclear energy. He spoke as Observer noted "just two days after that most glorious of all moments, the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the audience were several of the soldiers who had prepared the offensive that ended in the bomb dropping on Hiroshima. To us, as the days of war fade into memory, the weekly appearance of these men in uniform has been one of our pleasantest experiences -- we shall miss them." (But as Denver Rotary rapidly shifted its concerns to postwar problems, it became apparent it wasn't going to miss the servicemen as much as it thought. Many of them just took off the uniforms and settled down).
• Aug. 30 - Sen. Ed Johnson assured Rotary that Washington is conscious of business problems and is going to try to give a hand in a constructive way. His appearance brought out Lee Casey of the Rocky Mountain News with his inevitable pencil and notepaper.
• Sept. 6 - "Reconversion In The Field of Selling" by R. L. Rickenbaugh, who came to Denver the first of this year to take over the Cadillac distributorship.
• Sept. 27 - Rotary entertains International President Tom Warren of Wolverhampton, England. "With the clearest logic he showed that the day of isolationism -- both British and American -- is inevitably a thing of the past . . . all of us are now responsible for playing a part in the world organization of nations without which there can be no peace."
• Oct. 4 - Dean Paul Roberts of St. John's Episcopal Cathedral spoke on "Good Neighbors Don't Wear Brass Knuckles," against the idea of universal military service. He recognized many parishioners in the audience, Rotarians he hadn't seen in church for years.
• Oct. 18 - "Oil -- The Magic Liquid" was the topic of Rotarian Joe Lentz, who said there is enough shale oil in the region to last the U.S. 90 years and enough coal in 24 states to make oil for 1,600 years.
• Nov. 1 - Harold Vagtborg of Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, tells the club Colorado's vast deposits of natural resources could, if properly exploited, make this state one of the most prosperous in the country. Rotarian Harry Huffman, Governor Vivian's chairman of postwar planning, nods vigorous approval.
• Dec. 7 - Rotary views a new color film, narrated by Lowell Thomas, depicting the advantages of Denver as a potential headquarters for Rotary International. Called "The Land of Your Dreams," it will be shown to Rotary Clubs around the country.

(This was the beginning of one of Denver Rotary's most ambitious projects, seeking to get Rotary International to move to Denver. The club prevailed on the Archdiocese of Denver to more Mt. Olivet Cemetery to Jefferson County, thus gaining an option on the present site of the Botanic Gardens for a Rotary International headquarters. Sandy Buell designed a beautiful headquarters building and tower, and subcommittees of RI accepted the idea.

Alas, at the decisive moment at the 1946 national convention in Atlantic City, Rotary's venerated founder Paul Harris put his support behind Chicago. Lew Barbato's 1980 history of the club quotes Harris as follows:

"I have been asked whether it is true, as has been secretly reported, that I prefer Denver to Chicago as a permanent home for Rotary International. No, I have never said that I prefer Denver to Chicago . . . I am sometime spoken of as the 'Father of Rotary.' If there is any justification for the usage of that term, I am the 'Father of all of the Rotary Clubs of the World, as well as the 'Father of the Rotary Club of Chicago.' To be fair to all my children is manifested in my duty and desire.

"Most naturally it will be pleasing to me if Chicago be selected as the permanent home of Rotary International. In Chicago Rotary was born. In Chicago I worked and lived for nearly a half a century. In Chicago I married my Scotch lassie Jeanie, and in Chicago we have built our home and in it entertained hundreds of Rotarians from all parts of the world. To do this has been the joy of our lives. We have not been blessed with children of our own, so we adopted Rotary. In Chicago w have established our Friendship Garden in honor of Rotarians visitors. .. . with all these sacred memories in mind, we naturally prefer Chicago ... God bless you my friends and help you and may he cause his face to shine upon you."

Needless to say, the convention voted against Denver and for Chicago's suburb Evanston, Ill., and Denver was unable to get that decision reversed the next year.)

1946

• Jan. 10 - Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson, former president of Rotary International, salutes the National Western Stock Show in a speech.
• Jan. 17 - Gov. John C. Vivian says that the GP's pledge not to raise taxes has been kept, but that the state will soon begin its largest road-building program in history.
• Jan. 31 - "Can Man Survive the Atomic Age?" Dr. Walter Orr Roberts, head of the Harvard College Observatory at Climax, "knew what he was talking about . . . this time we'd better pay attention to what is going on and make peace work . . . there was not a man among us but that left that meeting impressed with the thought that this may be our last chance."
• March 28 - E. H. Weston, publisher of the Rangely (Colo.) News, tells f that town's oil boom.
• April 11 - Harvey Sethman, executive secretary of the Colorado State Medical Society, tears the hide off President Truman's National Health Program -- it is an expensive and socialistic scheme.
• May 16 - Major Arthur Wermuth, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, told of Japanese prison camps and death ships. . . "never again must we run our world so that our young men have to face the bitter fear of torture and death."
• May 23 - Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal discussed the role of the postwar Navy. Introduced by Ep (Rocky Mountain Empire) Hoyt.
• June 6 - "How Big Can Denver Grow?" Glenn G. Saunders, attorney for the Board of Water Commissioners, says that as a result of May Stapleton's foresight "Denver how has plenty of the precious liquid to see us through any possible industrial development."
• Nov. 14 - Farrington R. Carpenter, director of development at DU talks on that institution's future. The Observer notes that "with 'Turk' Gates as chancellor, Ben Cherrington, Jim Price and Malcolm Weyer as faculty members, Ralph May as treasurer, and Morrie Shafroth, Charlie Green, Homer Torrey, Bud Knight and Rick Ricketson as trustees, it looks like Rotary is running the University of Denver except the football team."

1947

• Feb. 6 - Rotary International was saddened last week by the death of Founder Paul Harris. The Keyway states that in 1892 he had served on the reportorial staffs of the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Republican.
• Feb. 13 - "Something new in our club, namely Denver Boys Inc. We have always been proud of our Denver Rotary Boys Committee and now to enlarge the scope of this wonderful work and to meet a very definite need in our community is outstanding and commendable." Club pledges for youth work this year totaled $5,542.50.
• May 1 - Baseball luncheon marking Denver's entry into the revived "Western League" . . . Richard M. Nixon, one of the congressional representatives from Southern California had a very interesting story of his nine-man Marine team of the South Pacific. (Later in the day when Nixon tossed the opening pitch to Mayor Ben Stapleton, the mayor sung so hard he either fell or bit the dust to avoid a bad pitch). (
• May 29 - Mayor Ben received our appreciation by all standing and applauding for the many fine things he has done for Denver and our Rotary Club. (Stapleton, 77, had just been defeated by the returning young serviceman, Quigg Newton, who took office in June. The old order changed).
• June 12 - Mayor Newton outlined a few of his plans for Denver and to me it would seem that he is approaching them in a satisfactory manner. Former Mayor 'Ben' was sitting in my line of vision and was very gracious in his applause . . . our hearty cooperation to the new mayor."

Thus ended the Stapleton era in Denver politics which had begun in 1923. Although Mayor Newton soon became a member, and though he and his immediate successors -- Will F. Nicholson, Dick Batterton and Tom Currigan -- made regular reports to the club during the next years, City Hall and Rotary were not again to be in as fine tune as in the days of Speer or Stapleton. The club now had 370 members and was growing apace with an exploding urban region, so naturally the intimate civic contacts of the prewar days were being replaced by the more complex communication of a metropolis.

Rotary in the 50s

As we come nearer the time when most club members have personal recollections of one or more of the events described, there is less need to plow the records. But since only about 20 percent of the present club belonged prior to the early '60s, the seminal years of the '50s seem worthy of recollection. We'll start with 1954, the year of Rotary International's 50th Golden Jubilee.

1954

• June 15 - International President Herbert Taylor addressed the 429-member Denver club about RI's plans for its Golden Jubilee.
• July 8 - "What's The Future of NATO" by Viscount Duncannon of London. (The Cold War with the Soviet Union, the Korean War and the Soviet explosion of its own atom bomb had by this time put the United States back into the weapons and alliance business.)
• Aug. 12 - James Grafton Rogers, president of the Colorado Historical Society and Mayor of Georgetown, gives the club "A Look At Colorado History." So close are we to our beginnings that we are still four years short of our first hundred years of reasonably effective existence as a community.
• Sept. 30 - George Berger, distinguished and learned Denver banker and president of the Denver Art Museum, spoke of the forthcoming dedication of its new South Win. The Denver Symphony under Saul Caston will open its 10th season in October.
• Nov. 11 - Judge Wilson McCarthy, president of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, gave a delightful historical sketch of Gen. William Jackson Palmer.
• Dec. 2 - Lt. Gen. Hubert R. Harmon, first superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy, talks to the club about its plans. Colorado is indeed proud to be the location chosen.
• Dec. 11 - The annual Orphans Theatre Party served 860 kids of all ages.

1955

• Jan. 6 - John J. Sullivan delivers his annual state of the stock market address.
• Jan. 13 - With this meeting on the livestock industry and the dinner the night before celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Great Western Sugar Co., we are more than ever impressed with the tremendous growth and development that have taken place in what was once a Western wilderness . . . our great problem is water and it is high time we took a statesmanlike view, gauging the problem from a statewide viewpoint.
• Jan. 20 - Robert S. McCollum, president of the City Council, reports on his inspection trip of Radio free Europe. He described his interview with General Guenther of SHAFE, who believes Radio free Europe keeps alive the hopes and desires of the enslaved peoples for freedom behind the Iron Curtain.
• Jan. 27 - "What Should Our China Policy Be" by Randall Gould, staff writer for the Denver Post who was 18 years a newspaper editor in Shanghai. He believes that Formosa which Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek now controls will someday become the subject of a deal between its government and Red China.
• Feb. 24 - "The Great Adventure," a film on RI's history starring Edward Arnold and Jim Backus, helped celebrate the Golden Anniversary. Mayor Newton proclaimed Feb. 21-26 as Rotary Week.
• March 17 - Gov. Ed Johnson paid high tribute to President Eisenhower's national highway proposal (interstates) and then proceeded to tear the program apart. He supports Senator Gore's proposal for a 10-year, pay-as-you-go program rather than Ike's long-term loan.
• March 31 - Mayor Newton gave his eighth annual report to Rotary, and in light of his refusal to run again was able to view the past years with considerable objectivity. He discussed such unsolved problems as the relations of Denver to the rest of the state, the lack of proper numerical representation in the legislature, the migration of industry and affluent citizens to the suburbs, the gradual reduction of tax revenue within the city limits, the growing demand upon the city for services to outlying areas, the more effective control of traffic to move commerce, the checking of blight of industrial slums in downtown Denver, and last -- but by no means least -- the problem of water for our growing population.
• May 12 - "Can We Coexist With Our Friends," a panel discussion featuring foreign students from Greece, Germany, Lebanon and Egypt, produced by Dr. Ben Cherrington.
• June 16 - Rotarian Dick Wright describes the effort of the UAW to get a guaranteed annual wage from the auto companies.
• July 28 - Poet Thomas Hornsby Ferrill reads his poem "Ghost Town" from "New and Selected Poems" published by Harper Brothers. We don't recall having a genuine poet at the podium before.
• Aug. 18 - Thanks to Ep Hoyt, President Eisenhower's press secretary Jim Haggerty gives the club a report on the Geneva summit . . . We should assume that Russia's long-range goals remain unchanged and adequate military preparedness is a must.
• Sept. 29 - The club stands as Dr. Elmer Elsea delivers a prayer for President Eisenhower's recovery. (Ike had suffered a heart attack on Sept. 24 in Denver, and for some weeks the nation and the community watched anxiously as he recovered at Fitzsimons Army Hospital.)
• Nov. 3 - The total budget for Boys Work this year is $12,000, made up of $8,500 for Denver Boys and $3,500 for scholarships.
• Dec. 15 - Rotarian Ray Jenkins, general chairman of the United Funds, gave a history of the start of the Community Check idea in Denver.

1956

• Jan. 19 - Louis de Cabrol, honorary member and Frnch consul in Denver, Discussed French colonial policy in North Africa.
• March 1 - A Douglas Aircraft official extolled the DC-8 as the answer to the jet air transport problems of the future, and said it can be operated on most of the major airport facilities now existing. It will open up a world market.
• March 8 - Dr. Thomas Dooley reports on the troubles in Indochina, especially with refugees in North Vietnam. He emphasized some of the dangers that lie ahead in this area and the necessity for firmness, dignity and clear-cut purpose in our approach to Asiatic relations.
• May 24 - All Rotarians lunched at the new building of the United States National Bank. Said the Observer, "to all those who look on Denver's coming-of-age with benevolent eye . . . this was no chill, forbidding temple of Mammon but a warm and functional structure designed by architect Jim Sudler to give rapid service to more customers."
• June 7 - Past Presidents Day covered "the golden years of the '20s, the Depression years of the 30s, three wars, major changes in political philosophies, and the recent years of dynamic community expansion and growth." Twenty-two past proxies were on the platform.
• June 28 - Rotarians and wives preview the "Ballad of Baby Doe" to premiere at Central City. Member Schuyler Peck wants to know if he can sue Central City because Baby Doe still owes him $23 for draying her baggage to the Windsor Hotel fifty years ago.
• Sept. 13 - Rep. Byron Rogers, Democrat, and his Republican challenger, Bob McCollum, debate before the fall election, the first Rotary political debate.
• Oct. 25 - Hudson Moore Jr. of the Denver Water Board tells of the major factors affecting Denver's water supply, namely the failure of precipitation to come up to average in any of the last six years, the increase in population since the war, which will apparently continue for some time, the litigation and disagreements over the use of Upper Colorado River water, now apparently settled by the Consent Decree, and inevitable delays of construction. He now thinks that we are on the way to a stable supply.
• Nov. 8 - Palmer Hoyt reviewed the election. It seems the American people like Ike, but are wary of the GOP.
• Dec. 6 - The club celebrates ten years of Denver Boys Inc. by giving distinguished service awards to its 10 founders: Harold H. Cox, Phillip X. Daniels, Andrew Dyatt, Clarence L. Harrington, Dr. A. A. Herman, T. Chester Hitchings, Dr. William R. Humphrey, Harry L. Nicholson, Robert Reeves, Frank P. Spratlen Jr. and Bernard E. Teets.

1957

• Jan. 24 - John A. Bruce, the city's traffic engineer, reports on the problems of handling the more than 300,000 cars now in use in the metro area. We are attempting to operate 300-horsepower cars on 50-horsepower streets.
• Feb. 14 - "Ski Time In Aspen," a film shown by Olympic ski champion Dick Durrance, inspired "O" to wish to be "young and energetic and competent enough to enjoy the thrills of that new-found wealth of Aspen."
• Feb. 21 - Packy Marranzino of the Rocky Mountain News reports to the crisis in Hungary (the revolution against the Soviets) inspiring the thought that, as "O" put it, "these patriots have altered the course of events for a long time to come."
• March 7 - Calvin Snyder, manager of the Denver chamber of Commerce, comments on Denver's growth and "urges that no artificial lines such as city boundaries be permitted to become barriers to the growth of the whole area."
• April 4 - William Zeckendorf, president, Webb & Knapp Inc. of New York, reports on the progress of the Courthouse Square Project (new May D&F building) and presented the problem of planning for the kind of city we want to have. This problem includes zoning, rehabilitation, annexation (and) coordination between the central core city and the suburban communities.
• May 2 - The president of the Ramo-Wooldridge Corp. of Los Angeles, which is building a new plant south of Denver, talks about modern electronics and the complexity of guided missiles. The Observer said that Denver must appreciate and welcome the pervasive nature of these electronics if civilization is to take full advantage of this modern tool.
• June 20 - An all-day trip to the site of the new U.S.Air Force Academy occupied 170 members, whilst 150 who forgot about it appeared at the Silver Glad Roomlater to disperse, the Observer said, to other watering holes. The Academy should be ready to move to its new quarters from Lowry Field by next year.
• July 18 - The Public Service Co. presents a program of explanation on nuclear power -- "today the nuclear power business is in about the same position that the aviation business was in the early 1900s." The Observer felt he had been born 50 years too soon.
• Aug. 1 - On Colorado Day, James Grafton Rogers, president of the Colorado Historical Society, makes four major points:

First, that business leadership rather than government leadership has been responsible for the development of Denver and Colorado;

Second, that survival as a great city and a great state is dependent on continuous struggle to solve the many problems that beset us, and that we face decline and decay if we lose the vigor that comes from that struggle;

Third, that our mountain barrier to the west is our continuing major problem because Denver cannot continue as an important city unless it reaches west as well as north, east and south; and

Fourth, we are shortsightedly spending more money on advertising than we are on developing the recreational resources we advertise.

• Sept. 5 - The grandchildren of Krushchev will see the dawn of freedom, said Dr. Josef Korbel of DU. Stalinism or communism which must rule with discipline that knows no compromise is being tested by "liberalization."
• Sept. 19 - Stuart Eurman of the Inter-County Regional Planning Commission said that one continuous urban development from Fort Collins to Pueblo would not happen unless we thought it desirable to permit it to occur, and gave thought-provoking observations about "trends for political concentrations in the suburban cities as against the central city."
• Oct. 10 - Dr. Walter O. Roberts talks on the Russian Satellite (Sputnik had gone up the previous week). No country, race or creed has a monopoly on the brains and the abilities required to make these dramatic strides . . . if our own country is to keep abreast we must encourage, train and stimulate our young people.

1958

• Jan. 9 - In what President Ray Jenkins called the most novel event of club history, Montie Montana rides his horse "Rex" right up to the speaker's podium to celebrate the Stock Show.
• Feb. 13 - Dr. T. Leon Howard urges Rotarians to "Know Your Kidneys," and agreed with a point made by John Sullivan in his yearly business review that "when you lose wealth you lose nothing, when you lose health you lose much, when you lose honor you lose all."
• March 20 - Chancellor Chester Alter of DU says we must recognize and enhance the strength that comes from diversification of higher education institutions, the exact opposite of the one product and single method of certain non-democratic nations.
• July 24 - Deputy Assistant Secretary of state Bob McCollum details this country's work of the Department of State with refugees around the globe. Said "O," "Bob McCollum is one of our favorite people, always working energetically and devotedly for people."
• August 28 - The Water Board reports on the progress of the Roberts Tunnel (completed in 1964), the Williams Fork Dam and other across-mountain projects.
• Sept. 11 - Loring Macy of the U.S. Department of Commerce talks on the economic cold war being waged by the Soviet Union and its satellites and said passage of a reciprocal Trade Act is a necessity in this regard.

1959

• Feb. 5 - Dr. Walter Orr Roberts is back to report that the United States has now fired five to Russia's four satellites, but our payloads are much less. "Tests to date indicate that a very substantial payload can now be delivered with relatively accurate guidance to any given target. We must concentrate in the years ahead at learning to live together because without that ability we would probably not survive under a total nuclear war."
• April 30 - Bob Howsam, president and general manager of the Denver Bears, says we can have big-league baseball if the city continues to support baseball as in the past.
• May 7 - As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Denver, Douglas McHendrie, president of the Colorado Bar Association, reminds us that the early miners held a meeting to establish the laws of their camps almost as soon as they came in. Laws have been the best planning devised to date to assure justice.
• July 9 - Palmer Hoyt, editor and publisher of The Denver Post, talks about the Atlantic Congress of NATO in London to which he was a recent delegate. "If we can communicate," Ep said, "we can understand. If we understand, we have a chance to agree. If we can agree, we can live."
• July 30 - Henry Cabot Lodge, United State Ambassador to the United Nations, says that no other agency but the U.N. can do so well the job of selling an anti-communist way-of-life to the peoples of the world.
• Aug. 6 - Rotary celebrated the "Rush to the Rockies" Centennial with a skit in which various members of the Rocky Mountain News staff portrayed Denver frontier figures.
• Aug. 13 - Nick Perry, for 12 years a member of the Water Board, pushes for a $40 million bond issue to complete the expansion plans. He noted with pride that Denver has financed its water development on its own without grants from other governmental units, and that it owns and controls its own facilities, all at a user cost that compares favorably with that of cities that have ample water without crossing mountains to get it.
• Sept. 3 - Courtlandt D. Barnes, chairman of the Aspen Music Festival, traces its history and the benefits accruing to Colorado from this recognized national event.
• Oct. 8 - Cris Dobbins, president of Ideal Cement, speaks on "Concrete." The Observer concluded that Ideal is here to stay and grow even above the 10 percent of the U.S. market it commands now.
• Nov. 5 - Watson Bowes let us in on what we can plan for in "The Next 10 Years." Denver will grow up, not out; suburban taxes will take big increases; the trend toward decentralization will reverse and we'll see recentralization into the city; fewer government units will be taxing; the building trend will be toward the foothills, not south and east; downtown will be revitalized; more office space will be needed.

Rotary Turns 50

In 1961, our club's 50th year, there were 482 members compared to the 60 of 1912, the first full year of its service in Denver. Paul Harris' international organization had grown in that time from 49 clubs to 11,050, with 511,500 members around the world. Denver had 494,000 people, and the suburbs 435,000, almost a million for the metro region!

However, throughout all this change, the basic format of the Denver Rotary Club had remained in place. It functioned for all its members as Denver's leading luncheon club, attracting the cream of the "speaker" crop. Roughly a third of its meeting involved traditional Rotary matters, including the RI focus on international affairs.

As this decade opened, Club President Nick Petry reported on the typical year of 1960-61. There had been 51 meetings with an 87.70 percent attendance record, enough to keep Denver in the "Top Ten" of the larger clubs around the world. Club activities had become established in a fruitful pattern. Petry noted the annual picnic at Elitch's, the two Christmas programs and Ladies Night. Also, the International Service committee had continued its efforts to produce good speakers on foreign affairs, and an active student exchange program with clubs overseas made Denver Rotary families consistent hosts to foreign students.

The Inter-City Committee had arranged visits that year to Cheyenne, Casper, Brush, Colorado Springs, Commerce Town and Estes Park. The Orphan's Theatre Party had continued its successful tradition, as had the Boys Work which received $13,190 in special pledges from members. A special committee had decided in this year to extend Rotary's efforts to girls, the precursor of future relationships with Denver Girls Inc.

There were now 48 clubs in Rotary District 545, which club member Ray Jenkins had just finished service as District Governor. The district conference was held at the Broadmoor from April 8-11, with 19 Denverites attending, and the international convention in Tokyo. Rotary International had accepted Denver's invitation to hold the 1966 convention back in the Queen City of the Plains.

one of the memorable meetings of this Golden Jubilee Year was the very first when Wes Towne, the club's executive secretary since 1934, retired, having herded the club through a Depression, three wars and innumerable growing pains. He said he had served under 28 presidents, all of them "great guys," and that he was pleased that the job which had been given him on a temporary basis had managed to last 27.5 years.

A number of the speeches of this year introduced themes familiar to present-day members.

1961

• July 20 - Bruce Rockwell, chairman of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority explained how the urban renewal program would work to restore or rebuild blighted downtown areas. Denver's corporate body has nearly reached maturity, and in order to grow within its boundaries, better use of available land must be made. But, said Observer, it's almost like losing one of the family when some of the older houses are torn down to make way for modern apartments. (Rockwell was speaking at this point primarily of the Avondale project across the Platte River; Skyline with its dramatic effect on Downtown was to come later).
• July 27 - Dr. William Whitson of the Martin Co. talks on economic warfare and says that through automation we can compete with the lower-paid labor market of Russia and other undeveloped countries, increase of GNP and stop the creeping advance of communism.
• Aug. 3 - "Here Come the Broncos" with Cal Kunz as master of ceremonies and Frank Tripucka, Lionel Taylor and Bud McFadin as the introduced players. A week later, the club hears about the $30,000 PGA Open at Meadow Hills CC, so sports stay on its mind.
• Sept. 7 - William R. Burke, national commander of the American Legion, which is convening in Denver, says the U.S. must stand firm against Russian pressure in Berlin.
• Sept. 28 - Robert O. Anderson, chairman of The Aspen Co., tells about that town's intellectual seminars for businessmen and of its future as a cultural center. Mountain culture and recreation are certainly becoming a greater part of Denver life.
• Oct. 12 - A check-presentation picture in the Post features Rotarian Ray Jenkins as chairman of the Downtown Master Plan group giving a check for $79,000 to Mayor Dick Batterton.

Plaques honoring 15 firms that founded the Denver Retain Merchants Association 50 years ago were presented yesterday. Rotary firms among the founding 15 include Baur's Restaurants; Bohm-Allen Jewelry Co.; Davis and Shaw Furniture Co.; Denver Dry Goods Co.; Fontius Show Co.; Gano Downs; Kendrick-Bellamy Stationery, Knight-Campbell Music and Weiss Optic.

• Oct. 19 - Secretary Hove Lentz reports that the big news on the cultural front is DU's three-year campaign to raise $25 million. Walter Koch announces Mountain Bell has added 95,000 telephones to its system this year, which was fewer than last year.
• Oct. 26 - It was interesting to note the pictures in our local papers of the present nine building giants forming the Denver skyline, only two of these buildings being in existence seven years ago. Jim Campbell's and Bob Warren's $12 million Security Life skyscraper, on which construction will start in January, has grown to 33 stores in the plans and will be tallest on the skyline by five stores.
• Dec. 7 - (20 years after Pearl Harbor) the club held its Golden Jubilee anniversary meeting with a dinner at the Hilton Hotel. Charter member Frank McLister sent his recollections of early meetings and club President Walter Crew introduced a host of visiting Rotary dignitaries.
• A history of the club provided by Wes Towne noted that since its beginning in 1947, Denver Boys Inc. had spent $104,024 on its program, and that the scholarship program which began in 1919-30 had spent $135,214, a significant total of $239,651 on the two programs to date. Rotarians around the world have contributed nearly $8 million to the Rotary Foundation Fellowships for International Understanding, of which the Denver Club has donated $6,381 to this major activity of Rotary International.
• The Golden Jubilee history listed 52 men who had been president of the club in its first 50 year, of whom 26 were still living.
• During the Golden Jubilee year, planning was afoot for the Rotary International Convention of 1966 to be hosted by Denver, the third time Rotary's "Big Show" had come to the Mile High City. Dr. C. P.H. Teenstra of the Netherlands, who was to be RI president at the Denver meeting, visited in the summer of '65 to make sure that the Host Committee under Ray Jenkins was on the ball. Some of the interest items from the Keyway of 1965-66 help recall the great convention year.

1965

• Aug. 12 - Major General George Walker of the Army Corps of Engineers analyzes the South Platte flood of June. It did $320 million damage in metro Denver, a 10-inch downpour within a few hours just east of Denver sending the crucial flow down Plum Creek. If Cherry Creek Reservoir had not been in place, the damage would have been another $100 million. General Walker said the proposed Chatfield Dam would have prevented $296 million of the damage, at a construction cost of $50 million to $55 million.
• Aug. 26 - Major John Oustay, assistant dean at the U.S. Air Force Academy, describes communist intelligence activity in Vietnam and said that if not checked in the early stages, affairs there may blossom into a full-scale civil war.
• Sept. 9 - The lack of major racial problems in Denver is due to citizen cooperation with the police department, according to Chief Harold Dill.
• Sept. 10 - The under-mountain air combat operations center, NORAD, is 96 percent complete, with more than a million tons of granite moved to date. Lt. Col. Dellinger briefed the club on this "hardest military installation in the world."
• Oct. 14 - Walter Koch of Mountain Bell talks on our "New Economy." More than half of our gross national product originates from the idea enterprises - not those enterprises concerned with natural resources and agriculture. Further, the idea enterprises expanded at twice the rate of traditional industries.
• Dec. 2 - Doug Campbell of the New York Central Railroad reports that railroad profit comes from moving materials, not people, and that the long-distance passenger train is on the way out.
• Dec. 9 - Ep Hoyt of The Denver Post reports on a trip to Vietnam. We are in this war to stay and rightly so. Vietnam is where we hold the line against communism, and it might well be our most important defense of liberty and freedom.

1966

• Jan. 6 - John Sullivan, in his annual review of the economy, tells about a young Marine he sat beside a few months ago on an airplane. The young man was headed for a family visit before shipping out to Vietnam. He had volunteered for Vietnam because "either we fight the Communists over there or sooner or later we'll fight them nearer home." Also, he had seen some buddies come back in wooden boxes, and I "owe them a good try." John said that he had just heard from the boy's family that he had come home for Christmas in a wooden box.
• Jan. 27 - Dr. Douglas McConnel, president of Mackinac College, thinks scientists should take time out from science to help us develop leadership comparable to our nuclear capacity. His formula is Moral Rearmament, which he believes is personified in some degree by the "Sing Outs of '65," the youth group that so excited us.
• Feb. 10 - Gov. John Love predicts an $8 million surplus in state finances, and expressed satisfaction that air and water pollution and billboard control are receiving attention in the legislature.
• March 10 - The Ladies Night decor is in a setting appropriate to Colorado Ski Country USA. Again this year, United Airlines is flying in one of its top interior decorators to set the scene for us. Some 625 Rotarians and ladies, who recognize skiing for the surging industry it is, have reserved for the event.
• April 28 - A film documentary on "Colorful Colorado" was presented by dud ranchers to emphasize that their industry brings an estimated $6 million annually into the state.
• May 3 - Past leaders of Denver Rotary meet with new members in the annual Interpretation meeting, which has become a club tradition. Jack McMurtry, past president, observed that whatever good one can do should be done now, and reviewed for the Totem Pole members, the Denver Rotary Community Service program. The club's youth work budget is now some $21,000, and there is another $10,000 in a rotating loan fund for college students. Past President Nich Petry stressed that Denver had a great challenge in the forthcoming International Convention, and said that freedom, justice, trust and the sanctity of the pledged word are the foundation of that which Rotary and the Denver Club will offer convention attendants. Will Schweigert closed the meeting with his incomparable "Charge" to new Rotarians. . .."We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
• June 16 - Rotary International reports on the International convention as follows:

"The 57th annual convention of Rotary International concluded this afternoon in the sun-swept capital city of Colorado, for 14,774 Rotarians, their families and guests from 67 countries. . .

"It was a legislative convention with 54 proposed enactments and resolutions set before delegates representing 5,845 clubs. Key proposals related to per-capital dues to Rotary International . . . and provision for expenditure of up to $3.5 million dollars in a two-year period from the corpus of the Rotary Foundation for expanded activities. . .

"To the state of Denver's City Auditorium, which was ringed with flags of 133 nations, came distinguished speakers such as U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Britain's Lord Caradon and many sparkling entertainers . . . to accommodate overflow crowds, sessions on two occasions were carried by closed-circuit telecast to an adjoining theatre. . .

"In a welcoming editorial, the Denver Post newspaper said that 'Denver is a somewhat more genteel city than when Paul Harris worked here . . . but we guarantee that Rotarians and their ladies will find there welcome as genuine as ever. We just don't shoot the crystals off the chandeliers anymore when we get enthusiastic over visitors.'"

A Red Rocks Theatre opening night performance under the stars was a highlight, with Koshare Indian dancers, opera stars and the 375-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a two-hour performance that ended with "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Dr. Lew Barbato, head of the Medical and Dental Service Committee, later reported there was only one "reaction to the altitude - heart," a male. In all, Lew's staff treated 184 visitors for everything from a gnat in the eye to a broken clavicle.

Denver Club President Tom Tierney, in a letter of thanks to all the Rotary Clubs in the suburbs area and in Districts 545 and 547 who had pitched in to help host the giant gathering, said the most important benefit of the effort was "a great new realization that we are not just members of fine Rotary clubs. But that our clubs are members of a far-flung international organization that can and must play a significant role in world understanding." For the remainder of 1966, the Denver Club was receiving letters of thanks from around the world for its massive hospitality.

But in some ways this mid-1960s event so in accord with Rotary's past traditions ran parallel with others that marked a sea-change in eras. The Denver broncos appeared before the club, pushing for a new stadium as national television became the major factor in American sports. The city administration and the Denver Chamber urged a major urban renewal project that was to change the face of Downtown. The U.S. was sinking ever deeper into the war in Vietnam and bitter dissent was breaking out on the campuses. And into Denver to fill the new office buildings came big energy people and bigger energy finance.

The Denver growth in the two decades after WWII had been largely contained within the local ownership structures in place at the end of the war. But after the mid-'60s, much of the hometown character of Denver growth began to be shaped as much by external national and world economics as by events within the state and region. By the '70s, Denver was a very different place.

Rotary In Our Times

Since roughly two-thirds of Denver Rotary members have joined since the 1966 International Convention, the club history of our own times û the æ70s and the æ80s û need less excavation. Yet if our days are not yet "history" in the conventional sense, we need some perspective on them. For they represent a club and a city of very different attitudes and economics than in the early postwar era. Core city Denver had 494,000 citizens in 1960, the suburbs almost as many, 435,000. But by 1970, the proportions had shifted radically. Denver had grown to 515,000 û four percent over the decade û but the suburbs now numbered 713,000, an increase of 64 percent in that time!

From the middle æ60s, Denver and the club witnessed a number of somewhat contradictory events which in retrospect can be seen as indicating a creeping ambivalence on the "growth" issue. While the Front Range megalopolis was "exploding," more people were worried about the effect of the blast on their lives.

The Roberts Tunnel to bring in trans-mountain water was opened in 1964 to sustain growth, while the Historic Denver and Larimer Square movements to monitor its quality through historic preservation began the next year. As did Corky Gonzales' "Crusade for Justice" which signaled the intention of Denver minorities to play a fuller role in the civic establishment.

William H. McNichols Jr. was elected mayor in 1968, another strong multi-term mayor in the Speer and Stapleton tradition. Yet despite supporting several bond issues to sustain growth, such as those for the Auraria campus, the city transit system, the Foothills water treatment plant, and to build Big Mac and help with the DCPA, voters also turned down the Olympics in æ72 and elected environmentalist Dick Lamm governor in æ74. The energy business brought 65,000 jobs to Denver in the æ70s, but the legislature passed the Poundstone Amendment in æ72, which froze the city's geographic boundaries. A Denver of 59 square miles at Rotary's 30th birthday in 1941 and 118 by its 60th in 1971, and that's where it's stayed, while the suburbs boomed.

To sense what was happening to Rotary and its city in our times, we can turn to the Keyway at Rotary's 60th birthday in 1971, then to statehood's Centennial year of 1976, the 70th birthday year of 1981, and finally to last year when the big boom seemed to be busting.

1971

• July 15 û The University Hills Rotary Club, first new club within the boundaries of Denver, will hold its kickoff meeting next week. Denver Rotarians who sponsored the new unit are asked to attend. Seven years ago, the authorization for an additional Rotary Club in Denver was hotly debated and defeated by a membership vote. Maybe, says "O," the "establishment" has turned more liberal.
• Aug. 12 û We are eagerly awaiting completion of the Auraria Complex which will include the University of Colorado, Metro State, and the Community College.
• Aug. 19 û Robert O Anderson, chairman of Atlantic Richfield Co., talks on "Energy and the Environment." The natural resources which provide energy are not unlimited and may eventually be inadequate. But Anderson is optimistic that man's ingenuity will open up new sources. More practical use of nuclear energy and a means to extract oil from shale are on the way.
• Aug. 26 - A humanistic view of bringing an industry to a small local community was given by Howard Smith, manager of Kodak's new installation at Windsor, Colo. Windsor has 500 people now, and Mr. Smith projects 25,000 by 1990.
• Sept. 2 - Dr. Earl Swisher succeeded in creating doubts in the minds of members as to whether President Nixon's going to China will result in advantages or disadvantages for the United States. His chances of being re-elected next year have been enhanced.
• Sept. 9 - The club has sent $3,000 to Oruru, Bolivia, for use in purchasing school desks. Other recent projects of our World Community Service Committee have been sending a hospital generator to Thailand, and retarded child teaching aids to South America.
• Nov. 18 - W. R. Godwin, president of Johns-Manville, explained the reasons for the company's move to Denver and the outstanding prospects for the 1970s.
• March 9 - Mayor Tom Currigan talks on "Why We Must Success With the Winter Olympics." What's Happened to the Pioneering Spirit of our Mountain Men? "O" says Denver and Colorado will host the 1976 Olympics in fine style and everyone will be proud, even that minority group of opponents who are still barking a little.
• April 6 - Michel Halbounty of Houston, Texas, talks on the energy crisis . . .. he fears that through their Cold War activities the Russians could end up controlling world oil supplies.
• May 15 - Was Nixon right or wrong in mining the harbors of North Vietnam? Observer reports the consensus of members that he was right.

June 15 û An $89 billion Industry in Peril . . . the speakers turned out to be referring to our export industry, the concern of a multitude of American corporations.

1975

• July 10 û D. R. C. Brown recalls the history of the Colorado ski industry with rope tows invented in the 1930s. Many Coloradoans remember skiing in the æ30s as something done by Peculiar People, says "O," and look what the industry is now!
• July 31 û James Lovell comments on the "Flight of Apollo 13" and on the U.S.-Soviet space rendezvous which was accomplished last week.
• Aug. 21 û Sen. Floyd Haskell discusses the cost of pollution controls and concludes that because of the health risks involved we cannot afford to abandon the effort. He discussed the cost importance in Colorado of controlling water pollution in our streams, both as to sport fishing and health in general.
• Sept. 4 û Roland Rautenstraus, president of CU, reviews several decades of higher education in Colorado. In the æ40s, the colleges were out of the national research picture with inadequate budgets and facilities. In the æ50s, they coped with unprecedented enrollment increases; CU added 1,000 students a year. In the æ60s, the educators thought they had a Golden Age, but the students were questioning poverty, minority interests and the Asian War, resulting in riots and protests. Today in the æ70s, the past problems seem pedestrian because the education crisis has become fiscal. Inflation is causing CU to lose $250,000 per quarter.
• Oct. 2 û Louis W. Menk, chairman of Burlington Norther, talks about the "City Within a City: program for rehabilitating the rail yards in the Platte Valley. HE feels Denver voters have demonstrated that they have the ability to control their own destinies in urban renewal.
• Oct. 9 û Mayor McNichols unloads on the state legislature for failure to fund the alcoholism program, unloading the costs on Denver, and of calling Denver either a city or a county, whichever definition lets them get away with the least cost. He said the legislators continually refuse to recognize that services provided by Denver are heavily used by outsiders.
• Oct. 30 û Floyd D. Hall, chairman of Eastern Airlines, says the airline industry is in the shadow of either nationalization or bankruptcy. Among the factors are the rise in fuel costs, salaries and wages.
• Nov. 6 û There are more than 2,000 Indochinese refugees in Colorado at this time . . . the club's help in such resettlement is solicited.

1976

• Jan. 8 û School Superintendent Louis Kishkunas says the Denver Schools have reached a plateau of stability after the tremendous effort required to achieve racial balance following court-ordered desegregation.
• Jan. 22 û Bob McWhinnie, Director of Planning for the Denver Water Board, says that Colorado history shows a severe drought with empty reservoirs and progressive water restrictions will spur the public to go get the water.
• Feb. 19 û In a special Centennial-Bicentennial program, "Jim Bridger," as played by Willard S. Simms, son of our member Willard E., relates his early experiences exploring the Rockies.
• Feb. 26 û Denver Girls, a Rotary Community Service Project, puts on a full program for the club.
• June 10 û Gov. Richard D. Lamm told the club he was not happy with his image as a fighter. He could fight, but he appreciated that the success of government lay in finding common ground between opposing camps. All political establishments, Republican and Democratic, seem to be under attack. Jimmy Carter ran against his established party and Ronald Reagan made progress by attacking the Republican establishment. The people are questioning how far government should go in regulating our lives.

1981

• Jan. 23 û (our 70th club year) started out with a prediction by a state energy official that we will be maintaining our production of oil and will be greatly increasing production of gas, coal and oil shale. Our populations will grow dramatically with concomitant demands on all necessary services.

At this point, an important digression: e

The Denver Rotary Club Foundation

The Denver Rotary Club Foundation was established as a tax-exempt entity in 1969, but received little support until 1972 when Ed Kassler gave $12,000 on condition members match it, which they did. By early 1977, the foundation had $32,000 and a committee was studying its restructuring with the thought that growing demands on the club were going to make essential a far more substantial "kitty" for future service projects.

On Easter Sunday, April 10, 1977, the club lost its devoted executive secretary, Dan Paxton, to a sudden heart attack. In his memory the Foundation established the Dan Paxton Society as a stimulus to member donation to the restructured Foundation. Membership could be achieved by a donation of $1,000, a bequest or a life insurance designation of $5,000, or a sustaining pledge of $100 a year until the $1,000 per member goal was achieved. (The Paxton Society was a success and had 118 members by 1980.)

The first board of the Foundation took office in May 1977 with William H. Hornby as president, and Junius Baxter, Ray Jenkins, Rabbi Earl Stone, Roger L. Kinney, Robert S. McCollum, Dr. Robert B. Sawyer, Kenneth W. Caughey, John R. Dickinson and John C. Mitchell as trustees. By July of 1981, the Foundation had assets of $183,696 but was still a long way from its "impossible dream" of having $1,000,000 in assets by 1987.

Then Former President and later District Governor Grant Wilkins stepped in with his source of funding to give the Rotary Club Foundation its permanent asset base. The show, thought quite unlike anything Denver Rotary had tackled before, was spectacularly successful. By 1986, this 75th Anniversary year, the Foundation listed assets of $1,250,000 plus, the large portion of it receipts from the art show.

But in 1981, many of the club could not imagine what was going on over at the Colorado Heritage Center in the Club's good name as the first AOA show took shape.

1981 continued. . .

• July 16 û Tidbits on Denver Rotary Club's AOA exhibition . . . The heritage Center is busy unpacking and photographing the art and bronzes. The 140- page catalog is underway. You wouldn't believe the volunteer time of so many Rotarians.
• Aug. 13 û Dean M. Roy Schwarz of the CU Medical school reports on its current affairs. It has 1,500 students and budget of $77,000,000, or $51,333 per student, compared to two students at $1,300 each when it started in 1893.
• Aug. 27 û Ambassador Edward L. Rowney was obviously enthusiastic about the Reagan position of negotiating from strength. As our chief arms-control negotiator with the Soviets, his maxim is "If you can't get up from the table, don't sit down."
• Sept. 10 û New Mexico's artist Wilson Hurley tells of the artist's viewpoint on Rotary's first AOA show which opens tomorrow night. A fresh wind is blowing for American art, and it's blowing in Denver û 66 artists, 159 paintings, $2.5 million in asking prices, more than 1,000 guests. "You have hanging in one place in Denver, at this minute, more competent art than was ever hanging together in my adult life." That one, said the Observer, puts a lump in your throat.
• Sept. 29 û The Rotary Club Foundation annual dinner estimates its receipts from this year's AOA show at $150,000 and gives awards to grant Wilkins and Pres Smith for their tireless efforts in organizing this success.

Oct. 6 û Denver Boys Inc. celebrates its 35th anniversary, and by resolution established a "Bob Jacks Friendship Fund" in honor of its recent executive director.

• Oct. 22 û Fellowship meetings are set for small groups at various Rotarians' offices . . . more than 320 members will participate.
• Nov. 5 û Edward Romero, president of KBNO radio station, tells us that there are 15 million Hispanics in the United States and their number is rapidly increasing. This group represents tremendous purchasing power.
• Nov. 13 û For Rotary International Foundation Week, the Denver club reports having 28 Paul Harris Fellows ($1,000 contributions) and seven sustaining members at $100 a year for 10 years. The club has contributed $42,979 to this special effort of RI.
• Dec. 3 û The AOA show presents $150,000 to the club foundation which bring its assets to $360,000.

1982

• Jan 7 û Dean Bill Baughn of the CU Business School warned that the Midwest is in a recession and that farm income is poor.
• Apr. 15 û More than one-third of the 12 million square feet of office space in Denver is occupied by energy or energy-related companies. Financing for energy companies has contributed importantly to making Denver a regional finance center of far greater significance than what might have been expected a decade ago, according to Robert P. Maddox, our speaker from First National Bank of Denver.
• May 3 û Exxon announces it is abandoning its $600 million oil shale project in northwestern Colorado.

To give one more taste of the early æ80s, here are some Keyway extracts from 1983-84:

1983

• June 30 û The Youth Development Fund goal of $50,600 is more than halfway home. The average contribution from 312 Rotarians is $97.58. This fund is separate from the Denver and RI Foundations and directly supports Denver Boys and Denver Girls.
• July 29 û The club Foundation seeks nominations for its annual Distinguished Service Awards. In the past, these have gone to Dorothy Heitler, Aksel Nielsen, Ann Love, Larry Varnell, Juliet Norren and Cyrus Hackstaff.
• Aug. 5 û The Keyway lists 35 neighboring Rotary Clubs which are within driving distance for members to make up missed Downtown meetings.
• Aug. 11 û Peter Peterson, former Secretary of Commerce, warns of the federal deficit problem û "Japan has invested in its future while we are mortgaging our future."
• Aug. 19 û The Keyway thanks 77 Rotarians who gave cash or prizes to support the annual picnic, and the 38 Ladies of Rotary who helped address 4,000 invitations to AOA show.

Aug. 25 û Rotarians Walter Emery and Bob Cameron of DURA report on the successful completion of the Skyline Urban Renewal Project in which 29 private developers have invested more than $750 million in revitalizing Denver's Downtown.

• Sept. 1 û The club dedicates the new Rotary Club Gallery at the Colorado Heritage Center which it had paid for by a $35,000 Foundation donation to increase space for the art show.
• Sept. 8 û Dick Fontera, president of Metro State and a new member, tells us that Metro now has 14,000 students and a $50 million annual impact on the city's economy.
• Sept. 29 û Peter Teets, son of former Rotarian Bernie Teets, comes from Martin Co. to tell us about the MX missiles which will soon be installed near Cheyenne in the old Titan silos. They call them the Peacekeepers. A new honorary member is Mayor Federico Pena, a third-generation Rotarian.
• Oct. 3 û Rex Jennings of the Chamber of Commerce says the economy is in pretty good shape, but a governmental gridlock is impeding four issues û a new convention center, a larger airport, efficient surface transportation and adequate water supplies.
• Nov. 10 û Historic preservationists detail their campaign, which has since 1970 saved a number of Denver buildings including the Molly Brown House, the Cable Car garage, the Ninth street Historic Park, the Curtis Park neighborhood, the Navarre, the Grant-Humphries Mansion and Richtofen Castle.
• Nov. 17 û The restructuring of Mountain Bell into U.S. West is detailed by Robert Blanz, the new president.
• Nov. 30 û Mrs. John C. Street and Roy Stafford are Foundation community service award winners.
• Dec. 15 û Gen. James Hill details the new space centers being built near Colorado Springs, and says that America's defense posture must move away from deterrence based on nuclear offense to one based on defensive strategy.

1984

• Jan. 19 û The National Western Stock Show has grown to the point where it has an attendance of 400,000, puts $54 million into the local economy, and serves 240,000 people. It's a lot bigger in those indexes than any Superbowl, which, Observer says, we sometimes forget in the buzz world of the "New Denver."
• Feb. 9 û Skiing is a $1 billion retail business in Colorado, a $400 million housing industry, constitutes one-fourth the economy of the Western Slope, and contributes $105 million annually in state and local taxes. Thirty million of those dollars are spent in Denver by people on the way to the slopes, say the ski industry speakers.
• March 1 û Acid rain is threatening the forests of Colorado, said a speaker from the Thorne Ecological Institute. The Observer felt that the Institute is to be roundly commended for educating our apathetic citizenry.
• May 18 û The Denver Boys budget for next year is $29,000, for Denver Girls, $11,000, and for Scholarship and Achievement Awards $12,500. DBI has begun drug abuse education.

To summarize the past few years of Denver Rotary Club activity would be to extend this historical sketch beyond its proper bounds. It is also impossible to name every individual who has made a contribution to the club's record in these 75 years, because every Rotarian has.

None of these presidents [those serving since the club's 50th birthday in 1961], be it know, could possibly have "looked good" without the executive directors of the club who have managed its increasingly complicated budgets and committees. They have included G. Russell McAllister from May of 1927 to April of 1928; Carl A. Salstrand, from May 1928 to March 1930; and Carl Almquist from April 1930 until January 1934. Then Wesley Towne, who ruled from January 1934 until July 1961, and Dan C. Paxton, from July 1961 until April 1977. Paxton was followed briefly by Roger L. Kinney from May to October 1977, and by J. Stuart Moore from October 1977 to date (1985). If the club has caliber, it's because these men had and have it û that's the message of numerous presidential valedictories over the years.

One can gain an idea of where these men have brought the club by analysis of budgets and rosters, keeping in mind the spartan beginnings, wars, depressions, a deluge of population, and shifts in attitudes toward community and service over the years.

The Club budget for 1984-85 estimates revenues of $375,000 to the operating fund. Expense items of more than $15,000 were for meals, $132,500; salaries, $79,900; Keyway expense, $18,500; rent, $17,700; and RI dues, $16,100. Committee work takes a total of $38,700, with Ladies Night, the holiday parties for children, the picnic and the New Member Night being the big items. (This of course does not include monies spent separately by Denver Boys, Denver Girls, the Scholarship Fund or the Foundation.)

At this point in time, the records indicate 36 committees whose listing, while lengthy, best indicates the scope of club service.

They included, besides the Board of Directors and officers, Artists of America, Athletic Sports, Attendance, Budget, Denver Boys Inc., Denver Broncos Scholarship Fund, Denver Girls Inc., Scholarship and Achievement Awards, Rotary Club Foundation, 75h Anniversary Committee, District Conference, Family Holiday Party, Fellowship, Group Study Exchange, Hotel Arrangements, Inter-City Meetings, Invocations, Keyway, Ladies Night, Long-Range Planning, Membership Extension, Music-Chorus, Picnic, Program, Public Relations, Resolutions and Bylaws, Roster, Rotary International Convention, Rotary International Foundation, Rotary International, Special Meetings, Totem Pole (new members), Vocational Service, World Community Service, Youth Exchange, and Youth Mentor Program.

By rough count, with inevitable duplications, about 500 Denver Rotarians are deeply involved in these activities, engaging in "service above self" and in keeping track of their community, nation, and world in their weekly meetings. With a yearly operational budget of almost $400,000, a growing Foundation with assets in excess of $1 million, a youth program to which members separately contribute about $50,000 a year, and various other charitable activities too numerous to mention, Denver Rotarians have come a long way. They are entitled on their 75th anniversary, to think that they have fulfilled those far off dreams of 1911 when a handful of men, needing fellowship and to serve their young city, thought that a new idea called "Rotary" might help do something about it.

Denver Rotarians must measure their accomplishments by the goals the early members set, namely to encourage:

• The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service.
• High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying by each Rotarian of his occupation as an opportunity to serve society.
• The application of the ideal of service by every Rotarian to his personal, business and community life.
• The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional men united in the ideal of service.

Only Rotarians themselves can decide if they've met those tests well enough in the 75 years of close relationship between a Club and a City. But for an institution to endure 75 years, to grow significantly in membership and assets, to post an unquestioned record of community service, and to do this while maintaining essentially the same set of ideals and goals it started out with, that's achievement!

It merits celebration, and remembrance.

Statistics of Rotary (as of 1986)

Compiled by J. Stuart Moore.

1. As of Oct. 1, 1986, there were 588 members of the Rotary Club of Denver, including 312 Active, 247 Senior Active, 26 additional Active, and three Past Service. Operations budget for the club's 1986-87 year was $425,400.

2. Denver Boys Inc. was established in 1946, and to date 1892 boys have participated in the program. Denver Rotarians have contributed $619,657 and thousands of hours of volunteer time to this program which is executed in cooperation with the Denver Public Schools system.

3. Denver Girls Inc. was organized in 1970, and 559 girls have participated to date. Rotarians have contributed $98,293 and the Ladies of Rotary have given uncounted hours of volunteer time.

4. Denver Rotarians have contributed $300,000 to the Rotary International Foundation since its inception. There are 90 Paul Harris Fellows and 105 Foundation sustaining members.

5. The Denver Rotary Club Foundation has a present net worth of $1,250,000. During its seven years of operation to June 30, 1986, it has made $320,207 in charitable contributions. Also, the foundation has contributed $350,000 in that time to the Colorado Historical Society in payment for its services in co- producing and housing the annual Artists of America Show.

6. Many high school students from this country and abroad have participated in the Youth Exchange program, being hosted in Rotarian homes during the year's education.

7. Through its World Community Service Committee, Denver Rotary has assisted various projects worldwide, which needed such things as medical supplies, generating equipment, sanitation programs, and personal training and equipment.

Object of Rotary

The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

First. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;

Second. High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying by each Rotarian of his occupation as an opportunity to serve society;

Third. The application of the ideal of service by every Rotarian to his personal, business and community life;

Fourth. The advancement of international understanding, good will, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional men united in the ideal of service.

A Philosophy

"Fundamentally, Rotary is a philosophy of life that undertakes to reconcile the ever present conflict between the desire to profit for one's self and the duty and consequent impulse to serve others. This philosophy is the philosophy of Service -- "Service above Self"-- and is based on the practical ethical principle that "He profits most who serves best."

"Primarily, a Rotary Club is a group of representative business and professional men who . . . have accepted the Rotary philosophy of service and are seeking: First, to study collectively the theory of service as the true basis of success and happiness in business and in life; and second, to give, collectively, practical demonstrations of it to themselves and their community; and third, each as an individual, to translate its theory into practice in his business and in his everyday life; and fourth, individually and collectively by active precept and example, to stimulate its acceptance both in theory and practice by all non-Rotarians as well as by all Rotarians."

The above quotation is an excerpt from Resolution No. 34 which was adopted by the clubs at the 1923 Convention and slightly amended at subsequent conventions.

Provided by the Rotary Club of Denver and posted 13 August 2010 by Jack Selway