History

Here’s How it all Began!

  (Retyped for clarity from original document.
 Mr. Hunter was a Rotarian with the Downtown Rotary Club.)

January 3, 1930

Mr. P. E. Quigley
Assistant Secretary
Chamber of Commerce
Massillon, Ohio

Dear Sir:

Your letter of Dec. 23rd., addressed to Alvin Gillett, of our Association of Commerce, and inquiring about the Inter-Club Association in Madison, has been referred to me, and I am very glad to tell you what I can.

Our SERVICE CLUBS COUNCIL (Not Luncheon Clubs) was started in 1922, and we believe was the first organization of its kind in the United States. It was started when it was learned that a local semi-charitable institution was putting on a drive and made an effort to work up a rivalry between the Service Clubs, telling each that the others had pledged or subscribed a considerable sum, when in fact none had taken any action.

It was the President of the Rotary Club who invited the Presidents of Kiwanis, Lions and Gyros, to bring their secretaries and attend a luncheon when the scheme was exposed. For some time the group of executives met only occasionally, when some special question came up, but we all enjoyed meeting and learning to know the other fellows and for several years we have been meeting once a month for dinner in the evening and taking up various matters or merely visiting if there was nothing of importance to be brought before the group. When the Optimists, Cosmopolitan and A.B.C. Clubs are organized they were immediately invited to join and did so.

Although the executives of the seven Clubs meet monthly, a joint meeting of all the members of the seven Clubs is held each February. A dinner is served and we secure the best man obtainable to address this gathering of around 700 Service Club members. We have had Loredo Taft, the sculptor, last year Capt. Irving O’Hay, and next month Strickland Gillilan is to entertain us. Each man pays for his own dinner and the expense of the speaker is prorated among the Clubs.

But the big thing about the Council has been the cooperation it brought about among the Clubs. There is no rivalry here now between Kiwanis, Rotary, etc., but a most friendly relationship. We exchange rosters, will not take in a man who has been a member of one of the other Clubs for at least one year and then only with the knowledge and consent of his former Club. And let me tell you it means something for the support of the 700 to 800 members of the Madison Service Clubs who are really the leaders in every line of business and profession in the City. It has meant much to the Association of Commerce, to the Community Union (Community Chest), etc.

I am sure the Clubs of your city would find it most pleasant to have such an organization.

      Very truly yours,

      Paul F. Hunter

I should have stated that we rotate in the order in which the Clubs were organized here in the officers. Rotary started the movement as the oldest club and we have just served for the second time.