History: a study of the club archives

“Auburn Rotary in the1940s: World War II and the Immediate Post-war Years”

The Club entered the decade with 34 active members and an intense concern with World War II. A number of its members, Neil Davis and Dave Mullins, among others, had been “mobilized.” Many of its programs dealt with war-related issues such as:

• “The World Settlement”
• “Rationing and Price Control”
• “Oil in Alabama”
• “Railroads and the War Effort”
• “Making a Better World”
• “Taking Iwo Jima”
• “The Timber Wolfe Division in Germany”
• “Stalin’s Policy toward Smaller Slavic States”
• “Identification of Airplanes”
• “Taking Okinawa”

By 1949, the mood had lightened enough for Secretary Harry M. Davis to write RI saying, in part:

“Those of us who find it our job to keep the records are always being called upon to vary slightly from the ‘Four-Way Test.’ This I have refused to do and naturally I have taken the friendly ribbing which follows. Finally we elected a President Dr. James E. Greene, who enforces the regulations to the letter. The expected ‘Squealing’ followed when some of our old time ‘knife and fork’ members who came when the notion struck them, ate and left, were dropped for four consecutive absences. The term ‘squealing’ was borrowed from our Gov. ‘Big Jim’ Folsom who adds: It’s squealing “by the hogs being pushed away from the trough.”

“Our attendance immediately picked up. We do fudge on occasion because the flesh is weak, but when a good member goes to the extent of making up a meeting in some strange and distant town or city, we generally give him credit even though the six days are past.”

Report of the History Committee for January 12, 2006