The Heartland Abroad

391 Pages·2008·6.77 MB·English

by  System Administrator

The Heartland Abroad: The Rotary Club’s Mission of Civic Internationalism
by
Brendan M. Goff
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(History)
in the University of Michigan
2008
Doctoral Committee:
Professor Richard Cándida-Smith, Co-Chair, University of California,
Berkeley
Associate Professor Matthew D. Lassiter, Co-Chair
Associate Professor Margaret Somers
Associate Professor Penny Von Eschen
© Brendan M. Goff
2008
Dedication
For Mom – a life that might have been, that should have been.
ii
Acknowledgements
No one can produce a staggering work of genius like this without some help. My
dissertation committee gets first nod. I will always be indebted to Matt Lassiter for his
patient encouragement and understanding over the years. When most anyone else would
have given up on this project, he came through time and again. The same holds true for
Richard, my other co-chair, because he always held me to a higher standard of inquiry
and writing. I would never have conceived of this project without my coursework and
interactions with both Penny Von Eschen and Peggy Somers. There were others not on
the committee who gave valuable input nonetheless: Fernando Coronil, Paul Kramer,
Julie Skurski, Charles Bright, Rebecca Scott, Matt Connelly, Dario Gaggio, and Charles
Hayford all come to mind. There are others whose names escape me right now, but they
each contributed in their own way and without hesitation.
As for my research tenure in the archives of Rotary International in Evanston,
Illinois, I wish to thank Laura Mills and Cyndi DeBock. Their professionalism and hard
work brought the RI Archives together, thus making this entire project possible. Without
them, no dissertation. I must give particular thanks to Cyndi, however, for putting up with
me for so long in her own workspace. She turned a daily grind into a real pleasure.
Thanks should also go to Jane at the Chicago One Archives in downtown Chicago and to
Sylvia Kutzer-Gilroy in Zurich, Switzerland for providing so much help, when they were
already busy enough.
iii
Substantial financial support came from the Social Science Research Council,
making my year of research in Rotary International’s archives in Evanston possible.
David Hammack also gave personal advice and good support. Several fellowships came
from the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan as well as the History
Department. Also, on several occasions the International Institute at the University of
Michigan provided reimbursement for travel to other archives. The Nonprofit and Public
Management Center was the first support ever given to this project.
A final word of thanks should go to some old, close friends who put up with me
all along: Brent, Stephanie, Kristina, Joe, Kevin, Carrie, the “croquet crowd,” and the
folks at the Dissertation Writing Institute at the University of Michigan, Louis in
particular.
With much gratitude to all.
iv
Table of Contents
Dedication.......................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................iii
Abstract.........................................................................................................................vii
Introduction.....................................................................................................................1
The Heartland Abroad.................................................................................................1
The Business of Empire.............................................................................................18
Chapter 1: “Cooperation Among Gentlemen”: Wilsonianism, Boosterism, and the Service
Ideology........................................................................................................................30
Introduction...............................................................................................................30
“Service is the basis of all business”..........................................................................33
Boosterism Goes International...................................................................................48
Jesus, Lincoln, and Florence Nightingale...................................................................57
At the Corner of State and Main................................................................................66
No Foreigners Allowed..............................................................................................78
“Our ambitions being fulfilled”.................................................................................88
Conclusion................................................................................................................95
Chapter 2: “The Elimination of Differences”: Main Street Meets Tokyo.......................98
Introduction...............................................................................................................98
“The Wichita Plan”..................................................................................................102
Civic Internationalism – Wichita Style....................................................................114
The Heartland Abroad – Wichita Style....................................................................117
Flights of Fancy.......................................................................................................122
Dallas, 1929............................................................................................................130
From “The Air Capital of the World” to Boeing Plant #2.........................................142
Conclusion..............................................................................................................146
Chapter 3: “The Rotary Spirit Lives and Shines Through Earthquake and Fire”: Tokyo
Meets Main Street.......................................................................................................152
Introduction.............................................................................................................152
The Heartland Abroad – Tokyo Style......................................................................159
Civic Internationalism – Tokyo Style.......................................................................163
Framing the Exotic Peer..........................................................................................179
Tokyo (pop. 2,000,000) meets Augusta, Kansas (pop. 4,000)...................................181
Empire and Boosterism – Tokyo Style.....................................................................187
Conclusion..............................................................................................................192
Chapter 4: “Under the Shadow of Rotary”: Friendship and Disillusion in Cuba...........202
Introduction.............................................................................................................202
From “the Latin Races” to Fellow Rotarians............................................................206
Neutrality and the Flagging of Cuban Nationalism...................................................218
Disillusion Among the Cubans: The Political..........................................................226
v
Disillusion Among the Cubans: The Economic.......................................................234
“Across Boundary Lines”........................................................................................247
“Nuestra Organización”...........................................................................................252
Conclusion..............................................................................................................257
Chapter 5: “Trailing Along Through Asia”: Jim and Lillian Davidson and the “new
world of business”.......................................................................................................261
Introduction.............................................................................................................261
Among States and Markets......................................................................................268
Istanbul and Athens – Jim’s Version........................................................................278
Bridging Home and Abroad.....................................................................................286
Turkey and Egypt – Lillian’s Version......................................................................291
The Middle East – the Davidsons’ Version..............................................................300
Bombay vs. Calcutta – Jim’s Version......................................................................303
The Cities of British Malaysia – Jim’s Version........................................................310
The Manchurian Candidate......................................................................................316
Conclusion..............................................................................................................322
Conclusion: “From Here On!”....................................................................................325
Bibliography...............................................................................................................334
vi
Abstract
The Heartland Abroad: The Rotary Club’s Mission of Civic Internationalism
The expansion of Rotary International (RI) from 1912 to World War II expressed
the going abroad of U.S. businessmen in a period of U.S. global ascendance. Service to
the community – both local and international – was the touchstone of their ideology and
participation in international circuits of trade the source of institutional growth. In this
capacity, the service club defined itself as an international non-governmental
organization (INGO) operating between states and markets. Though originally from and
concentrated in the United States, RI managed to position itself during the interwar
period as a middle ground between the business and professional classes throughout the
world, between the American heartland and the abroad.
This dissertation identifies RI’s vision of international cooperation among
businessmen in the name of community service as its “civic internationalism” – a
businessman’s version of a civilizing mission to the world. In effect, RI operated as a
private-sector application of Wilsonianism during the interwar period. RI’s civic
internationalism, therefore, marked an important transition in the nature of U.S.
international relations in the first half of the twentieth century. By positing a transnational
solidarity of businessmen, RI opened up a space for recruitment and participation of tens
of thousands of non-U.S. businessmen through their own clubs outside the United States.
These non-U.S. Rotarians joined with RI on the promise of full participation in a
vii
globalizing economy gravitating more and more around the United States. Through case
studies of Rotary clubs in Wichita, Tokyo, and Havana, this dissertation examines how
the promises of RI’s civic internationalism played out between the wars. Overall, the
dissertation argues that RI’s civic internationalism contributed to U.S. economic and
cultural imperialism thanks to its non-state, non-profit status.
As a transnational network of businessmen, RI represented just one stream in a
rising flood of INGOs over the same period. Many historians now recognize the
important roles played by such non-state actors in a global civil society and thus call for a
more transnational approach to U.S. history. Investigating RI’s international expansion
into scores of countries worldwide by 1940 represents a step in that direction.
viii
Introduction
Rotary International and the Promises of Civic Internationalism
Our boundaries have stretched far out. France has felt the enlivening touch of
Rotary; Cuba has been peacefully invaded; Uruguay is the pioneer in South
America; China has led off in the Orient; and the far-off Fiji Islands now acclaim
a new star of social and business promise. The International Association of
Rotary Clubs has fairly won its title, for the sun never sets on Rotarians.
John Poole, President of the I.A.R.C., Annual Message, 1919.1
Such men as these are crackpot realists, who, … in the name of practicality have
projected a utopian image of capitalism.
C. Wright Mills, 1963.2
The Heartland Abroad
Everyone agreed the Rotary club of Granite City, Illinois had the best display on
“international service” for the 1929 conference of Rotary clubs in southern Illinois. The
display “illustrated in a forceful way the inter-dependence of nations” by showing “the
particular product of each of fifty-three nations, upon which the United States
depends…with a world map as the background.” The display was so popular, in fact, it
ran the circuit of local public schools. Thanks to their local Rotary club, the

1 Convention Proceedings of the Ninth Annual International Convention of the I.A.R.C.; Salt
Lake City, Utah; August 1919, 23.
2 C. Wright Mills, “On Knowledge and Power,” in Power, Politics, and People: The Collected
Essays of C. Wright Mills, ed. Irving Louis Horowitz (New York: Ballantine, 1963), 610 – 11.
1