Peace Pipe Letters

https://youtu.be/16p-zcSgUhs

Today we sense, once again, that fundamental values of our communal life are under threat in the form of nationalism, populism, and homophobia. The commitment to peace and mutual understanding among differing people of the world remains a constant challenge—and a perpetual task for all of us.

In June 1931, 33 year-old William Jewett Fulton, Keokuk, IA, attended the 22nd Rotary International Convention in Vienna, Austria. There, he and other delegates witnessed the political, social, and economic tensions simmering in Central Europe at that time.  With the Great War in recent memory, Rotary International devoted most of the conference to discussion of critical issues facing the world, and what Rotarians could do to defuse the race to another war.  Returning to Keokuk, Fulton sent letters to all Rotary clubs outside the US, 504 in total, asking each club to observe a symbolic gesture of peace.  Twenty-nine German Clubs were among those receiving a letter from Keokuk, December 1931.  Fifteen sent responses back.

In the years that followed, some German Rotarians upheld their Rotary values.  At the same time, however, many did not.  We know that Jewish Rotarians were expelled from their clubs, their businesses, and their homes.  Fortunate ones managed to escape out of country.  Other, non-Jewish, Rotarians took active roles in the Nazi war machine.  Rotary was no match for the Nazi movement.