Aside from Freemasonry and the Fraternal Orders like The Odd Fellows, there are Masonic-like societies all over the world that promote philanthropic causes. The Lions Club and The Rotary Club are two of the most well-known service organizations. Both were established in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. in the early 1900s and developed in Europe twenty years later. The Lions Club was founded in 1917 by Melvin Jones[1]; the Rotary in 1905 by a group of business managers. They were Gustav Loehr, a mining engineer, the coal shopkeeper S. Schiele, the tailor H. Shorey and Paul Percival Harrys, a lawyer. The group met in rotation in each other’s office or shop, hence the name Rotary.
The first Rotary Club in Italy was set up on 20th November 1923 at the Restaurant COVA in Milan, a city that would become the Nation’s economic capital. The founder, however, was not an Italian but Sir James Henderson, an 
Englishman and fascist sympathizer who was living in Italy at the time. In 1932, Henderson became the Managing Director of Coats [2] in 1932 and was regularly seen to dine with dictator Benito Mussolini [3]; we also know that Henderson had many business deals with the fascist party during the Duce’s reign of terror[4].
The Italian Rotary was an elitist and aristocratic organization that included prominent Italian businesspeople such as Motta, Pirelli and Borletti. After Milan, the Rotary Club expanded to Genoa, the Piedmont region, and then throughout the Italian peninsular. By then, the list of notable members had grown to include Giovanni Agnelli, Marzotto, Giovanni Treccani, Guglielmo Marconi and King, Vittorio Emanuele III, who 
served as an Honorary Member.
However, there is no need to retort to a nearly century-old controversy in order to show that a symbiosis between the Rotary, Lions and Freemasons existed in Italy. Suffice to say that it was none other than Giordano Gamberini [11], a former Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy [10] – who declared–on page 5 of the February 1981 issue of the Masonic periodical Hiram – that the two service Societies were Masonic Societies.
Indeed, the Lyons Club’s founder Melvin Jones was the Worshipful Master of Chicago’s Masonic Lodge “Garden City” N.141 of Chicago. Even He later became Lions’ General Secretary and Treasurer and the editor of the Club’s magazine.
The first Lions’ logo of 1918 even displayed the capital letter L (similar to the square symbol) and the Compasses, which are both of Masonic origin and interpretation. The major difference between Rotary, the Lions Clubs and Freemasonry is the lack of esoteric teaching; otherwise, they essentially are “Masonry without the apron” [12]
The Rotarian Lodge N. 415, whose twenty-nine founders were also members of a Rotary Club in London, received the patent in 1920 from the United Grand Lodge of England. The Lodge has survived the test of time and now meets at Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street.
But under the guise of philanthropy, the Lions, the Rotary Clubs and other Societies like The Fabian whose history I invited you to read, hide a clear elitist and sometime even sinister agenda. Vilfredo Pareto [16], an Italian sociologist and philosopher, has previously warned that “a community is always governed by an elite, even when it appears to have a democratic constitution”.
The Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci [17] suspected that the Rotary and the Lions were an even greater threat to our civilisation than Freemasonry. He believed that the two service societies had a capitalist matrix, whereas the latter comprised only small bourgeois supporters of anti-clericalism, laicism and democracy.
The Italian Rotary, in particular, has always attracted the upper crust of society. Take, for example, Mike Hancock, the Minister of Health for England, during the early stages of the Covid pandemic. He rose up the political ranks after serving as president of his Rotary Club, with which he appears to maintain close ties.
Indeed, because of claims of conflict of interest, trade contracts between companies in which he had a family stake and the National Health Service (NHS) that fell under his responsibility are still being investigated.
However, given that the global political “cast” has plainly lost its integrity, as well as any feeling of shame, I am confident that this situation has been replicated around the globe.
The book “The Rotary in a Changing World”, Rome, 1975, reports that in a speech delivered in front of then-Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti at a Rotary meeting in Rome of the said year, the Rotarian Club’s President A. Alexandri made it crystal clear to whom he should shape the country’s policies by saying: “in our meetings sits most of the country’s leading classes.”
The Rotary Club believes in spreading the pure capitalist concept that industry and trade must strive to maximise profit before it gives any consideration to providing humanitarian help and services to the population.
Gramsci warned that the Rotary and the Lions Clubs would attempt to develop into occult centres which would rule all other such organisations. Thankfully, this has proved a false prophecy thus far , but the presence and activities of the Masonic secret Lodge P2 (short for Propaganda Due) in Italy in the 1980s is evidence that an attempt was indeed made to achieve that supremacy.
Although it may seem harsh to delegitimize the Rotary and the Lions, those two Societies, which were both designed and established by businesspeople in the world’s most capitalistic country, America, are power centres that may not be entirely illegal but do remain ambiguous.
When I consider that the Rotary Club’s motto is “He profits most who serves well,” I can’t help but feel a little nervous. History has proven that chaos is caused to allow a select few to “fish in muddy waters” for financial gain and power.
Only time will tell if humanity will rise from the ashes like a phoenix this time, or whether dark forces will subjugate it.
I pray for my children’s and their progeny, in a world that does not learn from its past mistakes.
Sirbelius (22.2.20)
Famous Rotarians
- General Douglas MacArthur, USA
- General Augusto Pinochet, former dictator of Chile
- Prescott Bush, USA
- Neville Chamberlain, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- George W. Bush, former USA President and honorary member of the Washington Rotary Club
- Prince Ranieri III of Monaco
- Silvio Berlusconi – businessman and former Italian Prime Minister
- Umberto Agnelli – former CEO of the car manufacturer FIAT
- Leopoldo Pirelli – businessman
- Gugliemo Marconi – scientist
- John F. Kennedy – former President of the USA
- Sir Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister
- Walt Disney
- Thomas A. Edison, inventor
- Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, former President of the USA
- Ronald W. Reagan, former President of the USA
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, former President of the USA
- Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister
[1] James Henderson was born on 13 January 1879 at Fort Thomas, Arizona,USA ; he died on 1 June 1961 at Flossmore, Illinois, USA.
[2] Manufacturer of textiles and clothes
[3] born on 29 July 1883 in ia di Predappio, Forli, Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and Italy’s former Dictator. He was summarily executed by firing squad on 28 April 1945 near Lake Como, Italy.
[4] Hefferman, “Stitch Kings” pp97-120. Henderson was also the only ever non Catholic to receive the highest papal honour award.
[5] See the article written by Father Pirri, in L’Osservatore Romano, 15 February 1928
[6] From “Esoterismo e Fascismo” by Gianfranco de Turris
[7] Italo Balbo was born in Quartesana (part of the city of Ferrara) on 6/6/1896 was one of the four principal architects (Quadrumviri del Fascismo) of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini and the Fascists to power in 1922. Italian North Africa Marshall of the Air Force , Governor General of Libya, Commander in Chief of Italian North Africa (ASI) and the “heir apparent” to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Early in World War II, he was accidentally killed by friendly fire when his plane was shot down over Tobruk by Italian anti-aircraft guns who misidentified it
[8] Roberto Farinacci ( Born at Isernia, Italy 16/10/1892 – executed at Vimercate near Monza , by Italian partisans on 28/4/ 1945). He was a leading Italian Fascist politician and an important member of the National Fascist Party.
[9] Achille Starace was born in Sannicola (Lecce) in southern Apulia. Staunchly loyal to Mussolini, Starace became Party Secretary of the PNF in 1931. Arrested in Milano 29 April 1945 he was executed and his body was subsequently displayed alongside Mussolini’s in Piazzale Loreto, Milano.
[10] Massonic Obedience established on 20 June 1805 in Milano, Italy. It is the oldest Italian Masonic Order and the only Italian Grand Lodge recognized by the UGLE, or the other home constitutions of Ireland and Scotland. However, the Grand Orient of Italy is fully recognised by a large majority of the other regular Masonic jurisdictions, both in Europe and worldwide. The current Grand Master is Stefano Bisi.
[11] Born in Ravenna, Italy on 23 June 1915, died in Ravenna on 29 June 2003. He is remembered also for having “patronised” Licio Gelli who rose to become Master of the secret Masonic Lodge P2. Gamberini became Freemason in 1937 and raised to be Grand Master in 1961. He held that office until 1970.
[12] Melvin Jones’ own words for describing the Lions Club
[13] for the fraud perpetrated to the Vatican Bank’s
[14] for the petrol industry’s contraband scandal
[15] PSI stands for Partito Socialista Italiano, now defunct
[16] Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto. Born in Paris 15.7.1848, died in Celigny, Switzerland, 19.8.1923
[17] Antonio Francesco Gramsci, born 22 January 1891, Ales, Sardinia, Italy, Died: 27 April 1937 Rome, Italy. Italian Marxist philosopher and communist politician.
SOURCES
“Un giudizio di Gramsci sulle lobby” by Enrico Bernard published in the newspaper Paese Sera on 11.11.1981 p.5
“Momowo. Women designers, craftswomen, architects and engineers between 1915 and 1945” – edited by Marjan Groot, Helena Seražin, Emilia Maria Garda, Caterina Franchini
“Rotary, il Club della Paramassoneria” by Alberto Fossadri – https://azioneprometeo.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/rotary-il-club-della-paramassoneria/
–Storia della Massoneria Italiana dalle origini ai giorni nostri – Aldo A. Mola
-http://www.rotarynovafeltria.it/Royary/rotarianifamosi.html
“Il capitalismo dopo il Coronavirus” by Maria Rita Pierleoni, 31.5.2020 – Rivista Economia e Politica
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