The Great Ones

THE GREAT ONES TEN ICONIC CONVENTION ADDRESSES DELIVERED BY THE PRINCIPAL WEARERS OF THE BETA BADGE

A.J.G. PRIEST

T H E G R EA T ONES

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A. J. G. P r ie s t, Idaho ’18 President of Beta Theta Pi, 1951-54

The Great Ones A n e x p lo ra tio n o f personal qu alities w h ic h have m ad e and m o u ld ed B eta T h e ta P i

T e n addresses delivered at General Conventions of the Fraternity

By A. J. G.

P r ie s t,

Idaho ’18

Compiled in collaboration with R o b er t T . H ow ard

DePauw ’37 E d ito r y T h e B e t a T h e t a P i

P U B L I S H E D

BY

B E T A

T H E T A

PI

Copyright, 1956 by B

eta

T

heta

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A 11 rights reserved

Composed , printed and bound by tube C o lU g ia tc |J r r# Âť

George B a n t a C o m p a n y , Inc. M e n a s h a , W isco n sin

Dedication This volume is dedicated to Pennsylvania ’ 18 L . P r i e s t , J r ., Idaho ’25

G o r d o n S. S m y t h , J oel

and R a lp h N. Fey,

Miami

’4 0

whose innate sense of brotherhood has turned even purer gold in Beta Theta Pi.

Introduction There is here presented a compilation of ten addresses de­ livered at successive General Conventions in an effort to recall to our younger leaders certain qualities possessed by the out­ standing builders of this fraternity. The criterion is: Was his contribution unique; had he not lived, would Beta Theta Pi have been the fraternity we know and cherish ?

Other names might have been added, but these are believed to be the principal wearers of our badge who made and moulded an extraordinary institution. Each of those singled out was an undergraduate more than 50 years ago and only two now grace our Beta gatherings. It is most earnestly submitted that they well deserve the guerdon of our respect, our admiration, our devotion.

This series could not have been prepared without the gener­ ous and untiring guidance of George M . Chandler, Michigan ’98, the fraternity’s historian. John R. Simpson, M iami ’99, Gordon S. Smyth, Pennsylvania ’18, and G. H erbert Smith, DePauw ’27, also made invaluable suggestions as the material was put in form over a period of ten years, and in the task of compilation Robert T . Howard, DePauw ’37, has been a heart­ warming collaborator.

These talks were prepared for oral delivery and they have not proved readily adaptable to the printed page. The speaker’s arts— such as they are— all too often defy reproduction. P er­ haps Wooglin will smile on the reader who wires himself for sound as he proceeds.

A. J. G. P. Charlottesville, Virginia April 19 5 6

Contents 1946— John Reily Knox and Other Beta Leaders

1

1947— Francis Wayland Shepardson

17

1948— Willis O. Robb

31

1949— The W arm -H earted J. Cal H anna

47

1950— W illiam Raimond Baird

61

1951— Francis Hinckley Sisson and George Helgesen Fitch 79 1952— M ajor W yllys C. Ransom, The First Great Power

94

1953— George Moseley Chandler

109

1954— The Hymnologists of Beta Theta Pi

123

1955— The Good, Rich Gift of Laughter

139

1946

John Reily Knox and Other Beta Leaders Brother Chairman, lovely Ladies of the Convention whom we delight to honor and whose distracting presence so gravely truncates my story-telling repertoire, and m y Beta brothersy members all— as dear Dr. Shepardson was wont to say— mem­ bers all of a great fraternity: In the course of my reading this past year, I came upon, and was greatly stirred by, these lines from the pen of Edgar Lee Masters: O great ones, who though dead yet live, A nd O ye great ones over the earth who shall never die, Leave aja r the gates of your paradise of light, T h a t we may com m une with you, and rise F rom the com m onalty of little living T o the fellowship of wisdom and dreams.

Of course I thought of the fraternity, because Beta Theta Pi at its highest and best is perhaps “ the fellowship of wisdom and dreams.” Then, too, there have been great ones in Beta Theta Pi: fine minds and enkindled hearts and rare spirits. And it occurred to me that I might render a service to the fraternity by making a series of convention talks on notable Beta personali­ ties, towering figures who are hardly more than names to many of our younger men, particularly those whose fraternity ex­ perience has been interrupted by war service.

Your national officers promptly approved the suggestion, but I am now more than a little appalled by the extent of my selfimposed undertaking, because the list of great ones in Beta Theta Pi is both long and distinguished. It must include the 1

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founders and their immediate successors in the leadership of the fraternity and then such men as Dr. Shepardson, Willis O. Robb, J. Calvin Hanna, William Raimond Baird, Francis H .

Sisson, Eugene Wambaugh, George Howard Bruce, John Allan Blair, great-hearted Jim Gavin and many more who have held high office in Beta Theta Pi. And it must also include such servants of the fraternity as our great hymnologists: Horace G. Lozier, Chicago 1894; that ardent spirit, Ken Rogers of Syracuse; Carroll Ragan of Wabash and James Taft Hatfield of Northwestern, to select only a few notable names.

There is a familiar hymn which contains the line, “ The soul hath lifted moments, above the drift of days.” We already have had our “ lifted moments” at this convention and we shall have many more. But I venture to say that none of our lifted moments will be more significant than that which came to us on Monday night, when Horace Lozier walked to the piano and played his greatest of all Beta songs, The Loving Cup. One of the favorite stories of our warmly beloved Dr. Shep­ ardson concerned a Beta banquet held some years ago in one of Cincinnati’s better hotels. The owner of this establishment, himself a Beta, knew what damage could be done to crockery and glassware by the violent response to our time-honored in­ quiry, “ W ho was Pater Knox?” H e therefore requested, as a m atter of personal privilege, that the ceremony be omitted— just for that one evening. It was so agreed and all went well until, as the dessert was being served, there staggered into the dining room and flopped down in the nearest available chair a brother who obviously had been patronizing since early after­ noon those places of refreshment which provide both ingress and egress by means of swinging doors. After staring glassily at his table mates for some moments, he felt inspired to add to the hilarity of the occasion and asked in a loud voice, “Who was Pater Knox?” There was no reply, so he repeated his rhetorical question even more vehemently. Still evoking no response, he stood on his chair and shouted, “W ho W A S Pater Knox?” And Judge Peck of the Miami chapter, who was seated near-by, re­

JOHN

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3.

plied mildly, “All rig h t; I ’ll bite. W ho was he?”

Before paying tribute to Pater Knox, let me say that I am aware that I have already mentioned D r. Shepardson three times. Indeed, it is exceedingly difficult to make a Beta talk without mentioning him. You will recall that only this morning, Brother Frank M . Lay of the Amherst and Knox chapters, speaking of his association with Pater Knox, coupled the names of Knox and Shepardson. And it well may be that those two names will prove to have been the most significant in our first hundred years. Therefore, I am constrained to say a word or two about the influence of Francis W ayland Shepardson, Deni­ son 1882, Brown 1883, a great servant of Beta Theta Pi who was unquestionably the foremost college fraternity man of his time.

Your present national officers, President Bill Dawson, Gen­ eral Secretary H erb Smith— and when I think of H erb I tend to couple his name with that of another and not a lesser Smith, Gordon Seymour Smyth of our Pennsylvania chapter, for many years the brilliant and devoted editor of B e t a T h e t a P i— General Treasurer H ow ard Law, Jr., Trustees W alter H olt, Bert Bennett and Lee Thompson, our present editor Thad Byrne, Jack Ryan (who was one of Shep’s district chiefs) and W alter Flory of the Trustees of the Funds, Cliff Gregg, Dunny Clark and many more whom I might mention, all caught the Beta vision because of Shep and were brought into the service of the fraternity by him. It may be said with complete pro­ priety that the Shepardson influence still moulds and guides the destinies of Beta Theta Pi. But to get back to Pater Knox. Because I am afraid that many Betas, perhaps some of you younger men among them, know our gentle, kindly, saintly Father Knox only as “ First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his fellow Greeks,” I would like to talk to you briefly about the founder, Reily Knox of “ O ld Miami”— John Reily Knox, M iam i 1839.

To begin at the beginning (which is one of Pater Knox’s own phrases), the first of all the Betas was born on May 20, 1820,

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F o u n d e r J o h n R e il y K n ox a t 20.

in Butler County, Ohio, his father a Scotch-Irish emigrant and his mother from one of our own Southern states. W e may be sure that young John Reily could have known few luxuries in his frontier home, but from either father or mother he must have inherited an ardent love of literature and a very real appreciation of spiritual qualities. And there must have been some little afflu­ ence in the family to make possible John Reily’s college train­ ing— in that day and age a rare and unusual privilege.

At Miami, which had been founded in 1809, only 26 years before he matriculated, young Knox was a recognized leader.

H e stood well in his classes and found opportunity for selfexpression in the meetings of the literary societies, the most im-

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KNOX AND O T H E R S

5

F o u n d e r K nox in la te r life .

portant extra curricular activity on many American college campuses 100 years ago. In the spring of 1839, he was elected president of the Union Literary society, after a brisk campaign which is said to have turned his thoughts toward the organiza­ tion of a new fraternity to rival Alpha D elta Phi, then the only Greek letter organization at Miami.

I shall not attempt to retell the familiar story of the founding of the fraternity— it was the eighth day of the eighth month in 1839, you will remember, and there were eight of them— but shall ask you rather to consider what must have been some of the personal characteristics of that college senior of the long ago whom all Betas now revere as Father Knox. Most of you, I

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am sure, are familiar with the picture of young John Reily, as he looked in 1839, which appears in The Beta Book. The youthful face which looks out upon the world above a “ Jackson stock” and an elaborately folded velvet cravat is obviously that of a thinker, of one who already had made “ devotion to the cultiva­ tion of the intellect” a personal ideal. The brow is noble, the mouth seems at once firm and sensitive and the eyes are those of a dreamer, of one who sees visions that are high and far away.

It is difficult for me to realize that John Reily Knox was only 19 when Beta Theta Pi was founded— difficult, too, for me to realize that he was only 20 when he returned to Miami to de­ liver the “ address” at the fraternity’s first anniversary.

T hat address is printed in The Beta Book and I urge all of you to read it and to consider what must have been the caliber of the young man who prepared and who delivered it. I know that it is far beyond the capabilities of the callow youth I was at 20 and I think most of you will agree that it is beyond the ca­ pacities of many, if not all, modern-day Beta undergraduates, even including those whose privilege it is to be delegates at this, our 107th General Convention.

Perhaps that address already is familiar to you and, if it is, you will recall that young John Reily compares, or rather con­ trasts, Beta Theta Pi with religious and chivalric orders, with Masonry and finally with political organizations and combina­ tions and then goes on with a stirring eulogy upon the serene joys of friendship, of unsullied and untrammeled friendship.

M ay I not read you his concluding paragraphs? “ H ere, then, is the secret,” he says, “ ‘N or hope to find a friend but w hat has found a friend in thee.’ L et only the members of the Beta T h e ta Pi repose in each other confidence unlimited (in accordance with the vows which we have taken) and I, for my part, ask no other security.

T h is is a confidence which gold cannot buy, and w ithout which a m on­ arch m ust be miserable except his heart be cast in that iron mould that seeks not for sympathy and asks not for love. L et each member be as ready to assist as he would wish the brother to be of whom in the hour of need he would ask assistance. T h u s one may be to the other as a

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brother and the nam e of Beta T h e ta Pi become the Shibboleth of love.

H ow apt in this place is the advice of old Polonius to his son, ‘T h e friends thou hast and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.’ “ T his, I said, is a day for congratulation. T his is the first anniversary of the foundation of our institution. Already are some of our members scattered abroad. A sister association, or rather our own society, another self, is found in the Q ueen City of the Glorious W est. Soon another band of classmates will leave their A lm a M ater for the exciting scenes and conflicting interests of m en. A m ong them will go a few who w ear the badge and bear the nam e of Beta T h e ta Pi. T h e y will bear our prin­ ciples, our m otto and our badge to the utm ost bounds of our great repub­ lic. A nd proud I am to think that they will bear them honorably and nobly. N either can I resist the conviction that the w orld will yet learn the nam es of some, even of this small band. L et this day, then, ever be re­ m em bered as one of rejoicing. A nd when our num bers are scattered throughout the whole country, on this day, from the N orth to the South, from the E ast to the W est, from the G ulf to the Lakes, from ocean to ocean, w herever one of us is found, w herever our members m ay be scattered, on this day will they assemble together and keep it as a day for rejoicing, a day of hallowed recollections, a day sacred to the past, a day memorable in the future, a day for the outpouring and com m ingling of their generous and friendly hearts, a day of pleasure to themselves, a day of honor to the Beta T h e ta P i.”

Flamboyant, you may say. Perhaps, but not more so than the oratory of Webster, Clay, Calhoun and the other giants of the day. And that young man did have a sense of destiny, a gift of prevision, did he not? True, we do not celebrate each year that August date which then seemed so significant to young John Reily, but every year for half a century, except during W orld W ar II, there has been just such a gathering of our Beta clan as this and every year that gathering is opened with a song which can never lose its power to stir our hearts: W e are com ing from the east, boys; W e ’re coming from the w est; A nd the boys of sunny Southland are coming with the rest— Shouting O ld W ooglin forever!

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This year, because of the war service of many of the men here present, we have come together literally from the ends of the earth. Then, too, 99 years after the delivery of that first an­ niversary address, on the 100th anniversary of that meeting of our honored eight in John Reily Knox’s room, we assembled at O ld Miami, more than one thousand strong, brought together, as young John Reily said, “ from ocean to ocean.”

PI ease note that, in his first anniversary address, Pater Knox uses our now familiar phrase, “ those who wear the badge and bear the name of Beta Theta Pi,” and observe, too, his less significant reference to the “ Queen City of the Glorious W est.”

H e was referring, of course, to Cincinnati, but how many Ameri­ can communities have claimed that title in Beta Theta Pi’s first century: St. Louis and Denver and San Francisco and many more. On our honeymoon trip in England almost twenty years ago, my wife and I stopped at Bath, which is in Somerset, down in the Lorna Doone country, and were astonished to find that

G. H e r b e r t S m i t h , D eP auw ’27.

B e rtra m

W. B e n n e t t , K n o x ’20.

M odern Presidents of Beta T heta Pi.

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9

placid little British town referring to itself as the “ Queen City of the W est.” I was strongly tempted to look up the local Chamber of Commerce and enter a protest on behalf of Boise, Idaho.

After having taught school for a term in Tennessee, young Knox settled down in Greenville, perhaps due in large measure to the influence of Miss Isabel Briggs, the Greenville girl whom he was to marry in 1845; “ read law” and practiced his profession in Greenville for more than fifty years. W e know that his repu­ tation as a college orator followed him, that he was sought after as a speaker on occasions of importance and that because he was widely read and because he was on terms of particular in­ timacy with the great poets, his addresses must have contained both substance and inspiration.

W ith his power and influence as a speaker, he might well have aspired to high office, but he was quite without political ambition, the only office he ever held having been that of presi­ dential elector in 1860, when his ballot was cast for another country lawyer who had practiced in an Illinois town no larger than Greenville, Ohio— a country lawyer who was only eleven years Pater Knox’s senior and whose name was Abraham Lin­ coln.

Just this morning, you heard Brother Ray Peck of the Iowa chapter refer to that Lincoln and H am lin ballot bearing John Reily’s name which had been turned over to D r. Shepardson for the archives of the fraternity.

I think it may properly be said that Pater Knox’s interest in the fraternity from the 1840’s until the rather late 1870’s was that of an affectionate and kindly observer rather than that of an active participant in fraternal affairs. H e was immersed in his law practice, was devoted to his family, was a staunch church­ man and played a good citizen’s part in all community activities throughout those stirring times, but he was not one of the great builders of Beta Theta Pi. In the days of dark discouragement which followed the W ar between the States, when our southern chapters had in

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C h a rle s

GREAT

D u y W a lk e r, VM I

ONES

1869, Founder o f T he Beta

Theta Pi M agazine.

large measure been destroyed and when many of our chapters in the west and north were weak or inactive, the men whose in­ defatigable enthusiasm and devotion made Beta Theta Pi a powerful national fraternity were, to name only a few of them, Charles Duy W alker of V.M .I., John I. Covington and John W. H erron of Miami, Olin R. Brouse of DePauw, M ajor Willys C. Ransom and E. Bruce Chandler of Michigan, Edward J. Brown of Hanover and, toward the end of the period of re­ construction, Willis O. Robb and Eugene Wambaugh of Ohio Wesleyan, J. Calvin Hanna of Wooster, William Raimond

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Baird of Stevens, James T. Brown of Cornell and, of course, many others.

In D r. Shepardson’s historical account in The Beta Book, Pater Knox is not mentioned, after the story of the first anni­ versary celebration, until his name appears as the author of a letter addressed to John I. Covington, containing Knox’s recol­ lections of the early days of the fraternity, written for, and ad­ dressed to, the Convention 1873! From the time of this re­ juvenation of his interest, however, his participation in fraternity affairs became more active, although the first convention which he attended was apparently that of 1879, this entry in the con­ vention minutes recording the Founder’s presence: “ J . Reily K nox, originator and prime founder of the F raternity, was now presented by Bro. John W . H erron, and addressed the C onven­ tion.”

It was not until 1884 that Pater Knox first became an officer of the fraternity, having been elected in that year to our then Board of Directors. H e was president of the Convention of 1890, held at Wooglin-on-Chautauqua, and from that time until his death on February 7, 1898, he was a regular attendant at con­ ventions and his delight in the reverent homage of his Beta boys, his “beautiful incredulity,” “ his gentle amazement,” over the growth and power and influence of the fraternity were neverto-be-forgotten features of each Beta gathering which the dear patriarch graced with his presence.

But let W illiam L. Graves of the Ohio State chapter give you his impression of Beta Theta Pi’s “venerable sage” at the Convention of 1895. Said Brother Graves (and I wish it were possible to quote his entire article): “ T o have know n him, how ever slightly, simply to have seen him and taken him by the hand, m ust have been like a blessing and a benediction to any younger college m an whose rare good fortune gave him the opportunity. O f all m y life’s memories, none surpasses in pleasure that recollection of the splendid old m an seated there in the circle of boys to whom he was the object of reverence and love, and whose image every one of them would bear away and cherish in his inm ost h eart.”

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I say quite without reservation that our language contains few tributes lovelier than that paid to Pater Knox on March 11, 1898— within a few weeks after the Founder’s death— by Willis O. Robb, Ohio Wesleyan 1879, himself one of the great, tower­ ing figures of Beta Theta Pi’s first hundred years.

I came upon Brother Robb’s tribute to John Reily Knox when I was only eighteen, a sophomore at the University of Idaho and most impressionable. His glowing paragraphs will, I think, always lift up my heart. I know you will bear with me as I read some of them, having come to feel for them the same affectionate reverence that I have for certain passages of Scrip­ ture: “ I f a great college fraternity,” said B rother Robb, “ could have had the choosing of its own founder; if it could order beforehand his char­ acter, his attributes, his m anner of living and his time of dying I am not sure it could possibly choose more wisely for itself than Providence chose for Beta T h e ta Pi w hen it gave us for our founder the simple country law yer who died last m onth in western Ohio. A scholar, a gentleman,

G e o r g e H o w a r d B r u c e , Centre ’99.

S e t h R . B ro o k s , St. Lawrence ’22.

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a Christian, a pure-m inded and tender-hearted m an, the leader of his local bar, a vestryman of his parish church, foremost in all public enter­ prises, respected throughout the region where he lived, he lacked not the blessings of health, and long life, and domestic happiness. “ Simple and strong, serene and sincere— w hat finer or healthier type of character could one choose for himself, or hope to find in a friend or father? W h a t m anner of public renow n shall we prefer to this quiet, studious, high-m inded career, with its peace, its sanity, its sweet serenity?

W h a t prizes of fortune or dream s of ambition may outweigh the fruits of such a life, sound to the core, slow-ripening in the sun? W h a t more beneficent influence could be exerted over m en than that which such a spirit m ust exert over those who, like ourselves, have lived in its pres­ ence ? “ In the misty years th at lie beyond the daw n of another century, when our ten thousand shall have become m any times ten thousand, when myths shall be grow ing up about the empty places where the seats of the mighty are now established, that name will be keeping its quiet state. “ ‘It w ill never Pass into nothingness, but still w ill keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep F ull of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.’

“ W hile the fraternity lives he will live, live in our grateful thoughts and reverent observances, his nam e inwoven in our traditions and em ­ bedded in our records. W h a t securer fame, w hat w orthier im m ortality than this? T ru ly the modest, kindly m an we have so long called ‘F ath er K nox’ m ight have said in his heart, in the very words of Horace, ‘I have reared me a m onum ent more enduring than bronze, loftier than the royal height of pyram ids.’ W ith such a m onum ent w hat other may compare? T h e marble arch beside the Seine, the stately shaft that rises in T ra fa lg a r Square, the m ighty tomb that crowns yon height above the Hudson? N ay; none of these, for they are of the stuff that dream s are m ade of. T h e earth hath bubbles, as the w ater hath, and these are some of them . But while the rock and planet crumble, the ether in which they swim abides: abides, and transm its forever the im­ pulses it has received. M aterial records vanish away, but that which the finger of love hath w ritten shall never fade. “ ‘Our echoes roll from soul to soul And g r o w forever and forever.’

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“ Such be thy im m ortality, and such thy m onum ent, O gentle spirit parted from us! A nd may we, its priests and guardians, keep worthily and well this temple of thy founding.”

In his address at that first anniversary of “ the Beta Theta Pi,” John Reily Knox discoursed upon the joys of friendship.

And in the 107th year of his fraternity and ours, I say to you, my brethren of a great convention, that all the other Beta stars are rich in meaning and significance, but that Beta Theta Pi is first of all a brotherhood— a fraternity! Indeed, we well may cry with England’s H arry, “ W e few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Yet perhaps we should occasionally recall, when we quote St. Paul’s admonition, “ Love the brotherhood,” that the brother­ hood which Paul had in mind was a more inclusive one than ours, aye, and nobler, for it comprehended “Jew and Gentile, Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free.”

You will understand, I am sure, why that observation brings me to the name of W endell Lewis Willkie of our Indiana chap­ ter, certainly the greatest Beta of my college generation and one of the great Americans of our time. In writing about a Beta elected to high office by the fraternity, it was Dr. Shepardson’s happy custom— a custom later continued by Gordon Smyth and Thad Byrne— to refer to the circumstances in which the indi­ vidual concerned had caught the Beta vision. W ell, my dear brothers, W endell Willkie caught a vision. H e caught the vision of One W orld and he attempted to communicate that vision of One W orld to his fellow Americans. H e knew that mankind is one and the whole earth is one, that freedom and peace are indivisible and that the world’s problems can never be solved until we shall have attained a rule of law under at least some form of genuine world government. I think the vilification to which W endell W illkie was subjected by certain vicious Ameri­ can newspapers may have been in large measure responsible for his untimely death and that I shall neither forget nor for­ give. I shall not designate the publications I have in mind. Nor shall I attempt to characterize them. In order to do so ade­

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quately, I would have to dredge up an ugly vocabulary learned in W orld W ar I and would certainly give offense if I were to make that effort. However, W endell W illkie’s place in history is secure. H e will be remembered as a magnificent servant of mankind long after his little, bitter critics shall have achieved that bleak obscurity which they so richly deserve.

But to return to Beta Theta Pi: Ours is an intimate fraternity and we may properly savor the sweetness of that intimacy. One of the authentic American poets of the past fifty years was Pro­ fessor W illiam H . Carruth of our Kansas chapter, a great scholar, a great teacher, a rare soul. His familiar verses, “ Each in H is Own Tongue,” I am sure you all know. Perhaps Pro­ fessor Carruth’s closest, most intimate friend was his Beta brother, Professor James T aft Hatfield of the Northwestern chapter, himself a great scholar and teacher and a poet in his own right.

In December, 1924, just before Professor Carruth died and when he knew the end was near, he addressed these lines to his friend Hatfield: W h en you have got the w ord that I have passed Beyond the reach of message and reply, Like any letter in the days gone by F ro m me alive, this greeting comes— the last.

A nd while the outw orn organism is cast Into the cleansing furnace, deathless I, O friend, am somehow in the spirit nigh A nd hold the lifelong bond of friendship fast.

W h en suddenly a candle is snuffed out, T h e light seems lost to our im perfect sight, Y et are its rays diffused in space about T h ro u g h endless years, high above day and night.

T h u s the heart-throbs th at m ortally have thrilled In all eternity rem ain unstilled.

Yes, my dear brethren of the 107th Convention of Beta Theta Pi, John Reily Knox of O ld Miami builded far better — far, far better than he knew!

Denison 1882, B row n 1883, President of Beta Theta Pi, 1918-1937, and “first from alm ost every point of view , am ong the F r a n c is

W ayland

Shepardson,

grea t leaders of Beta T heta P i.�

mi Francis Way land Shepardson There is with us here at Poland Spring a distinguished jurist from one of our border States which, for purposes of misidentification, I shall call “ East Virginia.” The statutes of that sov­ ereign commonwealth formerly required the initial fall term of our brother’s court to be held on the first Tuesday in September — a circumstance which caused the good judge vast distress when he learned the dates of this convention.

“There obviously was only one thing to do,” he observed, in telling me the story. “ I had to have the statute changed. Our legislature fortunately was in session and the necessary act was passed promptly. O f course, that amendment of our statute represented a highly desirable and salutary judicial reform. But I did have to be present at this convention. And I think I am the only man here by virtue of a legislative enactment.”

Then the good judge told me about a Beta classmate who had been killed in an accident some years ago, leaving an only son.

The son, who can be called “Joe,” entered East Virginia U ni­ versity and in due season became entitled to “wear the badge and bear the name.” Pointing out Joe on the convention floor, the judge said, “A. J., my own Beta boy is in Japan, but, at this convention, Joe is my Beta boy!” I like to think, Brother Chair­ man, that, after having attended twenty of our general conven­ tions, I know a little something about the Beta spirit. And it seems to me that our good judge represents the Beta spirit at its finest and its best.

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I am to make tonight the second in a series of Convention talks begun last year with Pater Knox, a series in which I shall at­ tempt to think with you about a number of the Great Ones of Beta Theta Pi. This task is one which I first approached, and which I now continue, with very real diffidence. Certainly I shall be required to rely heavily, as I proceed, on my elder brethren, such devoted servants of the fraternity as the great Beta Bishop of New England, Clarence L. Newton, and Dr. H . Sheridan Baketel and particularly M ajor George M. Chandler, the fra­ ternity’s Historian, who knew intimately every one of the builders of Beta Theta Pi except Charles D. Walker. I am sure that help will be forthcoming.

Some years ago, I heard the late Dixon Ryan Fox, then presi­ dent of Union College, make a banquet talk in which, referring to the mighty shades who walk the tradition-hallowed campus of old Union, he said, “ W e are more than what we are because of what they were.” Aye, even so. That may be said in solemn truth of many institutions for which men have lived nobly and it has peculiar appositeness as we consider the great figures of our Beta history. W e are more than what we are because of what they were!

I shall talk tonight about the outstanding personality of Beta Theta P i’s second half-century, Francis W ayland Shepardson, Denison 1882, Brown 1883, for ten years General Secretary of the fraternity and for twenty years its president, of whom Gordon S. Smyth wrote in 1934, “ No man has ever come closer to the heart of Beta Theta Pi or to the hearts of Betas.”

I have only one regret about this evening’s tribute. It should not have been prepared by me, but rather by the devoted Beta whose words I have just quoted. For Gordon Seymour Smyth of our Pennsylvania chapter had a deeper affinity with Shep than any of the rest of us. Indeed, if Shep may be said to have had a spiritual son in Beta Theta Pi, Gordon is that lineal descend­ ant.

I am sorry, therefore, that it is I and not Gordon who will be privileged to talk with you tonight about Shep (for so he was

FRANCIS WAYLAND SHEPARDSON

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known to the entire fraternity)— Shep, the beloved educator, America’s chief protagonist of the college fraternity system, and first, from almost every point of view, among the great leaders of Beta Theta Pi. It is altogether proper that we should be thinking about Shep at this splendid New England rallying of W ooglin’s legions, for his ancestry was all New England, dating back to Daniel Shepardson, who arrived at Salem, Mass., in 1628.

Four of his New England progenitors served in the Revolution­ ary army, one of them having been wounded at Bunker H ill.

And New England, too, in personnel and spirit, was Granville, the little Ohio town in which he was reared.

D r. Shepardson was initiated by our then young Denison chapter in March, 1880, when he was just seventeen and he was only nineteen when he was elected secretary of the Cincinnati convention of 1882, the first of thirty-one such gatherings which he was to attend. Service as a District Chief was recog­ nized, in 1906, by election to the Board of Trustees and the next year he was chosen General Secretary to succeed Francis H .

Sisson. Through the almost thirty years which followed, as General Secretary, as Editor of the Magazine, as President, as fraternity Historian, he gave of himself more arduously, more unstintingly, more untiringly, than any other wearer of our badge.

Measured by sheer volume, the work which he accomplished for the fraternity was literally prodigious. Almost from the beginning, he was a prolific writer on fraternity subj ects, having been a valued contributor to T h e B e t a T h e t a P i as early as the middle 1880’s. W illis O. Robb once said that Shep’s only rival in those years as a member of the Magazine staff was the mighty W illiam Raimond Baird and, as you know, the names of Shep­ ardson and Baird were to become the best known in the whole college fraternity world.

There probably are few Betas much beyond their early thirties whose interest in the fraternity has been more than casual who have not received a letter from D r. Shepardson. Indeed, I

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doubt that even one of the older men within the sound of my voice tonight has not carried on at least some correspondence with Shep. M ajor Chandler told me only last Saturday night that he had once received three letters from Shep in a single day. And virtually all of Shep’s letters were written in longhand, most often, we may be sure, in the quiet watches of the night, when lesser men were seeking their recreation in other ways.

Perhaps Shep’s successors as General Secretary and as Editor of our magazine can appreciate his unremitting toil on behalf of the fraternity, but I doubt that anyone else can: the checking and revising, year after year, of Special Number 2 of the magazine} the sheer drudgery of editing the 1933 Catalogue, which listed Beta Theta P i’s then 38,000 members j the preparation of one richly ample volume after another telling the story of the fra­ ternity and reciting, often from Shep’s own encyclopedic mem­ ory, the lore, the sentiment, the high aspiration, which have made Beta Theta Pi so warmly cherished “even amid the graver cares” of our more mature years: The Beta Book, Beta Lorey Beta L ife, Beta Bards and Beta Kinship, not to mention several editions of The Songs of Beta Theta Pi. Then, too, the travel throughout Beta’s broad domain, travel persisted in even after Shep had passed the scriptural three score years and ten; the magnificently inspirational addresses at alumni gatherings and at initiation banquets given quite literally (at one time or an­ other) by every chapter in the fraternity j and, by no means least, the wise counsel, the understanding sympathy, offered not only to Beta Theta P i’s official family, but also to hundreds of individual Betas. Certainly more than anyone of my acquaint­ ance, he filled Kipling’s “ unforgiving minute” with “ sixty sec­ onds’ worth of distance run” and his conscientiousness, his ab­ sorption in the task in hand, continually amazed all of us.

Dr. Shepardson’s life had a very definite pattern j through the whole fabric of his career ran the consistent, golden thread of devotion to youth. H is work as a teacher began immediately after he had received a second B.A. degree from Brown in 1883

FRANCIS W AYLAND SHEPARDSON

21

D r . S h e p a r d s o n (center) with G eo r g e H o w a r d B r u c e , Centre ’99 (le ft)

and J a m e s L. G a v i n , D eP auw ’96.

and continued with only brief interruption until his death. H e was editor of the Granville Times from 1887 to 1890 and he wrote editorials from time to time for the old Chicago Tribune (the pre-Bertie McCormick Tribune); but every good news­ paper man is in some measure an educator, and education was Shep’s profession.

After obtaining his Ph.D . degree at Yale in 1892, Shep went with President H arper to the newly established University of Chicago. For a number of years, he was dean of Chicago’s senior schools and from 1897 to 1917 he served as professor of Ameri­ can History, a field in which he attained high distinction. In 1917, Frank O. Lowden, Beta governor of Illinois (who very definitely should have become president of these United States in 1920), called Dr. Shepardson to the post of Director of the Department of Registration and Education of the State of Illinois and Chairman of the State’s Board for vocational guid­ ance. In 1921, he became director of the Julius Rosenwald fund, dedicated to the education of colored children and adults in the South and, five years later, he was persuaded, at considerable personal sacrifice, and only under great pressure from members of the official family and after much soul-searching, to devote his entire time to the service of Beta Theta Pi.

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If I may quote Gordon Smyth once more: “ M entally and spiritually, Shep never grew old, but always retained his close touch with young men. . . . H e saw eye to eye with them, he read their minds, he knew how to appeal to their hearts because, actually, he never grew away from them. His hair turned silver gray and just at the end his physical strength faltered, but to the day of his death his eyes were clear and he had in his heart the song and the hopeful vision of youth.”

So often we had heard Shep say, as he shook hands with an undergraduate Beta, “ This hand has clasped the hand of Pater Knox and I transmit the grip he gave to me.” Of course every youngster who had that experience knew the deep thrill of seem­ ing personal communication with the Founder, but not many of them could have understood how much that kindly rite invari­ ably meant to Shep himself. H e believed, as all of you who knew him will recall, that the first of all the privileges which come to older men in Beta Theta Pi is that of clasping friendly hands with youth. For so it was, Pm very sure, that Shep re­ tained the shining gifts of ardor and enthusiasm which the years somehow filch away from all of us except the young in heart.

The poem which Shep probably recited more frequently than any other was entitled “The Bridge Builder.” As many of you will recall, it concerned an old man who, after he had crossed a dangerous chasm, turned back and began the building of a bridge. One of his fellow pilgrims asked why he undertook such an arduous task, knowing that he would never pass that way again. And the answer came in this final verse: “ T h e laborer lifted his old gray head, ‘Good friend, in the path I have come,’ he said, ‘T h e re followeth after me today A youth whose feet m ust pass this way.

T his chasm which has been naught to me T o th at fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.

He, too, m ust cross in the twilight dim.

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him .’ ”

T hat may not be great poetry, but it has warmth and simplic­

*

FRANCIS W AYLAND

SHEPARDSON

23

ity and it does give expression to a concept of service which has definite appeal in these days of cynicism and self-seeking and negation of responsibility to those who follow after us.

D r. Shepardson was unquestionably the foremost fraternity man of his time. Our friendly rivals acknowledged his primacy and gladly accepted his leadership. As George Banta, past president of Phi Delta Theta, said of him, “ His service to fraternities other than his own cannot be estimated and the rest of us all feel a deep sense of gratitude to him and to Beta T h e ta Pi; a debt which we can never repay.”

In the National Interfraternity Conference, which he had helped to organize, of which he was the first Secretary and later President, he had become (as a memorial resolution adopted by the executive committee of the conference observed) “ the leader among leaders that the delegates looked for most eagerly and listened to with the greatest pleasure, interest and respect.”

H e was chosen as the first president of the Association of College H onor societies, had been president of the College Fraternity

S h e p a r d s o n on a V i s i t t o M i a m i .

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Editors association, and also had been national president of Acacia, which formerly admitted to membership Masons from other fraternities. H e edited five editions of Baird’s Manual, the standard fraternity reference book, had been a frequent contribu­ tor to interfraternity publications and, perhaps most significantly of all, he was selected to write the article on college fraternities appearing in several editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

I think I may fairly say that, in the ten years since Dr. Shepardson’s death, no one has come forward to take his place. Other college fraternity leaders are warmly respected and admired, but none of them has so risen above the rest that it could be said of him, as the N ew York Times said of Dr. Shepardson, “he was the foremost protagonist of the college fraternity system.”

John Calvin Hanna, Wooster 1881, himself one of the great figures of our fraternity history, wrote of Shep, “W hile al­ ways loyal and progressive, his early attitude was rather boyish, but I have never known anyone to develop under responsibility more than he did.” In the light of his subsequent fame as an exponent of interfraternity comity, Shep must have smiled a little ruefully over the selection by William Raimond Baird, for publication in Beta Letters, of a youthful missive, dated April 6, 1884, and addressed to John W. Robbins of the Hanover chap­ ter, in which Shep had sharply criticised the Denison chapter of Sigma Chi, saying that the Sig president had been conditioned in Greek, that their best man “ flunked dead square in exams” and that one of their crack orators had “just scraped through.”

Then he observed, “ I don’t suppose they will report that to their dandy journal. Oh no! Blow is all there is to Sigma Chi.” There were moments in my undergraduate days when I might have agreed with Shep, but I know that he came to feel the warmest admiration and affection for the leaders of Sigma Chi and I certainly would not dare to disparage that excellent fraternity. Indeed, three of my law partners are Sigma Chis and I am deeply devoted to all of them.

Since I am attempting to give you rather a full picture of Dr. Shepardson, I think I should say that he was not always judicial

FRANCIS W AYLAND SHEPARDSON

25

(no advocate ever is! ) and that, like many other men of strong emotions, he occasionally let his temper blaze. But he would have been less than human, and perhaps a little less lovable, if, in addition to his other qualities, he had possessed the serenity of a Willis O. Robb or a George Howard Bruce. Indeed, I believe that even Shep’s faults endeared him to his legion of devoted friends.

D r. Shepardson’s second college fraternity interest was in Phi Beta Kappa, which had awarded him its golden key for distin­ guished scholarship in his single undergraduate year at Brown.

H e was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Senate in 1913 and re­ mained a member of that body until his death. H e also served as a vice president of this greatest scholastic fraternity for nine years and he consistently exerted a powerful influence in its national organization. It was acknowledged that he had been pri­ marily responsible for the establishment of the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Denison and it was also observed that when Beta Theta Pi entered an institution, particularly in the West, Phi Beta Kappa ordinarily followed. Shep’s theory was, of course, that when a college or university had proved itself worthy of Beta Theta Pi, it obviously deserved a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Let me say in this connotation that D r. Shepardson was immensely proud of Beta Theta P i’s uniformly high scholarship.

H e believed, I am sure, that the Beta stars are equal in signifi­ cance, but he had made devotion to the cultivation of the intel­ lect a personal ideal and he urged that ideal upon our chapters with all his great powers of admonition and persuasion.

Dr. Shepardson seemed, and was, singularly earnest and pur­ poseful and he almost never indulged in the pernicious habit of repeating mere anecdotes, but his subtle and discriminating sense of humor was one of his most engaging qualities.

As W illiam F. Chamberlin, past president and historian of Phi Gamma Delta, said in a tribute to Shep: “ His letters were always punctuated with drollery. T h e day before he passed to the stars, I received a letter from him asking me to trace some relationship between the famous Fosdick brothers of N ew Y ork

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and a m an by the nam e of Fosdick who was interred in G ranville’s old burial ground with five wives. O n the tombstone, Shep wrote, was the inscription: ‘in caelo quies est’— ‘in heaven is rest.’ ‘He deserves it,’ added Shep.”

In this same connotation, let me quote directly from a state­ ment made at the time of Shep’s death by W alter L. Flory,

R a l p h N . F e y , M iam i ’40, the Fraternity’s first Administrative Secretary.

Denison ’03, my fellow Trustee of the Baird Fund, whose in­ ability to be present at this convention we all so keenly regret: “ D u rin g my college course,” said B rother Flory, “ one of the elderly professors persisted in raising a pig each year in a pen back of his house at a rem ote end of the campus. O n H allow e’en in my senior year a group of us under cover of darkness removed the pig and tossed it through a w indow into a dormitory of the girls’ school. I was one of those prom ptly ‘fired’ from college. I shall always cherish Shep’s letter w ritten from the University of Chicago. He said: ‘You boys must pay any damage done. I assume that the faculty considered the real offense

FRANCIS WAYLAND SHEPARDSON

27

was the indignities inflicted upon the pig— but Professor Gilpatrick’s an­ nual pig has always been sent to the butcher shortly before Christm as and I think you will be back in college prior to that tim e.’ ”

In the years which followed, Brother Flory has become a leader of the Ohio Bar, a pillar of the American Law Institute and one of the first citizens of Cleveland. Thus I can say to such of you undergraduates as have yielded to the impulse to push a cow into your chapel belfry or to pasture a peculiarly redolent goat in some sorority house parlor, there is hope also, my brethren, even for you!

Colorful, vivid phrasing always intrigued and delighted Shep.

For example, he was fond of quoting the late W . A. Hamilton, Beta Theta P i’s first president, who was wont to observe, when confronted with a particularly outrageous performance on the part of one of our chapters, “ ‘Good God,’ cried the woodcock.

And away he flew!”

I well remember one of our conventions held at W hite Sul­ phur Springs, among the foot-hills of W est Virginia. They were foot-hills too —merely minor undulations, puny protuberances like those which add variety to the New England scene here about us— , but some of the Easterners referred to them as “ mountains” and that inspired one of our brethren from the Rocky Mountain area to assert that he had seen more significant wrinkles on the neck of a good, tough Idaho prune. Shep chuckled deeply and published the W esterner’s impious out­ burst in an early issue of the Magazine.

One of Shep’s rare stories involved a sign of recognition which Betas used in the 1880’s. W hen a supposed brother approached, the good Beta would lift a hand to his brow and inquire, “ I see? ” If the person so interrogated proved to be a son of Wooglin, he would adjust his necktie, reply, “A Beta,” and, I assume, fall on the first brother’s neck.

W hen just out of college, Shep pitched for the Granville base­ ball team and the captain and leading hitter of the team from near-by Wooster was one H enry Thurm an, a Phi Kappa Psi. “ The first time H enry came to bat,” Shep said, “ he would in­

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variably lift his hand in our too-well-known signal and inquire, “ I see?” O f course, I would ignore him and he would say, ‘Come on, Shep; I see; I see; give me the answer.’ Then I would repeat the secret Greek motto of Phi Kappa Psi at the top of my voice, and he would say ‘Go to H ell,’ and then I ’d try to strike him out.”

I am sure that many of the older men here present will agree that their most memorable Beta experience came when Shep visited their chapter and talked intimately, informally, with the firelight glowing, about Beta Theta Pi— its lore, its sentiment, its history, its songs, its lovers and leaders, its honored eight who first met “ on the eighth day of the eighth month” in ’39, its high place in the fraternity world, and its many sons who had achieved greatly, who had brought new lustre to the name we bear. There could not well be hours more golden than those, when we were young and when Shep poured into our hearts his understanding and abiding love for Beta Theta Pi. One personal example: W hen Shep first visited the Idaho chapter in 1914, I was a pledge. Early one evening he explained to us the meaning of our pledge buttons, with their white enamel shield and their three stars. Almost 25 years later, I was asked to write a pledge ritual for the fraternity, and the impression Shep had made upon me was still so vivid that I was able to reproduce his language almost word for word. The point is that similar testimony could, I am sure, be given by literally hundreds of other wearers of our badge. So many of us, modifying only slightly Shep’s own dedication of his Beta Lore to Charles J. Seaman, Willys C. Ransom and E. Bruce Chandler, would pledge “ the treasured memory of Francis Wayland Shepardson, from whose overflowing reservoir of sentiment and zeal for Beta Theta Pi an eager college lad drank copious drafts in golden days gone by.”

W hen our ninety-eighth convention assembled just ten years ago, tributes to D r. Shepardson came from such publications as the N ew York Times and the Kansas City Star and from edu­ cators and fraternity leaders throughout the country, as well as

FRANCIS W AYLAND SHEPARDSON

29

from Beta hearts. Those tributes are assembled in the Novem­ ber, 1937, issue of the magazine, then, as you know, under the editorship of Gordon Smyth. There is, I think, no other number of the oldest college fraternity magazine which is as worth read­ ing and re-reading as that for November, 1937.

At the funeral services held in Granville, that rare spirit, John Allan Blair, Wabash 1893, had spoken tenderly and beautifully for the fraternity, saying: “ Inspiration he brought to so m any of us— inspiration born of a pro­ found conviction . . . summ ed up in his faith in the capacity of m an for brotherhood, faith in m an ’s capacity for living fruitfully with his fel­ low. . . . H e believed in youth, had faith in youth because of its being fresh m aterial out of which a fairer and lovelier w orld would surely be builded.”

Then the first session of the succeeding convention was de­ voted to addresses honoring D r. Shepardson. The speakers were General Treasurer James L. Gavin, DePauw 1896; W illiam A. Cornell, Denison ’38, the undergraduate president of Shep’s own chapter j then District Chief and now Vice President Lee B. Thompson, Oklahoma ’25 j and Editor Gordon S. Smyth, Pennsylvania ’18. All of the tributes were eloquent, appropriate and appealing j but I am sure Lee will forgive me, as I know Jim Gavin would if he were here, if, for reasons which I have already indicated, I quote only from Gordon’s address. Let me give you just a few of his glowing sentences: “ Shep was one of the most hum an of m en,” G ordon said. “ His heart reached for the stars and yet those who were privileged to have intim ate association with him found him the most delightful of compan­ ions. . . . O f all the things for which we love him, I think perhaps we will love him most for the influence he has had on thousands of indi­ vidual lives. Since his death one young Beta alum nus has w ritten m e : ‘In his last letter to me he said: “ In hours of reflection I often think that there m ust be in Beta T h e ta Pi very great latent power— something which, if given expression, would w ork great things in life. T h e re are not m any who catch the vision— but those who have seen it . . . are the ones who have made Beta T h e ta Pi w hat it is.” ’ . . . H ow m any Betas have caught the vision of fraternity, of Beta ideals, of noble living,

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through Shep’s eyes? I f we could but call the roll here, and if our voice could but carry to the far corners of B eta’s Broad Dominion, w hat a mighty arm y of Betas would rise and respond to the call!— the flower of Beta T h e ta Pi, the men who make this the great fraternity it is to­ day. . . . D o you rem em ber the beautiful prayer he always included in his address at the beginning of convention ? I hold it here, as w ritten in his own clear hand. D are I read a part of it once more, paraphrasing it, just for him? ‘W e thank T h ee, God, for his good example and brave testim ony; for his faith which w rought righteousness and obtained promises; for the witness of his saintly soul; for the ascended spirit of our brother with whom we once took counsel together.’ ” ©

Need I say more, my brethren of the 108th Convention, about the qualities of a man who could inspire that tribute, who had earned that devotion?

Now finally, how shall we remember this great Beta whose influence in Beta Theta Pi remains as pervasive and powerful as it was ten years ago, when Gordon spoke of him so lovingly, so eloquently? Shall we remember him as his beloved Alpha Eta remembers him: “A follower of the vision, still in motion to the distant gleam” ? Yes; but we may go beyond even this lovely concept. Shep held his eyes upon the heights of vision and he lifted up the eyes of others to the mountain peaks. His was a golden personality and he helped others transmute into gold the baser metals of their personalities. H e believed in the dignity, the sacredness, the divine possibilities of the human spirit and he warmed other hearts— particularly young hearts— with the burning sincerity of that belief. Indeed, more than any college fraternity leader, he brought home the truth of one of Ralph W aldo Emerson’s noblest quatrains. I know you are all familiar with it: “ So near is grandeur to our dust, So nigh is G od to m an, W h e n D uty whispers low, ‘T h o u m ust,’ T h e youth replies, ‘I can! ’ ”

' 948

Willis O. Robb Tonight I am to be privileged to make the third in a series of talks about the outstanding leaders, the Great Ones, of Beta Theta Pi. W ho are the Great Ones of Beta Theta Pi who enable us to rise to the fellowship of wisdom and dreams? I am sure that each of you has his own criteria for making that determination and of course I have mine. Let me suggest my own principal criterion by repeating a story which my friend the Rev. D r. Phillips Os­ good tells, a story which has no humorous intent whatever.

Dr. Osgood says that when H olm an H u n t’s famous picture, “The Light of the W orld,” which represents Jesus knocking at the door of the human heart, was first displayed, an acquaintance took H u n t aside and chided him for his carelessness in not having depicted any knob or latch-string on the outside of the door at which Jesus knocked. H unt replied, “ That omission is the most significant detail in my picture. There is no latch-string on the outside of the human heart. It must be opened from within! ” H ere then, is my criterion for determining whether a Beta leader belongs in the company of the Great Ones, the Shining Ones, of our fraternity: W hen he knocked upon the door either with written or with spoken words, or by dint of the lambent quality of his personality, were Beta hearts opened to him?— were they opened from within?

The great Beta about whom I am to talk this evening, W illis O. Robb, Ohio Wesleyan ’79, met that criterion perhaps more completely than any other wearer of our badge. H e was, for me, an idol who had no feet of clay whatever and former President 31

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W i l l i s 0 . R o b b , Ohio W esleyan 1879.

Clarence L. Newton, the distinguished Beta Bishop of New England, who spoke to us last night, is by no means alone in believing Robb to be “ the greatest Beta Beta of them all.”

Willis O. Robb was born in Marysville, Ohio, July 31, 1858 and became a Beta 18 years later as No. 169 upon the roll of Theta chapter. H e was graduated from Ohio Wesleyan, with highest honors, in 1879 and almost at once became professor of Latin and Greek at Farmers’ College, College H ill, Ohio, where he remained from 1879 to 1883. In the latter year, he went to Cincinnati to prepare for a career in journalism, but abandoned that field of endeavor for the insurance work in which he was to attain a nation-wide reputation.

WILLIS

O.

33

ROBB

After having held various responsible positions representing major insurance companies in Ohio, he was called to New York and in 1910 became manager of the New York Fire Insurance Exchange. This was the important service which he performed for the fire insurance industry until he retired in 1928, having reached the scriptural three score years and ten. At the time of his retirement, this was said of Brother Robb by one of his business associates: “ He has always been a profound student of the fire insurance bus­ iness. He is an expert on policy forms, rating, and loss adjustm ents, and

■9 '

C l a r e n c e L . N e w t o n , W esleyan ’02.

President of the Fraternity, 1937-40

is universally recognized as the highest lay authority on the fire insur­ ance contract. He has made addresses before various organizations, and has delivered courses of lectures at Yale and N ew Y ork University. H e has a keen intellect and a clear, logical and analytical m ind; he is a brilliant w riter with a felicitous style, an adept at repartee, a redoubtable protagonist and the happy possessor of a pronounced sense of hum or.

All in all, he is one of the finest examples of the scholar in business.

A fter 44 years of continuous service, M r. Robb retires from active

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participation in insurance affairs in which he has occupied so prom inent a place, leaving a host of friends and carrying with him the respect, es­ teem, affectionate regard and adm iration of the entire insurance fra­ ternity.”

As his devoted Beta friend and co-worker, Edward R. Hardy, Boston 1896, wrote, “ It has been the privilege of Willis O. Robb to do a great deal to dissipate the idea that sound scholarship and business acumen do not go together, because he has success­ fully united in himself the essential characteristics of the scholar and of the business man. . . . H e has occupied positions of trust and responsibility in all branches of the fire insurance business, but his peculiar contribution is the service he has rendered as secretary and manager of bodies which represented the joint interests of companies fiercely competing with one another.”

Brother H ardy then went on to describe the qualities which such a position required, and which Willis O. Robb possessed in an astonishing degree: the power of accurate analysis, com­ plete and unquestionable integrity and that justmindedness which means the ability not only to listen to both sides sympa­ thetically, but also to arrive at a decision which convinces both parties, even the one decided against, that equity has been done.

H e told about a request made by the Insurance Institute of America for a motto and after saying that Brother Robb im­ mediately selected one from the Greek, without even consulting a lexicon, he made this observation, which must be an even more remarkable understatement now than when it was written 20 years ago, “ The number of business men in the United States who could do that sort of thing is extremely limited.” Then Brother H ardy, himself a scholar in the best sense, paid this final tribute, “The great contribution made by M r. Robb has been to show that one can be a practical business man and a scholar, too, and that large service is making it easier for other educated persons to obtain a hearing in the business world.”

Incidentally, when more than 600 of Brother Robb’s friends and admirers assembed at the H otel Astor in New York to honor him through the medium of a testimonial dinner, the

WILLIS

O.

ROBB

35

principal speaker was Otho E. Lane, M iami ’01, who talked to us last night and who has been for many years one of the out­ standing figures of the fire insurance industry. It was Brother Lane’s happy privilege on that occasion to present a substantial gift to Brother Robb by way of expressing the gratitude and the affection of his associates.

Brother Robb was both the product and the exemplar of that great Christian and classical tradition which moulded and in­ formed the first half century and more of our fraternity history.

H is mind was indeed a kingdom in which he had found “ the truest wealth and acknowledged mastery,” as well as that thorough cultivation which enables a man to “see life steadily and see it whole.” But let Brother Robb himself tell you about the intellectual fare on which he was nourished as an under­ graduate. H e said, in his notable address, “The Gentle Art of Being a Beta” : “ Beta T h e ta Pi, like all the other great college fraternities, was founded and grew to greatness am ong college students who were pur­ suing non-elective, general-culture courses. T h e y w ere not m en who w ent to college because their fathers had money and had heard that that was the thing for the sons of such fathers to do; nor men who, after they got there, w ere able to select a com plement of ‘cinch courses’ that would let them get a degree w ithout having tw o m ental operations in the whole four years. M oreover, they could not, for tw o or three of those four years specialize exclusively in some branch of gas-plumbing or house-carpentry. N o; they all took— they all had to take— at least a glance, and generally a pretty steady glance, at a wide range of educa­ tional topics: the languages, the literatures and the histories of both the ancient and the m odern w orld, m athem atics and natural sciences, philosophy and political economy. T h e y did not often, during their college days, attain real proficiency in any of these, though m any of them then made a choice of special subjects of which later they showed great mastery. B ut they did pretty generally acquire a sane and just outlook over life as a whole, fit themselves for dwelling happily and w orking usefully am ong cultivated people, and eventually contributed immensely to raise the average level of their several communities, both materially and personally.”

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I am sure that house-carpentry and gas plumbing have their function, but they do not, at least in themselves, produce en­ riched and cultivated minds. And perhaps Robb’s message for us in these days when the classics certainly have ceased to be emphasized is that the great sages still welcome the seeker after truth, whether his search be made upon a college campus or in later life.

In any event, we know that Brother Robb believed that the ideal Beta should combine both some progress in broad, general, all-around culture and a genius for friendship. H e said, for example, in the address which I have just quoted: “ . . . the best Beta you ever knew, the best exemplar of the art I am trying to expound to you, had an unusual capacity, natural or acquired, most probably both, for friendship. He neither shunned his fellows nor sought a shallow popularity, was neither a hedge-hog nor a trick ele­ phant. T h o reau w ouldn’t have made a good Beta, nor D ante, nor John the Baptist,— all excellent men in their way. Adaptability to the society of one’s fellows is indispensable in the fraternity m an. . . . T o be a Beta brother a m an m ust first be a Beta spirit. T h e finest lifelong friendships between m en that I have either shared or seen have most of them been Beta friendships. But the m aterial has been more im portant, more con­ trolling, than the opportunity, in every such case. A nd to secure the enduring possession of a few such friendships is w orth the taking of great pains at the outset. As you grow old, and yet keep up the steady grind at the job life has found for you, or thrust upon you, the recollec­ tion of a few— even a very few— real friends scattered here and there in the w orld, who date back to college days, and whom you know to be unchanged and unchangeable by separation, or silence, or the flight of time, is like a polar traveler’s recollection of the treasure and supplies he has buried in secret places against the perils of the return journey. W hen we choose our fraternity friends in undergraduate days we are selecting, in part at least, the perm anent furnishings of our earthly dwellingplace. . . .

Such are the friendships Newt and H erb Smith talked about last night. In that connection let me say just this: By reason of that one friendship H erb mentioned, I have incurred a debt to Beta Theta Pi which I can never hope to pay; no, not “in any

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coin, of any realm, on any reckoning day.” But to return to Brother Robb: “ T h e gentle a rt of being a Beta, then, in college and in life, to one’s self and to one’s Beta brethren,” he said, “ seems to me largely to con­ sist in range of taste and strength of sympathy— breadth of culture and depth of affection. In that likeness let us mold our chapters, . . . that the chapters in their tu rn may make of us the fraternity such men will de­ serve to have— “ ‘T h e goodliest fellowship of famous knights W hereof this w orld holds record.’ ”

I was first inducted into the gentle cult of W illis O. Robb 33 years ago, as a young and impressionable sophomore at the University of Idaho. I was the chapter’s corresponding secretary and D r. Shepardson sent me a set of what were then called the “ Beta Leaflets,” consisting in large part of Robb’s vivid con­ tributions* to the literature of the fraternity. Of course I was enthralled and I immediately advanced W illis O. Robb to a position of parity with the quite sacrosanct quartet who then composed my favorite authors: M ark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kipling and Joseph Conrad.

I was our rushing chairman that fall and I proceeded to mem­ orize, and thereafter to quote throatily to selected youth from our sage-brush country, Robb’s magnificent delineation of the Beta spirit which President H erb Smith has reproduced in Son of the Stars and with which you are all familiar. May I recall only a few of those shining sentences: “ I do not in the least know how it happened, nor why it persisted after it happened, but a long time ago there came into Beta T h e ta Pi a fra­ ternity spirit th at was, and is, and apparently will continue to be, unique. . . . W h eth er young or old, in college or out, from the small school or the great university, we are conscious of a heritage of genuine fraternalism that has not been vouchsafed in like measure— I say it deliberately— to any other of the great college fraternities. A nd we can­ not doubt that in this, as in other respects, our ‘future will copy fair our past,’ and that in the w orld of 50 years from now , as in that of 50 * N o w reproduced in Beta Lore and Beta L ife, to which the reader is directed.

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T r u s te e s o f the F r a t e r n i t y 1905-06: ( F r o n t r o w , le f t to r i g h t ) J a m e s L. G a v i n , D eP au w 1896, g e n e ra l t r e a s u r e r ; W i l l i s O. R o b b , W ooster 1881, p re s id e n t; F r a n c is H . S isson , K n o x 1892, g e n e r a l se c re ta ry ; ( r e a r r o w ) R o b e r t H . T h o m p s o n , M innesota 1895; J o h n C a l v i n H a n n a , W ooster 1881; S t a n l e y E. G u n n i s o n , St. Lawrence 1899.

years ago— as in th at that lies around us today— the first m ark of a Beta will be his Beta spirit.”

Perhaps a dozen years later, after I had come on to New York, I asked Brother Robb about that particular statement.

H e smiled gently, almost fleetingly, and replied, “ I am older now and perhaps I would not put the matter in just that same way. But I still believe that we have a sound case. Don’t you?”

You can imagine the fervor of my concurrence.

In 1884, when Brother Robb was editor of our Magazine, he wrote an appealing short story called “ Grif’s Candidate,” which, according to W illiam Raimond Baird, was the first fic­ tion dealing with a college fraternity subject ever to be pub­ lished. The older men here present all remember it, I am sure, but perhaps our undergraduate brethren may be told that the

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story turns upon the election to an imagined Beta chapter of one Karl W elling, a diffident and outwardly unresponsive boy whose sterling qualities were at first appreciated only by his sponsor and classmate, Grif Ormsby. W hen the chapter made its in­ vestigation, however, the excellencies which Grif had seen in his candidate came to be properly evaluated and Karl was pledged and initiated. Shortly after he had received his badge, Karl found himself participating in one of those tenderly inti­ mate and revealing conversations which must be counted among the great joys of fraternity life. And now let me quote Brother Robb once more: “ I t was such a talk as, perhaps, only college men have. I t moved from one topic to another, but slowly, gravely, and half in reverie. W h a t struck K arl at once was that the speakers seemed almost to bare their very souls to each other; the odd fancies and vagaries, the half-form ed thoughts and shadows of thoughts; the deep inw ard musings that all m en, especially all young m en, have, and yet that m any a m an supposes none but himself to know anything about— all these were spoken out quite freely and simply, as though it were a m atter of course that they should be. “ Did it m ean this then— the fraternity bond he had entered into? Did it mean th at m en came to know each other, not m erely in their ordinary traits of character, but in the very inmost recesses of their souls, w here only their dream s abide? H e had not supposed such things could be. I t was as if a new w orld had suddenly been unveiled in void m id-air. L it­ tle by little he felt himself draw n into the current of the talk, timidly at first, as a voyager on an unknow n stream , but with more and m ore of freedom and earnestness as the new , strange force took possession of him. A nd w hen he w ent to his room at last he knew right well that his real entrance into fraternity life had been made. M en who have had one such talk together will never be strange to each other again in all the w orld.”

Do you wonder, Brother Chairman, that W illis O. Robb became one of my revered authors? You will understand, I think, what George Chandler meant when he said to me, more than 20 years ago, that Robb’s contributions to the literature of Beta Theta Pi contain some of the rarest, the most exquisite

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English written since Robert Louis Stevenson laid down his pen.

H ere at the Grand H otel two years ago, I talked about John Reily Knox and I read at length from Brother Robb’s deeply and tenderly eloquent tribute to the first of all the Betas, which Brother Lane also quoted to us last night. Because I love both the sentiment and the cadences of that tribute and because it speaks of Robb as truly as it speaks of Knox, perhaps I may be permitted to offer you its final paragraph, even at the risk of repetition. “ W hile the fraternity lives he will live,” said Brother Robb, “live in our grateful thoughts and reverent observances, his name inwoven in our traditions and embedded in our records. W h at securer fame, w hat w orthier im m ortality than this? T ru ly the modest, kindly man we have so long called ‘F ath er K nox’ m ight have said in his heart, in the very words of Horace, ‘I have reared me a m onum ent more enduring than bronze, loftier than the royal height of pyramids.’ W ith such a m onu­ m ent w hat other may compare? T h e marble arch beside the Seine, the stately shaft that rises in T ra fa lg a r Square, the mighty tomb that crowns yon height above the Hudson? N ay; none of these, for they are of the stuff that dream s are made of. T h e earth hath bubbles, as the w ater hath, and these are of them. But while the rock and planet crum ble, the ether in which they swim abides: abides, and transmits forever the impulses it has received. M aterial records vanish away, but th at which the finger of love hath w ritten shall never fade. “ ‘O u r echoes roll from soul to soul, A nd grow forever and forever.’ ” “ Such be thy immorality, and such thy m onum ent, O gentle spirit parted from us! A nd may we, its priests and guardians, keep worthily and well this temple of thy founding! ”

Brother Robb was a master of beautifully chiseled prose, but he also had poetic gifts, as you might well imagine, and I am constrained to offer you a single example of his verse. As many of you will remember, one of the outstanding heroes of the first W orld W ar was M ajor General Omar Bundy, DePauw 1881, whom Robb had known intimately when they both were under­ graduates. Bundy’s successful counterattack in the latter phases of the second Battle of the Marne, delivered against the advice

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of French strategists, was a decisive American victory and many historians believe that it may have marked the beginning of the German collapse. H ere is the story as Brother Robb told it: “ W here Bundy held the Paris Road, T h e morning: battle flamed and flowed.

‘T h e M arne is passed; the line is b e n t!

Heaven speed our succor, heaven-sent! ’ A nd Europe gazed with eyes that glowed W h ere Bundy held the Paris Road.

T h e patient Frenchm an counseled, ‘W ait, T h e H un but hurries to his fate, I t was but now the battle broke— T o m o rro w — and the counterstroke!’

B ut pale the star of patience showed, W h ere Bundy held the Paris Road.

Said Bundy to the H igh C om m and: ‘None of our men would understand!

T h e Stars and Stripes are driven back?

Impossible! W e shall a ttack !’

A nd forw ard line on line they strode, W h ere Bundy held the Paris Road.

A nd when night brought the long day’s end, T h e dead that filled the river-bend W ere G erm an dead. A nd Europe knew!

A nd freedom all her bugles blew.

A nd once m ore F rench the river flowed W h ere Bundy held the Paris Road! ”

Perhaps that is not great poetry, but it does ring with martial music and I would have you recall that Robb was 59 at the time, which should help to correct what I am afraid is the general impression that old gentlemen in their 50’s cannot possibly write acceptable verse. W ith his clarity of mind and warmth of heart, Brother Robb would certainly have done his utmost to make sure that river bends are never again filled with the young dead, whether German, or Russian, or American. H e would have

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understood, I do most earnestly believe, that war cannot be banished from the earth until international anarchy has been replaced by world order, but that is an issue which I cannot properly explore this evening, strong though my feelings are upon that subject.

Just the other day, M ajor Chandler told me this story about Brother Robb’s influence on Riley Harris Allen, a founder of our University of Washington chapter, who, as editor of the H onolulu Star-Bulletiny wields one of the most trenchant pens in American journalism. The M ajor said that, some years ago, he had asked Brother Allen what had been primarily responsible for the vigor and lucidity of his editorial style and that the instant and unequivocal reply had been, “The study of the Greek classics and of Willis O. Robb’s contributions to the Beta Magazine.” I do hope, Brother Chandler, that you were able to repeat that anecdote to Brother Robb before he was called to the stars. H e would have been greatly pleased to have this further evidence of how far “ the links of our bond fraternal run.”

Another impression of Brother Robb has just come to me in a letter from W alter L. Flory, Denison ’03, a former trustee of the Baird Fund and a devoted Beta who will be greatly missed here at Mackinac. After referring to the great leaders who, as he says, “ have made our fraternity the soul-force that she is in the lives of the boys, young and old, who drink deeply at her springs,” he writes: “ I think it was at the Put-in-Bay Conven­ tion in 1899— my first— that I met Robb. The immediate and lasting impression was that he was the personification of all my ideals of Beta Theta Pi. I never ceased to think of him in that way.” “ Blessed is the man,” wrote an obscure journalist after his first meeting with M ark Twain, “who finds no disillusion when he is brought face to face with a revered writer.” If that be true, I have been greatly favored, because Willis O. Robb is a fav­ orite author whom I was privileged to meet and I experienced no disillusionment whatever. On the contrary, when I had the

W ILLIS

J . H a r o l d R y a n , Yale ’08.

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W a l t e r L . F l o r y , Denison ’ 13.

great pleasure of serving with Brother Robb in 1927 and 1928 on a committee which recodified the laws of the fraternity, I discovered in him qualities of urbanity and charm and high intelligence and humor-graced serenity which instantly won my admiring devotion. Among all the Betas I have ever met, he still seems to me the most worthy of conscious and deliberate emulation. In addition to his other gifts, he had developed in an amazing degree that talent for using the right word in the right place which de Maupassant called “ le mot juste.” L et me offer a single personal example: I had just been married at the time and I said one day in Brother Robb’s presence that my wife had gone home to Toronto. H e corrected me gently: “ I don’t think you mean that, A. J. You mean that H artw ell has gone to visit her parents. H e r home is with you!”

W illis O. Robb was one of the great builders of Beta Theta Pi, the peer of John I. Covington, John W . H erron, Olin R. Brouse, M ajor Willys C. Ransom and E. Bruce Chandler, who brought the fraternity through those days of dark discourage­

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ment which followed the Civil W ar, as well as the warmly admired contemporary and co-worker of J. Calvin Hanna, Eugene Wambaugh, William Raimond Baird and those other indefatigable leaders of the final two decades of the last century and the first decade of our own who made Beta Theta Pi a great and powerful national fraternity. Brother Robb was for three years editor of our Magazine, served both on the old Board of Directors and the more modern Board of Trustees and later brought distinction to the office of President of the fraternity.

H e was one of the organizers of the National Interfraternity conference and was Beta Theta Pi’s delegate at every meeting of the conference until his death in 1933.

The excerpts which I have offered you from some of his brilliant addresses will indicate why he was greatly sought after as a speaker at important Beta occasions and I hardly need be saying that his wisdom, his understanding, his encyclopedic knowledge of the history and traditions of Beta Theta Pi made him the adviser par excellence at times of fraternity crisis.

Brother Newton told me only last night that on one occasion the six trustees of the fraternity and five former trustees, in­ cluding Brother Robb, were considering a problem of very real moment and that ten quite distinct opinions developed in the course of a two-hour discussion in which Robb himself had not participated. Then Robb expressed his own view briefly, succintly, with that utter clarity which was so characteristic of him.

After he had spoken, there was literally nothing more to be said. H is ten brethren, whose disparate opinions had seemed irreconcilable, accepted Robb’s solution as a matter of course.

Brother Robb had one period of very real heart-break as a Beta. Just a year or two after he had ceased to be President of the fraternity, his son entered an Eastern institution which I shall not name. Of course young Robb was strongly recom­ mended to the Beta Theta Pi chapter by the District Chief, by all the then national officers and by various prominent alumni to whom it was unthinkable that Willis O. Robb’s son should not be a Beta. Perhaps the pressure was excessive. In any event,

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young Robb afterwards joined another group and his father suffered a wound which might well have destroyed his zeal for the fraternity. T hat Willis O. Robb remained a devoted Beta to his last breath, even in such circumstances, is perhaps the ultimate tribute to his affection for Beta Theta Pi. If Brother Robb had his less amiable characteristics, I was not aware of them. H e possessed the gift of wit and I feel sure that he could use irony and sarcasm with telling effect when the occasion required, but I did not happen ever to hear his voice lifted in criticism or disparagement of any other fraternity leader. H e knew the beauty of shared joy, the deep and warm satisfaction which is inspired by the preferment of a cherished friend. For example, he rejoiced greatly in the distinctions which came to Sisson, Shepardson, Blair, Gavin, George Chandler, Newton, Simpson, Bruce, Baketel, and others whom the frater­ nity honored in his own later years. And he could be lyric in his praise of Baird and Cal Hanna, in particular, among his own contemporaries in the service of the fraternity.

It happened that at the time of Brother Robb’s death in 1933, I was away from New York City. Upon my return, I wrote to Mrs. Robb to offer my sympathy and to attempt to express some measure of my admiration and affection. In Mrs. Robb’s reply there was a single sentence which is etched forever in my mem­ ory. “ Save only for his family,” she wrote, “W illis loved the fraternity more than anything else in this life.” Could a sweeter epitaph conceivably have been written for one of the great lovers of Beta Theta Pi? Brother Robb’s last national convention was that of 1928, held at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and he was its outstanding figure, warmly welcomed by his older friends, the object of almost reverent admiration on the part of his younger brethren. There were great names on the convention banquet toast list that year: W illis O. Robb, Ohio Wesleyan 1879; Francis W ayland Shepardson, Denison 1882, Brown 1883; John Allan Blair, Wabash 1893, and also— conspicuous only by reason of its inappropriateness in that distinguished company—

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the name of a then young District Chief, one Priest, Idaho ’18.

It was my privilege to sit next to Brother Robb at the banquet table and my own modest stint had been finished when he rose to speak. His talk was the shortest and yet the most deeply moving in my many years of convention attendance. I recall only vaguely what Shep and Johnny Blair talked about that night and I don’t remember a single phrase of what I attempted to say, but Robb’s brief address was, and is, an imperishable Beta classic. H is health was not good at the time and his voice faltered somewhat, so that he could not be heard throughout the banquet hall, but I was seated at his left hand, and my reverence, my affection, my admiration, for the man were such that, as I listened, the tears coursed down my cheeks, unchecked and un­ ashamed. Perhaps you will understand why as I repeat the polished, cadenced sentences of his peroration on this twentieth anniversary of their speaking: “ T h e re is” he said, “ a famous old engraving called ‘T h e Game of Chess.’ Seated at a chessboard that lies just enough below the line of vision to allow the spectator to see the position of the pieces, Satan and a young man are playing a game that manifestly has for its stake the young m an ’s soul. T h e arch-enem y has just made with one of his black pieces a crow ning move and is leering trium phantly at his opponent.

T h e youth, with a look of profound absorption and perplexity that is only just not despair, has his finger poised for the answering move. T h e artist had consulted experts before he placed the pieces, and year after year skilful chessplayers, who from time to time saw the picture, would shake their heads in pity as their eyes fell on the outspread board. T h e n one day the greatest m aster of them all— Paul M orphy— came and stood before the old picture. H e, too, noted the players and their tell-tale faces and he, too, let his gaze drop to the game. T h e re was a m om ent of fierce concentration and analysis, then his face lighted up in surprise and trium ph and he shouted ‘B ut no! W hite w ins!’ It was true. T h e master player had found in that apparently hopeless position a winning play for white. A nd ever since then spectators have been able to search out in the complex and intense expression on the young player’s face the daw n­ ing perception and choice of the w inning move. No game is lost, least of all the game of life, while youth still plays the white pieces for us.”

1949

T he Warm-Hearted J. Cal Hanna Because, Brother Chairman, a Beta Convention audience is the most responsive I am ever privileged to address, I feel constrained to begin this evening with two truthful tales, actual happenings, which always are so much more effective than merely fabricated humor.

I yield to no man, suh, in my admiration for the beauty as well as the chivalry of our Southland and yet I must confess that an occasional Southern belle combines with her pulchritude a delightful dizziness which defies mere masculine analysis. Such a one was Miss Evangeline Amanda Pettigrew of Atlanta, Ga., who had gone way up North to Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester county, New York, and who, at the end of three weeks, was passionately attached to her newly acquired alma mater. One Friday afternoon in early October, Evangeline affixed herself to the institution’s professor of ancient history and as they proceeded across the campus, she declared, “ D r. Gottsman, I just love the education y’all are givin’ me up here at Sarah Lawrence and I cain’t tell you how crazy I am about your course in ancient history. And you know, D r. Gottsman, your lecture yesterday about the Medes and the Persians just thrilled me right down to my toes. I thought it was meant specially for me, suh. You see, D r. Gottsman, my mother was a M e (a )d e !”

The second of my entirely truthful anecdotes depends for its understanding upon your realization of the fact that when I went to New York some 23 years ago, I came from Boise, Idaho, 47

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where we used to talk about going way down East to Denver.

Anyhow, soon after my arrival in New York, I met several times in the lobby of the old Fraternity Clubs building on Madison avenue a gentleman whose face seemed strangely familiar, so I finally stepped up to him, extended my hand and said, “Priest is my name, pardner. H aven’t I met you out West somewhere?” “ W hy, yes,” he replied, “ perhaps you have. Perhaps you have. I was brought up around Buffalo.”

I killed him, of course. In the New York of that fabulous era, it was not even necessary to dispose of the body.

But I do have a serious purpose in appearing before you, my Beta brethren. I am to make this evening the fourth in a series of talks about our Great Ones, about the men who made Beta Theta Pi a significant and powerful and, in some measure, an unique fraternity.

W hat is the justification for such a series? Love for the fra­ ternity, interest in its sentiment and song and story, respect for its builders, would be enough. But let Thomas Carlyle answer much more impressively. “ Great men,” he says, “ taken up in any way, are profitable company. W e cannot look, however im­ perfectly, upon a great man without gaining something by him.

H e is the living light-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near.”

Be assured that the Beta builders whom we seek to look upon do have characteristics of greatness. Each was the possessor of a fine and sympathetic and discriminating and richly-furbished mind. Each had also a quality that can be described only by one of those words which blatant American advertising has almost succeeded in destroying; each had what W illa Cather calls, “ distinction, that unmistakable thing.”

Perhaps it should be observed in this connotation that there may not be much profit for us in the company of great men unless we look upon them as exemplars; unless we are prepared at least in some degree to follow them. In brief, they are quite incapable of inspiring us unless we are ready to be inspired.

Deeply incised in the arch above the stage of the Children’s

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theatre in Chicago is this admonition: “ You yourselves must set fire to the faggots which you have brought.” Just so! Only the ardent spirit can either give or receive ardor in full communion.

To use familiar Beta language, “The feast is spread, the wine is poured,” yet none but the enkindled of heart ever really “gather ’round the festal board.”

Memorial Portrait of Hanna presented to the Fra­ ternity by Wooster Alumni at 113th General Con­ vention, 1952.

W e have already considered John Reily Knox and Francis Wayland Shepardson and Willis O. Robb and I am going to ask you tonight to think with me about John Calvin Hanna, Wooster 1881— J. Cal, the warmhearted, sweet-spirited teacher, the wise, clear-visioned administrator, to whom “ Beta Theta Pi owes more than to any other one individual, Pater Knox always excepted,” as the fraternity’s historian, M ajor George M. Chandler, wrote ten years ago.

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As those of you well know who are familiar with President G. H erbert Smith’s excellent account in Son of the Stars, John Calvin Hanna, known as Cal or J. Cal to a legion of admiring friends, was born at Brimfield, 111., in 1 855. His ancestors were both Scotch-Irish and Connecticut Yankee and he had the pe­ culiar advantage of being the son of a Presbyterian minister.

H e was graduated at the head of his high school class and then worked for two years in order to obtain the funds which enabled him to enter the College of Wooster in the fall of 1878.

J. Cal was promptly initiated into our old Alpha Lambda chap­ ter, which was lost to Beta Theta Pi in 1913, when Wooster’s then president forced the fraternities from that attractive little campus. Parenthetically, he had been promised $1,000,000 by a wealthy bigot who hated fraternities, but the gentleman passed from this mortal sphere to what must be a singularly bleak sec­ tion of the undiscovered country without leaving Wooster even a worn silver dollar.

J. Cal H anna served his chapter as treasurer, corresponding secretary and president and represented it as a delegate at the Conventions of 1879, 1881 and 1882. H e became a District Chief in 1882 and served in that capacity until the Convention of 1884. H e then was elected General Secretary, at the insistence of Eugene Wambaugh, Ohio Wesleyan 1875, who had ren­ dered conspicuous service to the fraternity as General Secretary.

Wambaugh said that he was finding the Beta work “ too fascinat­ ing” and wished to devote himself primarily to what was to become a brilliant career as a legal scholar and teacher.

J. Cal H anna was only 28 years old when he was elected Gen­ eral Secretary, but he immediately became, and throughout his 15 years as General Secretary and his three years as President of the fraternity, unquestionably remained, the dominating in­ fluence in Beta Theta Pi. Wambaugh had made the General Secretaryship a powerful office and much of H anna’s dominance was the natural by­ product of authority which the fraternity conferred upon him, but his influence was due even more to sheer force of per­

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sonality, to remarkable capacity as an administrator, to a very real genius for sound judgment. In a letter written to me only a few weeks ago, M ajor Chandler said “ Hanna was big-framed, knew no fear, lived each day so he could meet his M aker at sunset. Always clear-headed, he always did the right thing, always found the proper solution— not by design, but by instinct — he couldn’t do anything else.”

E u g e n e W a m b a u g h , Ohio W esleyan 1875, H a rva rd 1876.

Cal H anna became General Secretary when Beta Theta Pi was a chapter-hall fraternity; when members were selected on the basis of intimacy rather than mere acquaintance; when chap­ ter size was largely governed by a discriminating sense of the

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quantum of Beta material on each campus; when we were es­ sentially a middle-western institution, with headquarters in Cincinnati and a requirement that a majority of our directors be residents of Ohio.

W hen H anna’s mantle fell on Francis H . Sisson, to be trans­ ferred by him, in turn, to Francis W . Shepardson, we had be­ come in large measure a chapter-house fraternity, with seasonal rushing and pressure for membership at least large enough to “ run the house” as recognized problems for undergraduates and fraternity administrators alike; with an expanding and strength­ ened chapter roll; with the Cincinnati group in retirement; with a reorganized central government which has not since been changed in substance; and with power and strength and influence and high prestige in every section of the country.

Under H anna’s administration, our program of expansion was deliberately and intelligently planned, rather than haphazard and fortuitous, as it had been in earlier years. J. Cal had re­ markably exact knowledge of the worth and standing of Ameri­ can colleges and universities and, in his planning, he gave care­ ful consideration to all the factors which seem relevant to us these many years later, including geographical location, educa­ tional standards, character of faculty and student body, financial strength and support of Beta alumni in the area. In many in­ stances, having selected a particular college, he used the tech­ nique of colonization through a dispensation to the nearest Beta chapter, the very method to which we have returned to successfully in the past decade.

I first met Brother H anna at the Bigwin Inn Convention of 1925, the last which he attended. H e was then in his 70th year and I recall him as genuinely distinguished in appearance: tall, broad-shouldered, erect, his features cleanly chiseled, his dark, brown eyes piercing and yet almost benign, his close-cropped moustache still untouched with gray, his whole being instinct with that dynamism which only a selected few possess.

I remember particularly that when J. Cal entered a meeting of the general officers and district chiefs, we all stood and gave

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him the ovation which his service to the fraternity so warmly merited, and I recall, too, that he was so deeply touched that he found it difficult to control his emotions. But the talk he gave us that day about the inner meaning of Beta Theta Pi and his address at the convention banquet were the outstanding high­ lights of what I still look upon as a most memorable gathering of our Beta clans.

As some of the more venerable Beta workers here present may recollect, I was then a quite young District Chief and in con­ versation with the great J. Cal, I addressed him as “ M r.

H anna.” After two or three repetitions, he turned his urbane and luminous smile on me and inquired, “A.J., don’t you know my first name?”

I gulped and replied, “ Yessir. I t’s Cal.” H is smile somehow increased in brilliancy and he asked, “Then why don’t you use it?”

Of course Brother H anna was only carrying on a fraternity tradition which has consistently encouraged the use of first names among those who are privileged to serve Beta Theta Pi, but that episode I think I shall not forget; indeed, it remains as vivid now as it was upon a sun-lit afternoon almost a quartercentury ago.

Perhaps the most dramatic single event of Cal H anna’s ad­ ministration was the defeat of a certain group of elder statesmen, including Pater Knox himself, who were determined to resist any change in the then requirement that a majority of the direc­ tors of the fraternity be from the State of Ohio.

L et J. Cal tell the story in his picture of the First F ifty Years of Beta Theta Pi, published at the time of our Centenary celebra­ tion: T h is Ohio requirem ent w orked very well for a while, as long as Robb, Covington, W am baugh, Syl W illiam s and a few others w ere still there, but w hen most all of these m en moved away the board of direc­ tors declined in its active influence in accordance with the vast changes © which w ere coming about in college and fraternity life.

T h e surviving directors w ere fine old-fashioned Betas with little

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knowledge or appreciation of the living problems which confronted the fraternity and especially confronted the general secretary, then the chief executive officer and actual operating head of the fraternity.

Something had to be done to quicken the central governm ent of the fraternity and the case was made acute by the difficulties and differ­ ences of opinion in the Cornell chapter. T h e general secretary decided to do it “ with an axe” and took measures which saved Cornell, a very prom inent fraternity center, to the fraternity and started the great second reorganization of the fraternity’s governm ent, later resulting in the appointm ent of the “ code commission” and the creation of the board of trustees including the general secretary, the general treasurer, the presi­ dent and three other trustees, all to be active in m anaging the affairs of the fraternity.

T h is great change was accomplished only after a dozen years of con­ tinuous efforts and in spite of the two great forces, viz.; first, inertia, which perhaps was the chief obstacle to progress, and second, active hostility which developed into a feeling on the part of w hat was known as the “ Cincinnati group” th at the organization of the executive commit­ tee, H anna. T h o rn b u rg and Jones, was useless, foolish and illegal; which opposition became active at the N iagara Falls convention of 1894 and at the Chicago convention of 1895, at which time the Cincinnati group was completely defeated. T his was followed there and then by the resignation from the board of nearly all the directors, including even John Reily K nox himself, who had no real understanding of the signifi­ cance of his action.

Of course there were heart-burnings and recriminations, but Cal H anna obviously was right in believing that no man, nor any group of men, can ever be indispensable in such an institu­ tion as ours and that the sun of Beta Theta Pi does not both rise and set in the State of Ohio, vastly important though that great Commonwealth was and is in the affairs of the fraternity.

The “code commission” to which Brother Hanna referred was composed of M ajor W yllys C. Ransom, W. A. Hamilton and H anna himself and, as at least the freshman delegates to this convention well know, its revision of the basic law of the fraternity has remained substantially unchanged.

By no means the least of Brother H anna’s fraternity con­

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tributions was his preparation and publication of the Catalogue of 1899, to which he devoted for 11 years most of the spare time which busy men of great generosity always manage to find.

Incidentally, expenses incurred in the preparation of the Cata­ logue as well as in other Beta work, often were paid out of J. Cal’s own pocket. If funds were available, he was reimbursed, but he frequently was not, for I am speaking of a day long prior to the time when the General Treasurer began consistently to report, “All accounts collected, all bills paid.”

I hope that when you return to your chapters you will read or re-read Brother H anna’s First F ifty Years, to which I have already referred. It was written in the summer of 1937, when J. Cal was 80, and it is quite remarkable for range and scope and accuracy. As might have been expected, his account celebrates the virtues of the “ old times,” but also stresses the unchanging spirit of the fraternity, saying, “ It has always remained the same, and that is why it has survived through a hundred years.” And, among other things, J. Cal names 70 wearers of our badge who rendered what he calls “ real service to Beta Theta P i” and he lists each man’s Beta achievements. The story so patently is one which only Cal H anna himself could have written.

Upon his graduation from Wooster, Brother H anna was employed as head of the department of Latin and Greek in the Central high school at Columbus, Ohio, where he served from 1881 to 1898. In the latter year, he moved to Oak Park, 111., to accept the position of principal of the Oak Park-River Forest high school, which became, under his inspiring leadership, one of the outstanding secondary schools in this country.

Like all great teachers, Cal H anna always was able to com­ municate his enthusiasm, his ardor. Latin, for example, was no dry-as-dust language under his instruction, but became vividly alive in all its strength and beauty. M ajor Chandler tells of having passed through one of J. Cal’s classrooms around the turn of the century and he reports that H anna’s students had caught his infectious spirit. On the blackboard was the notice in Latin of the coming election of officers of the Classical club. On one

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wall was a broadside extolling the qualifications for consul of one individual and on the opposite blackboard a differently worded presentation of the candidacy of his rival—all in Latin.

As that rare spirit, Dr. David J. Carlough, Wesleyan 1892, said last October in an address before his own chapter, “ There is a spiritual enzyme in the mind and heart of a consecrated teacher which has power to correct and clarify our turbid human emotions and impulses, making us ‘loyal to the royal’ in our own souls.” And just such a teacher was John Calvin Hanna.

Let me say here parenthetically that it is not without significance that five of the eight presidents of Beta Theta Pi have been teachers at one time or another in their careers and we may well expect to recruit a substantial part of our leadership from that great profession.

In 1914 Brother Hanna was selected as Supervisor of State H igh Schools for Illinois and, as Charles M. Moderwell, Wooster 1889, wrote in 1935, when J. Cal was in his 80th year: H e has held that office with benefit to the high schools of Illinois, re­ tiring recently with great honor to himself. T h e office of Supervisor of High Schools was created by the legislature and he was its first occupant.

His office was pioneer in character, for the w ork was entirely new and the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction had never dealt with high schools before.

F o r six years B rother H anna conducted the office without assistance and officially visited practically all the 875 public high schools in the state, spending a day at each place, inspecting building and equipment, course of study, and the teaching force actually at work. His activities immediately became popular and im portant in the eyes of school people, and his work became widely known. His conception of the office led him to become a supervisor in fact, and not merely an inspector, and much of his time and attention was given to the assistance of the boards of education and in helping young principals and teachers to attain a high standard in their work.

In retirem ent, B rother H anna has the consciousness of a life well spent and a w ork well done. F ew men have been so privileged to in­ fluence the lives of young people and, therefore, the lives of the leaders of his state and nation.

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In presenting this picture of a great Beta leader, I naturally have had recourse to available fraternity literature and I think I should say here that I have drawn particularly upon the remi­ niscences of Charles H . Moderwell, Wooster 18 89, H . W alton Mitchell, Pennsylvania State 1890, W ilbur H . Siebert, Ohio State 1888, and Gurdon G. Black, Washington ( St. Louis) ’01, as well as upon our Historian, M ajor George M . Chandler, whose knowledge of the fraternity is probably more encyclopedic than that of any man who ever wore the Beta badge.

J.

C al H a n n a a n d W i l b u r

H.

Se i b e r t ,

Ohio State 1888.

I think I cannot better give you an understanding of the affection and esteem of his contemporaries than by quoting just a few paragraphs from the tribute paid to Brother H anna just after his death in 1938 by Judge H . W alton Mitchell, himself an ardent lover of Beta Theta Pi: “ Cal H an n a was an outstanding B eta,” said Judge M itchell, “ and he was so characterized to his last day. H e loved young m en, and his life was spent am ong them and for them . He was a teacher well fitted

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for the profession. As a student, his spirit of inquiry led him into wide intellectual pursuits, and his mind was a storehouse filled with the learn­ ings of the arts and sciences. W h a t he once acquired his unfailing m em ­ ory retained. . . . He possessed a natural talent for teaching and im­ parted to those under him a clear and satisfactory understanding of the subject before them. “ T h e re have been few who learned the story of the fraternity more thoroughly than did B rother H anna. He knew John Reily Knox and Samuel T ay lo r M arshall and heard from them the romantic tale of the com ing together of the first group at M iami and the motives and plans which led to the organization of the fraternity. A m ong his intimate as­ sociates were those who carried on the work after the founders had retired from active service. D uring his secretaryship of 15 years and later while a m em ber of the board of trustees and president of the fra­ ternity, he surrounded himself with experienced and tried members as well as those who were advancing in usefulness. He had a remarkable m em ory and could recall the history of the chapters and the members who were active in them during the years. . . . “ D u rin g the incumbency of Brother H anna as general secretary and president m any of the policies which have given the fraternity direction and high repute were established. His convincing argum ents often solved a troublesome question, while his forbearance and patience prevented any hasty conclusion. Those who were associated with him in adm in­ istrative duties have been glad to acclaim him an able and far-seeing leader to whom the fraternity is indebted for safe guidance and the preservation of lofty ideals. “ T h e fraternity has always had strong, devoted men in its official force. Mam/- of these have finished their course, and we of today are in the enjoym ent of the heritage they left. T h e name of John Calvin H an n a will be enrolled high am ong the im m ortal leaders of Beta T h e ta Pi. His learning, his knowledge of men, the wisdom of his advice, the richness of his fellowship, his abounding love for Beta T h e ta Pi, and his abiding faith in the teachings of the M aster are a few of the characteris­ tics that m ark him a brother beloved. . . .”

T hat deeply devoted and clear thinking Beta, W alter L. Flory, Denison ’03, who was a regular convention attendant in

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the latter years of Brother H anna’s ascendancy, had this to say, in a letter written to me only a month ago, about one of J. Cal’s uniquely moulding influences on the fraternity: “ O f all the Betas I have know n who have made profound contribu­ tions to the grow th and substance of Beta X heta Pi, I think J . Cal H anna had the clearest conception of the part which the fraternity could play in co-ordination with the college in giving the student during his college course those qualities which are so essential to the gentle social life. C al H an n a knew th at after the classroom and its professor have given their fullest measure of learning to the student, there still remain m any of the niceties and amenities of civilized society which the college m an m ust appreciate and practice if he is to be in the forefront of the hum an product of our higher schools of learning. Cal realized (w h at many educators ignore) that only an intimate social organization, such as Beta T h e ta Pi, could contribute these things to the m aturing youth.

A t each convention he drove this point home. As a result, I believe Beta T h e ta Pi, more than any other fraternity, consciously and per­ sistently recognizes its obligation to contribute to its members an out­ standing degree of social refinem ent.”

And then just a few sentences from the eloquent pen of my good friend Gurdon G. Black, who has meant so much to his own Washington University chapter all through the years: “ . . . H e was an attractive m an— tall, a little lean, fine looking, a com m anding figure— at first seemingly a little stern. B ut he w asn’t so at all w hen you really knew him— a friendly m an, cultured, schooled in the classics, widely read, a charm ing conversationalist, with a fine play of wit and hum or. H e was chock full of Beta stories and he told them well. He knew the w hy of each event in Beta’s history and he could give its side lights. O f course he could, for during his 15 years as gen­ eral secretary, between conventions he had been Beta T h e ta Pi to most of the active m em bers.”

But I am sure I have said enough to make you realize why M ajor Chandler wrote in 1939: “ Is it any w onder th at Cal H an n a put his m ark on Beta T h e ta Pi or that to those of us who knew him his image will not grow less bright or fade aw ay?”

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I turn now briefly to a contemporary of Cal Hanna’s, a mem­ ber of our Northwestern chapter, who, in the summer of 1 883, immediately after his graduation, was traveling in England.

H e was making the trip from Liverpool up to London by train and, both alone and lonely, he began to meditate upon the deep and heart-warming satisfactions which had been his in Beta Theta Pi. Taking a note-book from his pocket, he began to write new lyrics to a well remembered tune. That college lad of days gone by which memory has made golden was James Taft H at­ field, Northwestern 1883, and the now familiar lines he wrote were these: W e come with heart and voice united, W ith one accord our song we raise, A nd wake the loud and sounding chorus, Singing our fair old Beta’s praise.

H ere, w here we meet in bonds fraternal, H ere, where our sacred memories twine, W e bring with joy our choicest laurels T o lay, fair Beta on thy shrine.

O Beta, thou art ever glorious, T h y bonds are sweet, thy service joy!

T h e brightness of thy radiant image Y ears shall not dim nor time destroy.

N ow , now to thee we bring our praises, W hile we around thy altar bow; O u r loyal trust, our hearts’ devotion, O u r love and faith we pledge thee now.

Yes, my dear brethren of our 110th Convention, there is a power in Beta Theta Pi to lift up ardent spirits, to enkindle hearts. But you, yourselves, even you yourselves, “must set fire to the faggots which you have brought!”

1950

William Raimond Baird Despite what I am sure you will agree is an understandable disinclination to discuss Beta heroes when heroes of a sterner sort are being made each day among the Korean hills, I am to continue this evening a series of talks about our builders, about our Great Ones, about those wearers of an eight-sided Grecian shield whose minds and hearts were given so effectively and generously in the fraternity’s service that we who follow after are constrained to say, “ H ad they not lived, this would not be the Beta Theta Pi we know and cherish.”

The criterion sought to be applied is exacting. W e would celebrate as Beta heroes only those who have made significant and lasting contributions; those who, for its benefit, in its higher interest, have left their mark on the fraternity. John Reily Knox, Francis W ayland Shepardson, W illis O. Robb and John Calvin Hanna, to whom tribute has already been paid, patently belong in that category. So also, quite demonstrably, does W illiam Rai­ mond Baird of our Stevens and Columbia chapters, whom I would like to talk about this evening.

I would be recreant to the faith that is in me, however, if I did not say something more in this connection. It is wholesome to rejoice in great traditions, to commune with shining spirits, to exalt the virtues of a golden age long gone, if we remember that for every living, growing institution, the present and the future are more than the past; if we look forward always to “ a coming golden time.”

I believe that in Beta Theta Pi, as in all things else that par­ take of man’s spirit, “ revelation is not sealed.” The seers and prophets of our yesteryears deserve tribute in fullest measure, 61

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W i l l i a m R a i m o n d B a ir d , Stevens 1878, Colum bia 1882, as a n u n d e r g r a d u a te a n d in la t e r life.

but the fraternity has by no means ceased to produce leaders of heroic stature. Perhaps what I am trying to say is this: that the Beta spirit speaks just as lucidly and eloquently today through a George Chandler, a Clarence Newton, a Gordon Smyth, a G. H erbert Smith, as it spoke through the towering figures of our first century. W e do have a great heritage, but we must enrich that heritage as we transmit it and I am convinced that the leaders of this generation are measuring up to that obligation.

If I were to be permitted one suggestion to the undergradu­ ates among you who are genuinely interested in Beta Theta Pi, it would be this: As to both your chapter and the General Fra­ ternity, identify yourself so thoroughly with the past, partici­ pate so completely in the present, that in later years you will be able honestly to say, paraphrasing Virgil: “All of it I know; part of it I was.” Indeed, there is no other way to serve any organization that merits the dedication of mind and heart.

Through all of its 111 years, Beta Theta Pi has had no more

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effective or more devoted servant than W illiam Raimond Baird, who is Number 1 0 on the roll of the Stevens chapter and Num ­ ber 1 on the Columbia chapter roll. H e was the editor of our magazine for 24 years and our first significant historian and biographer j he was the president of three conventions and the secretary of five others j he was primarily responsible for the union with Alpha Sigma Chi which made Beta Theta Pi a genuinely national fraternity j his generosity gave the Wesleyan chapter its attractive home and made possible the endowment which we know as the Founders Fund 3 he was a pioneer in the development of decent relationships between college fraternities and, as the editor of Baird's Manualy he unquestionably con­ tributed more than any other single person towards the estab­ lishment of college fraternities as recognized and respected institutions.

In the summer of 1876, when W illiam Raimond Baird was only 18 and had just completed his sophomore year at Stevens Institute, he was a guest at the Indianapolis home of General John Coburn, the founder of our Wabash chapter. As W illis O. Robb told me the story, Baird not only heard General Coburn defend college fraternities with great cogency and eloquence, but also had been stirred by the general’s declaration that he would match the first one hundred graduates of Wabash or DePauw (then Indiana Asbury) or Hanover or Ohio Wesleyan or Miami against any one hundred consecutive names on the alumni rolls of H arvard or Yale or Columbia or any other East­ ern institution. Baird learned at that time that the graduates of those small Ohio and Indiana colleges had become the leaders and builders of the West and of America and he also learned that Betas were outstanding among them. This was Baird’s first contact with the facts, the impressive, pulse-quickening facts, as to Beta Theta Pi’s standing in the Greek letter world and he returned to Stevens determined to become a Beta.

M ajor Chandler is my authority for the statement that Baird had carried Alpha Sigma Chi as far as such a new group could go and that he deliberately planned to take it into the organiza­

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tion best fitted to absorb it, which meant one of the six “Ohio Valley” fraternities. Sigma Chi was the logical choice by reason of the similarity of names, but that excellent fraternity had not then attained its present strength in comparison with its rivals, so Baird deliberately counted Sigma Chi out. H e also eliminated Delta Tau Delta, which already had a chapter at Stevens, and began a cold-blooded analysis of, and correspondence with, Beta Theta Pi, Phi Delta Theta, Phi Gamma Delta and Phi Kappa Psi. Baird told M ajor Chandler that he found Beta Theta Pi the best in personnel, age, chapter roll and reputation and that it also offered him the least encouragement. Therefore, already having a strong predilection toward us because of his Indian­ apolis experience at the home of General Coburn, Baird selected Beta Theta Pi. You undergraduate delegates may be interested in reflecting that Baird had become the dominant figure in Alpha Sigma Chi by the time he received his Stevens degree at the ripe old age of 20 and that he was barely 21 when he brought that fraternity into Beta Theta Pi. The year was 1 879, and, in that same year, Baird published a small volume, entitled American College Fra­ ternitiesy which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify information about the college secret society system.

Baird had become aware of the need for such data as an under­ graduate and, with characteristic vigor, undertook the task im­ mediately. Furthermore, despite what must have been manifold distractions, he promptly carried it to completion.

W hat a remarkable young man he must have been! H e had the engineer’s passion for factual accuracy; he possessed a fine, incisive mind; he had an astonishing memory; and his tireless energy, his dynamic personality, enabled him either to drive through obstacles or to brush them aside. Baird brought some­ thing new to Beta Theta Pi. Most of our early workers had been reared in the classics. They read Latin and Greek and were largely teachers or professional men. Karl Fischer thinks, and I am inclined to agree with him, that Baird’s positiveness and vigor were even resented at first.

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Dr. Shepardson tells in Beta Lore that Baird had written him only a few weeks before his death to announce with great glee that he had found, among old letters he was then editing for the fraternity, one from Shep which observed, “ Baird would not know anything about that because he does not know Greek and he is not very well educated.” Shep wrote that his fling was that of one schooled in a classical college at a friend who had been trained as an engineer, but Shep added that he soon discovered that with Baird the process of education did not cease until the end came; that Baird, through his wide reading, extensive travel and deep reflection, had made himself a highly cultured man whose wide-ranging mind absorbed and analyzed knowledge after a fashion which his contemporaries found amazing.

Soon after Baird entered Beta Theta Pi, General Secretary Eugene Wambaugh made him District Chief of what was then the Eastern District. I have it from M ajor Chandler, whose information came from Wambaugh, that Baird did an excellent job and ran things with what was both a strong and a high hand.

However, when Wambaugh asked Baird to do certain things in his district and Baird replied that it was his district and he was the District Chief, Wambaugh immediately rejoined that he (W ambaugh) was General Secretary of Beta Theta Pi, that Baird was Chief Assistant Secretary for the Eastern District and that, if Baird did not do what Wambaugh asked, Wambaugh would take him right out of his district at once. In brief, Baird had dominated Alpha Sigma Chi, but he encountered some equally strong and positive personalities when he entered Beta Theta Pi. But now let me give you a glimpse of Baird as he appeared to an impressionable Beta youth some 20 years after the W am ­ baugh episode. I am quoting from a letter written to me just a few weeks ago by Gurdon G. Black, Washington ( St. Louis) ’01. “ I still rem em ber the thrill that came to a young Beta with very little knowledge of the fraternity w hen I picked up the telephone in the old Alpha Iota chapter rooms one night in 1903 and heard a voice saying,

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‘T h is is Baird, W illiam Raim ond Baird. I am at the P lanter’s hotel for the night and I ’d like to meet some of the W ashington Betas.’ He was in St. Louis in connection with a patent case on which he was w ork­ ing- Jack R oth, later a District Chief, and I w ent up to Baird’s room a little after eight o’clock and stayed there until two or three in the m orn­ ing— answ ering many questions at first, listening to stories of the Betas, leaders, chapters and active men and alumni, to plans for the future, w hat we should be doing nationally and w hat we should be doing in St. Louis. W e said little but sat there in open-eyed w onder at the wealth of fraternity inform ation he poured in on us. “ I rem em ber particularly the eyes that glistened as he talked, that seemed to bore right into you as he w arm ed to his subject. He was about five feet nine inches tall, I would say, with thinning dark hair, a dark reddish black Van Dyke beard, and a ruddy complexion. He seemed just a little on the heavy side in build; impressed you as brimming over with nervous energy. A nd then there were those piercing brilliant dark eyes. H e wore nose glasses, which he took off from time to time to emphasize some story or statem ent. “ W e were altogether charm ed by him— fascinated— there was little chance for us to say anything. H e talked very rapidly, the words seeming to pour from his lips, w ithout hesitation of any kind. He shocked us at times with his candor as he told of opportunities the fraternity had missed and of mistakes he didn’t w ant made again. “ H e struck me as much of a fraternity iconoclast. Action and results w ere w hat he w anted, the standards by which he seemed to judge. But above all else, he was free from hesitation. He would be ‘up and doing.’

A nd now and then he would stop and say ‘Now this is w hat you can do.y Indeed, in an equal space of time, never since have I received so much Beta history, instruction, or advice. Apparently there was no sentiment about him. “ Probably he knew Beta better than any Beta of his tim e; indeed more about other fraternities too than most of their leaders did. Based on facts, his com m ents were ruthless, for he was never a straddler. A t a convention during a debate on granting a Beta charter to a group in a largely technical school which was opposed by speakers from chapters in the classical colleges, he characterized the non-technical groups as preferring ‘a departm ent store job lot of literary ju n k ’ and I remember how W illis Robb was doubled with laughter. “ He was splendid company at any time, stimulating as you can

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imagine, and a leader in any group he was in. His interests and in­ form ation were not confined to Beta and fraternity subjects. T h e re was hardly anything about which he did not have some information and which he could not discuss entertainingly. B ut such discussion was not sentim ental; he dealt with facts. A nd w hen something w orthwhile was suggested, his leading question seemed to be, ‘W h y don’t you do itr ’ or ‘W h y don’t w e do it? ’ “ A fter one of the N iagara Falls conventions, I was one of a group m aking a trip by boat to T o ro n to . W illis O . Robb was the center and Baird’s nam e came up. Robb said, ‘Baird always amazes me with the am ount of inform ation he has at his com m and. His is an encyclopedic, card-index mind. W h en any subject is under discussion you feel you almost see him m entally thum bing the cards and then coming up with the answ er, just as positively w hen absolutely w rong as w hen altogether righ t.’ A nd most of the time he was right. “ H e was always an inspiration to me. H e was such an enthusiast and such a w orker. A nd after all these years, I still seem to see those snapping brilliant eyes, so characteristic of the m an .”

Incidentally, our Idaho chapter’s delegate to the 1916 con­ vention, which was the last that Baird attended, came home chiefly impressed by the searching, penetrating black eyes of W illiam Raimond Baird and the rare oratorical gifts of the dele­ gate from Texas, a youngster named Charles I. Francis, who was the principal speaker at a convention banquet held 33 years later, at the Colorado hotel, Glenwood Springs, Colo., in Sep­ tember, 1949.

Early this summer Karl Fischer let me have the privilege of seeing a letter written by Baird on September 25, 1880, which provides a revealing glimpse of what young Baird must have been like. H e was assisting in the preparation of the Beta Cata­ logue of 1881 and, in what is only a two-page letter, he asks questions about 17 individuals and urges his Beta correspondent to make further inquires and to enlist his own friends in the task of adding links to the chain of information Baird was as­ sembling. Baird begins his letter by saying, “ I once had a girl friend, who, like Pope’s interrogation point, was always asking questions. I used to call her ‘Little Miss Question M ark.’ ” Then

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Baird demands the answers to a dozen questions of his own and he closes with this sentence: “ I am nearly dead with fatigue; have been busy for a week nearly every night clear through.”

Willis O. Robb once told me that Baird had read every deci­ sion handed down by the United States Supreme Court up to the time of his death. Apparently he had undertaken that monu­ mental task because he wished to obtain a grasp of American law as a whole, even though his own quite exacting specialty was patent law. For the benefit of the non-lawyers among you, let me say that through 1916, which was the year before Brother Baird died, the United States Supreme Court had entered more than 15,000 decisions, covering approximately 144,000 pages in the Official Reporter. There could hardly be more startling evi­ dence of Baird’s unflagging industry and also, be it said, of his ability to read quick and retentively.

In preparation for this evening’s discussion, I talked or cor­ responded about Brother Baird with such living fountains of Beta lore as George M . Chandler, Clarence L. Newton, John R. Simpson, Gurdon G. Black, W alter L. Flory, J. H arold Ryan, Gordon S. Smyth, Karl W . Fischer and others and I am in­ debted to them for a number of constructive ideas and sug­ gestions.

Jack Ryan told me here at the convention only yesterday that, on the special train en route to our 1915 convention, some men­ tion was made of hominy and Baird proceeded to deliver a dis­ sertation on the various kinds of hominy and its manufacture and processing which might have come directly from an encylopedia. Jack also remembers particularly Baird’s passion for facts, his ability to get things done and his frequent use of that peremp­ tory inquiry, “W hy don’t you do it?”

I also read anything I could find about Baird in the published literature of the fraternity and I was struck, as you all would have been, not only by his manifold contributions to Beta Theta Pi, but also by his quite unique position in the college fraternity community.

Perhaps the finest tribute paid at the time of Brother Baird’s

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death by any admirer outside the Beta circle came from the eloquent pen of George Banta, Sr., an outstanding figure in the history of Phi Delta Theta and for many years a leader in the National Inter fraternity Conference. Let me quote just a few sentences from M r. Banta’s statement: “ In the death of W illiam Raim ond Baird the whole group of fra­ ternity m en of the U nited States has m et a loss that is not soon to be repaired. H e was a m an who saw the fraternity as it is— saw its fault, and its strength. He was big, for he could mercilessly reprove the fault; he was wise, for he strove to repair it; he was kind, for he loved the boys even w hen he reproved or admonished. O f course we all think that he made a mistake in his judgm ents sometimes, but one could always say to W illiam Raim ond Baird th at he was w rong, and meet always his smile, and not the frow n of a small nature. I think one of the things that kept the friendship of M r. Baird and myself w arm was the fact that we often disagreed as to things and ways and means. T h e re are few people with w hom you can disagree and come off unscarred or u n ­ scarring, but M r. Baird was one such m an. “ W e Greeks have lost a big m an from our group. I feel that we have lost the biggest m an we have had in his relation to our own cult. . . . . . W h en he began his labors of research and publicity four decades ago, the fraternity system was almost formless, w ithout coherence, and made no impression of value upon the outside w orld. T h e w ork which he did and which he so faithfully continued to do for so m any years, raised the fraternity to the dignity and rank of an Establishm ent.”

The tributes to Brother Baird from Beta hearts were many and warm and I would like to quote from a number of them, but I am contenting myself with one, a compassionate and luminous analysis of Baird’s qualities written by that rare soul, Willis O. Robb, whose gracious prose never has been surpassed, and rarely equalled, in all the literature of the fraternity. Said Brother Robb: “ T o me as to most Betas, and especially to most younger Betas of his generation, the extraordinary kinds and quantities of fraternity know l­ edge possessed by Baird, at a time w hen there were almost no other fraternity students in the country, appeared to be something almost u n ­ canny, and I feel very sure there was a more or less unacknowledged

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tradition am ong us that no m an who had so delved into the facts of Beta T h e ta Pi could also be or hope to become saturated with its sfirit to the same degree that had already for a long time marked the really typical Betas of our personal and fraternity knowledge. T h a t was a tra ­ dition which died rather more slowly, as it now seems to me, than could have been expected, in view of the steady contributions Baird continued to make to all departm ents of our fraternity literature, not only to its chronological and biographical sections. I t is quite true that Baird had the instinctive contem pt of a m an of knowledge for the kinds of en­ thusiasm that are based upon a practically total lack of knowledge, but for the enthusiasm underlaid by real enlightenm ent he had from the first an abiding sympathy and came more and more to live in its spirit.

T o one who m et him and began gradually to make his real acquaintance, his m ind seemed at first to be equipped with a large num ber of most disconcerting and astonishing tentacles, but it invariably proved itself to be, nevertheless, a thoroughly hum an and fraternal mind, large and rich, combining in an unusual degree the ordinarily unmixable elements of zeal and knowledge. . . . His figure looms very large in my appraisement of the things of Beta T h e ta P i.”

W hen D r. Shepardson was called to the stars in 1937, the out­ pourings of grief and respect and affection were astonishingly like those occasioned by the death of Brother Baird in 1917.

Each had been the editor of the article on college fraternities in the Encyclopaedia Britannica; each had been looked upon as the outstanding authority on the college fraternity system; each had been the foremost Greek of his time. Other fraternities have produced outstanding leaders, but I doubt that any such recogni­ tion of unquestioned primacy in the Greek letter world ever has been accorded to two members of the same fraternity. And I do not intend in the least to be chauvinistic when I say that this seems to me to be a significant commentary on the quality of the leadership of Beta Theta Pi over the years.

As Brother Shepardson has written, no one can estimate the worth to Beta Theta Pi of Baird’s service as editor of our maga­ zine for nearly a quarter of a century, but, in addition to that in­ valuable work, he somehow found time to prepare a vast amount of literary material for the fraternity.

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In 1894, he published, under the title Fraternity Studies, a short history of the fraternity based upon articles which had appeared from time to time in the magazine and, in 1907, a thorough revision of this material appeared as the Handbook of Beta Theta Pi. In 1914, he edited the volume of biographical sketches of prominent members of the fraternity entitled Betas of Achievement, presenting a quite remarkable record of leader­ ship which finds current reflection in Editor Thad Byrne’s analy­ sis of W hoys W ho in America for the May issue of the magazine.

Brother Baird realized the difficulties inherent in any such effort to measure “ success,” difficulties of which the publisher of W ho's W ho must be abundantly aware. Indeed, Baird had this to say in the preface to his Betas of Achievement: “ T h e re are doubtless in this book m any errors of inclusion and ex­ clusion. T h e y are unavoidable in a compilation of this kind. F o r instance, we m ight find a m an listed as ‘President and G eneral M anager of the A m algam ated Universal M achinery Com pany’ w hen he actually has desk room in a small office building in a village, and another m an listed as ‘Sixth Vice-President of the G eneral O il Com pany and Local Super­ intendent’ and find that he has charge of a business of millions of dollars a year and has under his jurisdiction an arm y of thousands of m en.

T h e necessary knowledge to make the right selection is not within the grasp of any one person.”

However, Baird does add this sentence, and I think it is equally applicable to T had Byrne’s more recent compilation: “ T h e fraternity is to be congratulated on the m agnificent showing it is enabled to m ake.”

I think I should add here that, according to M ajor Chandler, Baird hoped to live Jong enough to prepare certain other quasi­ official groupings of Betas, perhaps the most interesting of which were to be (1) a list of Betas in State and Federal penitentiaries — fortunately a small and exclusive category— and ( 2 ) a list of Betas who should be in penitentiaries, which Baird believed might well be much more comprehensive.

In 1916, Baird published Forty Years of Fraternity Legisla­ tion, reproducing, with his brilliant editorial notes, the minutes

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of the conventions of the fraternity from 1842 to 1878 and, at the time of his death, he was engaged on the second volume covering the convention minutes from 1879 to 1889, published under the title, A Decade of Fraternity Reconstruction. Still another volume upon which Brother Baird had done much work at the time of his death is the collection of Beta Letters with

G o r d o n S. S m y t h , Pennsylvania ’ 18.

which we are all familiar, a volume containing invaluable fra­ ternity correspondence written prior to 1879, much of it over the signatures of men who subsequently became nationally famous.

H e was a member of the publication committee for the Cata­ logue of 1881, following clue after clue with his characteristic patience until accurate information was obtained about a large number of men who, in the chaotic period following the Civil W ar, had lost all contact with the fraternity. Brother Baird also

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assisted in the preparation of the Catalogue of 1899 and he was the editor of the 1905 Catalogue.

Perhaps it is true that Brother Baird gave less thought to sentiment than some of our other Beta leaders, but he could be deeply touched, nevertheless, as he was when, at the 1915 con­ vention over which he presided, his Beta brethren gave him a beautiful silver vase of pure classic design bearing this inscrip­ tion: “A Beta of Achievement, Fraternity Historian, Fraternity Biographer, Fraternity Editor, Friend, Counsellor, Brother.”

Then, too, there are few passages in all Beta literature more moving or more heart-rending than the brief editorial which Brother Baird wrote for the magazine after the tragic death of his only son, Raimond Duy Baird, in 1911. H e said: “ I have never attem pted to intrude my personal affairs upon the fraternity; but by way of explanation of much delay on my part in correspondence and the loss of some letters sent to me, and some inat­ tention to detail in editing the Beta T h e ta Pi during the publication of the current volume, I wish to say that my only son, R aim ond D uy Baird, W esleyan ’09, was taken seriously ill with pleurisy the last week in O ctober, 1910, and died April 29, 1911. D uring all this period, often for days at a time, I was at his bedside. B ut all that money, skill and love could do were of no avail. N aturally I was unable to do the w ork upon the m agazine with the usual attention to detail. “ M y son was well know n in the fraternity. As a little boy he attended the banquet of the convention of 1893, and he has been with me at m any Beta gatherings and festivities, and since he became a m em ber of the fraternity he has been most active in prom oting its welfare. He was both a son and a brother to me. H e was only 23 years of age, a time when life was full of promise for him. He had a fine mind, a most w in­ ning personality. H e was engaged to be m arried to a beautiful and estimable girl. H e was a loving son, a devoted lover, and a loyal Beta brother. T h e w orld will never w ithout him be the same to his father and m other, his sweetheart, and some of his Beta brothers.”

No; sentiment could hardly be said to be alien to the man who penned those words.

On March 18, 1912, Brother Baird wrote former President

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Clarence L. Newton, saying, among other things, that when his son had died, “ Duy’s main interests were those of his college days and particularly his fraternity and his chapter. Within the limits of his own restricted circumstances he hoped to help the M u Epsilon chapter to better quarters and better things. H e did not have just the boyish enthusiasm, but he had a sincere desire in this direction.” Then Brother Baird went on to suggest to “ Newt” that the Wesleyan chapter house association be reor-

T h e M e m o r i a l C h a p t e r H ouse a t W e s l e y a n U n i v e r s i t y .

ganized and that a new chapter house be built as the Raimond Duy Baird Memorial, to which he and Mrs. Baird would be the the major contributors, “in order that a dear wish of my son’s may be fulfilled and his life may be an example to others.”

These plans were, of course, carried through, to the great satisfaction of the Wesleyan chapter and its alumni and with the warm approval of M r. and Mrs. Baird. I think I should say in this connection that the entire Baird fortune came to Beta Theta Pi after the death of Mrs. Baird, having provided the

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major basis for our Founders Fund. So far as I know, Brother Baird is the only one of the great lovers of Beta Theta Pi who has left substantially his entire estate to the fraternity.

William Raimond Baird signalized our seventy-fifth anni­ versary by writing an unusually vivid and penetrating account of the beginnings and the development of the fraternity. His article appears at pages 58 to 67 of Beta L ife and I commend it to all interested Betas, graduate and undergraduate alike. Let me quote a single paragraph which is just as significant and just as true now as it was when Baird wrote 3 5 years ago: “ T h e fraternity has been rarely fortunate in one respect. I t has never been cursed with the evil of internal politics. Its affairs have been m anaged by high minded m en who have won the adm iration, respect, and thorough confidence of the undergraduate and alum ni members, and although at its conventions the forms of elections have been gone through with, it is a notable fact upon which the fraternity is to be sincerely congratulated, that, with one or two m inor exceptions, offices in Beta T h e ta Pi have always sought the m an, and not the m an the offices.”

Surely the fraternity was fortunate when this brilliant, intense, ardent, many-sided genius, whose name will live as long as the college fraternity system endures, sought out Beta Theta Pi, made it his, and then gave to it unstintingly all the varied re­ sources of a splendid mind and a warmly generous heart. Of course I have stressed Brother Baird’s fraternity activities, but he was expert in many other fields. H e was one of the leading patent lawyers of his time, having served as patent counsel for various maj or industrial enterprises, and having been a director in many corporations. H e was an expert mineralogist, a member of La Societe Mineralogique de France and the Society of Chemical Industry. H e was an authority on stamps and had a large collection. H e was the author of Principles of American Law and of The Study of Languages, this latter interest having been most unusual because linguistic gifts ordinarily are not de­ veloped by men basically trained as engineers.

H um or glints through much of Baird’s writing. Indeed, he

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had such an obviously complete sense of proportion that he must also have had a sense of humor. So intense a person quite cer­ tainly would have worn himself out even before he did if he had not been permitted the legitimate escape which humor affords.

W ithin the past month Newt told me this story which is illustrative of the quality of Baird’s humor: The Beta special

I « BAIRD LIBRARY:# 1 ; OF AMERICAN COLLEGE j IMTERNITY. LITERATURE

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train to our 1915 convention stopped briefly at Colorado Springs and included among the entertainment provided by local Betas was a trip to the top of M t. Manitou for an evening barbecue.

W hen the time came to return, M r. and Mrs. Newton took a seat behind the Bairds on the M t. Manitou cog railway, which literally comes straight down. Two Eastern women seated in front of Baird turned to him, begged his pardon, and then asked what would happen if the brakes did not hold. H e ex­ plained that there was a set of emergency brakes. They then inquired what would happen if those failed to hold and he ex­ plained that there was still another set of brakes. They then wanted to know what would happen if these did not hold and he said, “ Madam, it all depends on the life you’ve led.”

It would be difficult for me to discuss W illiam Raimond Baird without at least some reference to his devoted friend and faithful Achates: James T. Brown, Cornell 1876, who, like Baird, had come into Beta Theta Pi through Alpha Sigma Chi and who, as Keeper of the Rolls, as publisher of the magazine, and as perennial convention secretary, served the fraternity de­ votedly and well. Those who knew him will never forget the throb of pride in Jimmy Brown’s voice when he observed, as I am sure he did in every Beta talk he made, “As my old friend Baird used to say. . . .”

W alter L. Flory, Denison ’03, former Trustee of the Baird Fund, and one of the very real leaders of the Ohio Bar, was as­ sociated with Brother Baird in litigation in the Federal Courts over a period of ten years. W riting to me only a few weeks ago, Brother Flory said: “ W illiam Raim ond Baird in m any respects was a genius. His quick­ ness of perception was astonishing. H e read, not by the w ord but literally by the line. I was consistently am azed by his combination of speed and thoroughness in the analysis of cases and his preparation of briefs and argum ents. I well rem em ber my surprise w hen I received from him a complimentary copy of his textbook on the English and Am erican Com m on L aw designed for the use of law students. I asked him when he found time to compile and write that comprehensive legal treatise.

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He replied: ‘In the evening, after finishing my work on the magazine and an allotm ent of w ork on a new edition of Baird’s M anual of A m eri­ can College F raternities’ In retrospect, I picture him as a brilliant variable star in the fraternity firm am ent.”

Now let me give you an impression from the always trenchant pen of M ajor Chandler, who knew Baird intimately and who remained his firm friend despite frequent and brisk disagree­ ments over the “ whens” and “ wheres” of fraternity expansion: “ B aird’s mind was lightning fast and broad beyond imagining. He could tu rn from an historical discussion of C ardinal W olsey to a de­ tailed chemical consideration on the ‘fixation’ of nitrogen. If he had lived and had turned his mind in another direction, he would have come out with the outstanding atomic energy scientists. O r if he had stayed in the m echanical-electrical field, he would have been equally at home in the design of calculating machines and ‘electrical brains.’ ”

You will recall, I think, that Baird’s favorite expressions, in conversations with his Beta brethren, in discussions which looked to the building up of Beta Theta Pi, were “W hy don’t you do it?” or “W hy don’t we do it?”

Perhaps you also will recall that one of the seven deadly sins of medieval theology was acedia or accidie, the sin of spiritual torpor, of moral and intellectual indifference. That was a vice which we may be sure that William Raimond Baird could not have countenanced even for a moment of his strenuously, in­ tently, busy life, nor can we countenance it now, when the time is out of joint and we, yes, even we, have been born to set it right.

Therefore I say most solemnly to you, my undergraduate brethren, that if you find aught amiss with Beta Theta Pi or with your own chapter; or if you see in your own community, or in the nation, or in our lawless, frightened world, conditions which fairly cry out for correction; if, in a word, aware of the need and the opportunity, you believe that something must be done, then, in the words of the great Baird, “ W hy don’t you do it?”

1951

Francis Hinckley Sisson and George Helgesen Fitch This is the sixth in a series of Convention talks on the out­ standing leaders, the Great Ones, of Beta Theta Pi— a series begun in the hope that it might help to quicken the interest and rekindle the enthusiasm of younger Betas then returning from far places after W orld W ar II. Sadly enough, the series continues in a time of grim international tension. Once again all our ideals, all our higher aspirations, the very existence of the Republic itself, are gravely endangered.

In such a period, is it proper, is it fruitful, to commune with rare spirits who now walk with us no more? Should we reach out our hands to Good Companions from better, gayer years?

Yes, Brother Chairman, yes— if we believe, with W alt W hit­ man, that “ Nothing endures but personal qualities.” Yes, if we are convinced, as I think we must be, that we can live personal lives, that we can cling to inward serenity, even in a maelstrom.

D r. Shepardson liked to tell the story of W arry Warwick, whose vibrant tenor led the sons of Beta Alpha as they marched down Kenyon’s M iddle Path in the 18 8 0’s and whose character­ istic exhortation was, “Pitch her high, boys, pitch her high!”

Perhaps W arry Warwick was thinking only in terms of oc­ taves but Shep had much more in mind. And M atthew Arnold uses almost the same phrase in one of his great sonnets. You will recall the line: “ H ath man no second life?— Pitch this one high.”

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F r a n c is H . S isson , K n o x 1892, H arvard 1893.

The devoted Betas who have been considered in this series have pitched their lives high and they also have been Good Companions for the march along life’s M iddle Path. They have possessed trenchant, questing minds and warm, generous hearts and far-flung interests. Each profoundly respected per­ sonality and God gave to each His good, rich gift of laughter.

I am sure you will agree that we honor ourselves when we seek out their society.

In this pleasant company belong emphatically, it seems to me, the two sons of Knox College and of Xi chapter, Francis

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Hinckley Sisson, Knox 1892, and George Helgesen Fitch, Knox 1897, about whom we are to think together this evening.

As certainly the Freshman delegates here present well know, Francis H . Sisson is the only wearer of our badge who has held all three of the great general offices in Beta Theta Pi. H e served as General Treasurer from 1898 to 1899, as General Secretary from 1899 to 1907, and as President from 1912 to 1918. H e acted both as Convention president and as Convention secretary.

H e wrote the eloquent and moving 1896 Convention poem.

H e was a one-man Beta employment agency throughout his years in New York, as H arry C. France, Wesleyan ’13, and many others have testified, always having been ready, busy though he was, to give time and attention to the problems of younger Betas. Indeed, throughout his whole life, which was brought to its close in 19 33— eight years short of the allotted scriptural span— Frank Sisson was an understanding and de­ voted lover of Beta Theta Pi. D r. Shepardson certainly influenced the fraternity and its membership more deeply than any of the others; W illis O. Robb was probably “ the greatest Beta Beta of them all,” as Clarence L. Newton has often said; and Francis H . Sisson came very close, it seems to me, to being “ the ideal Beta.”

On March 24, 1905, responding to the toast, “ The Ideal Beta,” at a New York banquent, Sis— as he was known to his fraternity intimates— had this to say: “ I am asked to toast the ideal Beta, and I m ight find him as a com­ posite of the gathering before me. In college we should w ant him to be the symmetrically developed m an, who excels in scholarship, shines in society, wins laurels in athletics and stands in all things for sterling m anhood; who makes collectively an aristocracy of breeding, character and intelli­ gence, who carries into the m inutest details of his life the lessons he has learned from his fraternity of love, faith and culture. T h e ideal frater­ nity m an should be both the ideal college m an and the ideal m an of the w orld, who knows not only the arts, the letters and the sciences, but who knows m en, for ruthless history has again and again proven to us that one may be as unlettered as the other side of a tombstone and in

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know ing men have surpassing power. . . . “ T h is fraternity teaches a higher obligation than that to one’s self; it is that to one’s fellow. W h en the Cains of the earth put the question, ‘Am I m y brother’s keeper?’ from the ideal Beta will ring the answer, ‘Yes’ ; and this ideal Beta in thought of noble service from college days through the seventh age will ever seek to make his ideals real, to merge the eternal future with its promise of good to come into the eternal pres­ ent with its assurance of good that is.”

Frank Sisson measured up amazingly to his own criteria. In college, he did excel in scholarship, as his Phi Beta Kappa key attested; he did win laurels in athletics, as a star on Knox foot­ ball and baseball teams, as a center fielder at H arvard who, as one of his friends said, “ could take a line drive off his shoe tops on the dead run, as gracefully as an antelope,” and in later years as an outstanding golfer j he did shine in society, for he was the most influential Knox undergraduate of his college generation; and he did demonstrate, in the course of a brilliant career, both that he possessed a cultivated, richly endowed mind and that he also knew men, and how to deal with them.

Francis H . Sisson was born in Galesburg and received his preparatory education in its public schools and at Knox Academy. H e entered Knox College in 1888 and was largely responsible for the revival of our Xi chapter, which had been established in 1855, but which, largely because of the pressure of anti-fraternity sentiment on the Knox campus, had become inactive in 1874. After his graduation from Knox in 1892, Brother Sisson went on to H arvard, where he obtained a second A.B. degree in 1893, and, at H arvard, he breathed new life into our chapter at that institution, although not even a Sisson could maintain Beta enthusiasm at H arvard for longer than a brief while.

Frank Sisson’s facility of expression led him naturally into journalism and, after several years as a newspaper reporter and educational writer, he became editor of the Galesburg Evening M ail in 1898 and continued in that post until he joined the New York staff of McClure's Magazine in 1903. Let me say paren­

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thetically that, according to M ajor Chandler, Sisson and William Allen W hite, the great Kansas editor, were warm friends and that W hite was outraged when Sis decided to go to New York.

W hite said that there were only two or three country editors in America who were Sisson’s equal and that he belonged in the M iddle West, where he could really lead the people, rather than in that dubious island Mecca called M anhattan.

However, Sis did heed the siren call and, after only a year with McClure’s, he turned to the advertising profession and served as Vice-President and General M anager of a prominent New York advertising agency until 1916, when he became a consultant to the Association of Railway Executives. H e entered the banking field in 1917, his first position having been that of Vice-President of Guaranty Trust Company of New York. His qualities of mind and heart, his/ rare talent for handling men, were such that in 1932, only fifteen years after he joined Guaranty Trust Company, he was elected President of the American Bankers Association, the highest honor to which a banker can aspire in this country, and he was the only man ever chosen for that office whose basic career had not been in the world of finance.

W hen he was called to the stars in September, 1933, shortly after he had completed his term of service as President of the American Bankers Association, the N ew York Times recognized his personal attributes and his stature both in New York and in the national financial community by paying him this editorial tribute: “ T h e m en of the press may proudly claim Francis H . Sisson as one of their order, for he was first and last a newspaper m an in a very true sense. T h a t his w ork in his later years was in the field of banking does not disturb this classification of his activities. His service was that of interpreting the operations in this special field to the public. I t was a unique honor th at though he had not had training as a banker he was chosen President of the Am erican Bankers Association. As such he served with distinction, comprehension, alertness of decision, and withal with charm , for his personality and his speech had a quality which no other w ord could as well define. I t was a happy fortuity that this crow n­

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ing honor came to him as a climax of his career in his last days in the state that gave him birth and his early training— Illinois.”

M any of the brethren present at this convention knew Frank Sisson intimately. Frank M . Lay, Knox 1893, Amherst 1893, our temporary President, was Frank Sisson’s chapter mate and also lived as a member of the Sisson family in Galesburg for two and one-half years j Charles A. Sommers, Minnesota 1 890, who shares with Brother Lay the distinction of having been a Beta for 62 years, was District Chief of old District V III, which included Knox, when Sisson was an undergraduate j our Historian, M ajor George M . Chandler, Michigan 1898, was Sis’s particularly close friend, Beta collaborator and companion for more than thirty years; and former President Clarence L. Newton, Wesleyan ’0 2 , served with Brother Sisson on the Board of Trustees of the fraternity and was also his warm friend. I wish it were feasible for these distinguished brethren to rise and tell you what they have said or written to me in recent weeks. But I think they are willing to permit me to quote them, beginning first with Brother Lay, who said: “ F ra n k Sisson was vitally dynamic in everything he did— in college life and later as a publisher and financier. He was one of those rare fellows who generally got w hat he w ent after. Sisson had a fine personality, was very ambitious, sensitive but not selfish, made many friends and kept them , was deeply enthusiastic and a great mixer, as well as a m agnificent adm inistrator. He was a splendid speaker and debater with anybody on any subject and, not least im portant, he could fight for his rights— his own and those of his friends.”

Brother Sommers told me only this morning that Frank Sisson was an outstanding undergraduate, his qualities of leader­ ship having been abundantly apparent even in his college days.

The first District reunion ever held in the fraternity was or­ ganized by Brother Sommers and it was Sisson who presided over its deliberations. Then M ajor Chandler, to whom I am overwhelmingly indebted for help given in the preparation of this entire series of talks about the Great Ones of our fraternity: “ W h a t a grand m an F ran k Sisson was— orator, debator, Phi Beta

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Kappa, class officer, college editor, glee club, baseball, football, delight­ ful companion, hearty laugh, well inform ed, pleasing smile, sound busi­ ness ability; literally, Sisson had everything! “ Sis was editor and half-ow ner of the Galesburg E vening M ail, one of the good ‘small to w n ’ papers of the country and there was good train service to Chicago. W e did a lot of big league baseball together in those years and he slept m any a week-end in my home. I was in uniform in 1898 and th at was the year M ajo r Ransom and Cal H anna drafted Sis for G eneral T reasu rer of Beta T h e ta Pi and thus began our long and real Beta life together. In 1902, it was the Song Book, for F ran k was a good musician; in 1903, the Ritual, for he had the heart of a poet; in 1912 came our intimate association as members of the Board of Trustees. N ever a m onth w ithout some contact. “ Sisson’s mind was always clear, his reports were always constructive and his plans well m atured. T h e younger men loved him on sight.

Everything he touched he elevated. I t is the obvious tru th to say that Sisson is one of the really all-time Beta greats.”

And now the Beta Bishop of New England, WesJeyan’s and the Fraternity’s own Newt: “ Francis H . Sisson brought to Beta T h e ta Pi grace, beauty and idealism perhaps more than did any other mem ber, and I like to think that these qualities are symbolized in the beautiful cup which he pre­ sented to the fraternity. In his every action, he was a thoroughbred; ‘he had class.’ I t was a pleasure and inspiration to sit on the Board with him, particularly w hen knotty problems came up. His m ind at once would clear away the chaff and go directly to the heart of the problem.

A t a W hite Sulphur convention, which was held over the 4th of July, the guests of the hotel requested th at F ran k give a 4th of July talk, which he did. A lthough he had but little preparation, it was w ithout any question the finest 4th of July speech I have ever heard.”

One final impression, from Colonel John R. Simpson, M iami 1899, former Trustee of the Fraternity and director of the Centenary in 1939, another contemporary of Brother Sisson who knew him intimately in the 20’s and early 30’s, when both were outstanding figures in New York’s financial district: “ M y first m eeting with F ran k occurred at the convention held at N antucket in 1913. He was then President of the fraternity and, al­

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though he was carrying im portant business responsibilities in N ew York, his devotion to the fraternity was such that he contrived to give a large m om ent of his time, energy and thought to its affairs. “ As a leader he was intelligent and inspiring and throughout his ad­ ministration he held the confidence and respect of those who worked with him in the fraternity. Both in appearance and spirit he was youth­ ful, vigorous and attractive, and the response he elicited from all those, young or older, who attended the only convention at which I ever saw him in action, was happy and enthusiastic. “ Some years later, when I had come to N ew Y ork to be active in the financial district, it fell to my lot to see F ran k frequently. He had then become an officer of one of the im portant N ew Y ork banks. His work was of such nature as to challenge all of his resourcefulness and his capacity for friend-m aking, and he m et this challenge with outstanding success. H e was in constant dem and as a public speaker, and w hat he said was always of current interest and stimulating. “ H e died in 1933 at a too early age and with many years of useful effort clearly ahead. A lthough he has been gone for so long, his m em ory persists and will persist. I count him am ong the truly great of the Betas that I have know n.”

M y own relations with Brother Sisson were those of a young District Chief with an older man who was a major figure in the fraternity’s affairs. I certainly was not his intimate, but I shall remember gratefully that whenever a principal orator had to be obtained for some Beta function (for example, when a cer­ tain United States Senator telegraphed his regrets at the last moment), Sisson was always willing to make himself available.

At that time, too, be it said, he was one of America’s most popu­ lar speakers— under contract with an agent who had established his minimum fee at $500, with Beta Theta Pi alone on the free list.

Brother Sisson came very close to epitomizing his attitude toward, and his continuing interest in, Beta Theta Pi when he wrote just these two sentences in a letter to Shep dated March 8 , 1922: “ . . . As the years go by and my own experience broadens, my senti­ m ent for our F raternity increases, because of my increasing realization

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of the importance of such idealism in our lives. In the perspective of time it looms ever large, and I realize now how great an influence all its teachings have had on my own life and thought and feeling. . . .”

Urbane, gracious, charming, able, forceful, at once the warm and enduring friend and the cultivated gentleman, Francis Hinckley Sisson may well have been the ideal Beta— a Beta Bayard, if you please, Brother Chairman, sans peur et sans reproche.

Turn now for a few moments to a chapter mate of Frank Sisson’s, his devoted friend and newspaper associate, George Helgesen Fitch, who was only 38 years old when the tragically untimely call came. H e had achieved recognition as one of America’s favorite humorists and, had he been spared, he might well have attained the status of a M ark Twain, a Thomas Bailey Aldrich, a George Ade. Several months ago, the gracious and charming Miss R. Louise Fitch, former Dean of Women at Cornell and past presi­ dent of Delta Delta Delta, wrote at my request a sparkling, intimate sketch of her brother’s life which, with her permission and yours, Brother Columbus Barber, I would like to convert into an article for the fraternity magazine. I am strongly tempted to quote Miss Fitch verbatim and at length this evening and I refrain from doing so only because inexorable limitations of time are imposed even on such an occasion as this.

But here are just a few characteristic sentences: “ G eorge’s voice was soft, gentle, and he never learned to laugh aloud.

Friends used to complain that it was no fun to tell him a joke. You expected a face cracking ‘H aw -h aw ’ and all you got was an instan­ taneous quiet grin. . . .

“A fter finishing High School, G eorge helped his father (the editor of a weekly newspaper at Galva, Illinois) ; learned to set type (hand-set, then, of course), correct proof and began to write. A t 17, he entered K nox College and finished three years later aged 20. G eorge took a B.S. degree at Knox. H e knew he w anted to be an editor, but said he could read history and literature by himself, but w anted to know some­ thing about the sciences, to increase his field of understanding. He

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G e o r g e H . F i t c h , Knox 1897.

w orked on F ra n k Sisson’s Galesburg M ail for a year or so. F rank told me much later that G eorge was a poor reporter and he thought he’d have to let him go. Decided to give him one more chance; sent him out to cover a baseball game, and told him to write it any way he w anted to.

G eorge turned on the hum or and F ran k said there was no thought then of letting him g o !�

Service as editor and columnist on various newspapers in

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the M iddle West followed, including the editorship of the Peoria Herald-Transcript (owned by Charles May, another Knox Beta) from 1905 to 1911. H e began to do special writing for the Chicago Tribune and Collier's in 1911 j served a single term in the Illinois legislature and, among other reportorial assignments, covered the 1912 national party conventions. Miss Fitch says that Edna Ferber, W illiam Allen W hite and Jay Darling, the great Beta cartoonist, were on George’s convention “ team” and she adds, “ Incidentally, I met Jay Darling when he spoke at Cornell once and he said, ‘George Fitch! The finest friend a man ever had.’ ” Of course, George Fitch is best known for his stories of Old Siwash, as engaging tales of care-free undergraduate life as ever poured from a warm heart. To all brethren of my own college generation, whithersoever dispersed, I most earnestly commend a re-reading of the Siwash yarns. I have just had the experience, sloshing about in the very fountain of my long gone youth and enjoying more chuckles than can be found in all the American literature that has rolled from the presses since Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald discovered that their generation had been lost.

But current Beta undergraduates also would find vast satis­ faction in the Siwash tales, for their heroes all are members of Eta Bita Pie and their mild villains are such lesser breeds as the Alfalfa Delts, Chi Yis, the M u Kow Moos, the Sigh Whoopsilons, the Fli Gammas, the Shi Delts, the D elta Flushes and the Rep Rho Betas. For sound reasons of literary structure, the Eta Bita Pies had their temporary setbacks, but over the closing scene there always rang out triumphantly that grand, old anthem: “ Oh, you’ve got to be an Eta Bita Pie Or you won’t get a scarehead when you die! ” For the benefit of the journalistically illiterate, let me say here that a scarehead is any big or banner headline, set in 48point type or larger and covering from two to eight columns.

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There have been scareheads, too, when some members of the thinly disguised E ta Bita Pie have been taken from us. Wendell L. Willkie, William E. Borah and Dwight Morrow are among the names that come to mind instantly.

The Old Siwash days certainly were simpler and kindlier, if not better. As George Fitch wrote, wholesome chapter house fare was provided, in that remote era, for “ $4 per week per appetite” and last-word modernity was indicated by the ob­ servation, “ I had my wrist broken cranking an automobile be­ fore most Americans believed the things would go.”

W ould you learn the benefits of fraternity life? Listen to George Fitch’s one-sentence description of what the Eta Bita Pies were able to do in the very briefest while for a freshman from the deep, back woods, “ Of course, we taught him how to play a mandolin, and how to twostep on his own feet ex­ clusively, and how to roll a cigarette without carpeting the floor with tobacco, and how to make a pretty girl wonder if she is really as beautiful as all that, without actually saying it him­ self.”

Old Siwash football stories had become legendary while I was still an undergraduate. They involved Ole Skjarsen, the hilariously dumb, but unstoppable, full-back and Coach Bost, whose gift for corrosive language was such that he could remove the entire scalp of a quarterback at forty paces. Nor did Bost ever use profanity. As George Fitch said, “ Swearing is only a lazy man’s substitute for thinking, anyway; and Bost wasn’t lazy. H e preferred the descriptive; and sat up nights thinking it out.” For example, if some unfortunate player missed a tackle, Bost might say witheringly, “ Two stone hitching posts out of three could get past you in a six-foot alley.”

Fitch was completely sold on the virtues of co-education.

Consider these tenderly eloquent lines describing one aspect of the advent of Spring at Siwash: “ T h e planet was invented for the purpose of letting H er dig H er N um ber 3 heels into it on Spring afternoons. Sunshine is im portant be­

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cause H er hair looks better with the light on it. Every time She frowns the w eather bureau hangs out a tornado signal and every time She smiles somebody puts a light blue sash around the horizon and a double row of m illion-candle-power lights clear down the future.”

T hat passage is gently humorous, of course, but it also expresses some small measure of George Fitch’s devotion to his wife and three daughters, the youngest of whom was only three at the time her father died.

I probably should refrain from saying so, but internecine war­ fare between faculty and undergraduate was carried on even more briskly in those golden days than it is at present. Thus we find the narrator of the Siwash tales admitting that this was his attitude toward the faculty at a time when he was, as he de­ clares, “ a cross between a Sophomore and a spotted hyena” : “ As a rule there is only one thing to m ar the joy of college days and nights and early m ornings. T h a t is the Faculty. . . . T h e y interfere so.

T h ey are so inappropriate. M oreover they are so confoundedly ignorant of college life.”

Miss Fitch says that George’s first Siwash story was pub­ lished in the Saturday Evening Post of M ay 30, 1908 after having been rejected by Collier's. The original draft was written when George was a Knox undergraduate and it was meant for the Beta magazine, but he was too busy to revise it for publi­ cation.

But now another direct quotation from Miss Fitch: “ G eorge looked so solemn most of the time that one was apt to be caught suddenly. W h en my two brothers, G eorge (older) and Bob (a little younger and also a K nox B eta) and I were youngsters, we were walking down tow n together one day with me between them . I facetiously rem arked, ‘A rose between two thorns.’ G eorge instantly replied. ‘You m ean a lobster sandwich.’ I w atched my tongue there­ after.”

And then this devoted sister’s final word: “ In the sum m er of 1915, G eorge and his family came out to Berkeley, w here I was doing graduate w ork at the University of California. . . .

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He was president of the Am erican Press Humorists, which held a con­ vention there in California that year. Almost as soon as the convention closed, G eorge was taken very ill with peritonitis and in three days was gone. B ut the happy memories remain and are recalled almost daily by his family and friends— a good life doesn’t stop when one signs, to his physical existence, the Press term ‘3 0 ’.”

Perhaps some of my elder brethren will disagree, but I am convinced that the Eta Bita Pie stories brought Beta Theta Pi a degree of national prominence, in the first two decades of this century, which we might not otherwise have achieved.

George Fitch’s humor was so blithe and wholesome that only the pedantic could have objected to it and certainly many a lad went to college in those days wistfully eager to enter the mystic circle of that genial brotherhood, Eta Bita Pie. I was one of them, Brother Chairman, and I know whereof I speak.

George Fitch was an interested and enthusiastic Beta throughout his life. His contribution was a different one, to be sure, but it was none-the-less real. I do wish I had time to read you all of his 1906 Convention poem, entitled, “A Rubaiyat of Beta Theta Pi,” which dealt with rushing and sundry other fraternity joys. Perhaps these two verses will convey its flavor: M yself, a freshm an, blissful hours spent W ith rival gangs and heard great argum ent A bout alum ni rolls; but in the end W ith those who laughed at all my jokes I went. *

*

A modest cottage ’neath the campus brow ; A ruddy light; a Beta dog; and thou, M y brothers, tilting up the roof with song A h, college life were paradise enow.

Some chapters do not sing it any more, but I am sure most of you are familiar with the stirring “Dragon Song” which Frank Sisson and George Fitch wrote together, Sisson the words and Fitch the music. M ay I not let both men speak to you through their last verse:

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O h, this is the tale of the dragon bold, A nd we are his sons today; L et this be our aim th at we cherish his nam e A nd bow to the dragon’s sw ay; Loyal and true as the skies of blue, Brave as his ow n blood red; W ith souls as bright as the snowy white O f the sands where his blood was shed.

At the 1917 convention, which Gordon Smyth and I attended as undergraduate delegates, the closing banquet address was de­ livered by Francis H . Sisson. I recall so vividly his wit, his brilliance, the facility and ease of his delivery, and I remember in particular his reference to an oration which he had heard a few days before from the eloquent lips of another powerful speaker, Rene Viviani, then vice-president of the French Re­ public. Sisson said that Viviani had rung the changes on those three great words, “ Liberte, egalite, fraternite” and then he proceeded to do so himself.

Liberty, which once again is in such dire peril throughout the earth. Liberty: freedom of belief, of thought and of expression, my right to thread my way among the throng without j ostling even one of my neighbors, but my right also to travel in such direction as pleases me, without any by-your-leave whatever from the state police. And equality: equality before the law; yes, and equality in an institution where all the stars are fixed stars and all are of equal magnitude. And then that lovely word fraternity: brotherhood and its miracle, still best described in the O ld Testament: “ The soul of David was knit to the soul of Jonathan and he loved him as his own soul.”

M y dear brethren of the 112th Convention, we have been walking tonight with good companions. As you well know, good companions do not characteristically advise their friends, but if we could clasp hands with Frank Sisson and George Fitch in affectionate farewell and could ask them for one final word of counsel, I think they might repeat the very phrase of that sweet singer of the long ago at Kenyon: “Pitch her high, boys, pitch her high! ”

1952

Major Wyllys C. Ransom, T h e First Great Power Tonight I am to have the privilege of continuing a series of talks— now in their seventh year— about the quite extraordinary leadership which somehow has been vouchsafed to Beta Theta Pi. O f course our rivals also have had their Great Ones and I would not suggest for a moment any odious comparisons be­ tween their leadership and ours, being quite content to say that if any other college fraternity has been favored with its own counterparts of a Shepardson, a Baird, a Robb, a Cal Hanna, a Frank Sisson, then fortune has indeed smiled upon it ardently and warmly.

In other years I have attempted to suggest criteria for singling out the Beta heroes who should be celebrated in such a series as this, observing that the test, as to any particular indi­ vidual is the certainty with which we may say of him, “ H ad he not lived, this would not be the Beta Theta Pi we know and cherish.” And I think that is a sound criterion, but still other yardsticks were suggested by James Taft Hatfield, N orth­ western 1883, when he wrote: H ere’s to joys of thought and mind Shared by spirits rare, M ounting higher day by day, Breathing purer air.

Richer gains that crown our toil, Less of low er e a rth ; Life th at grows more deep and full, Souls th at learn their w orth.

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W y l l y s R a n s o m , M ichigan 1848.

Yes, I think, with Professor Hatfield, that we should honor “spirits rare,” who have about them “ less of lower earth,” who have known life in its fullness and its depth and who therefore have learned their worth. I think also that we must confer our modest canonization only upon wearers of our badge who were genuine enthusiasts and who had the ability to communicate their enthusiasm.

The older I grow the more thoroughly do I become con­ vinced that only the ardent count for much in this world. Even

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seriously misplaced enthusiasm can be directed into proper channels, but there is almost no hope for the indifferent, the don’t-care, the apathetic, the torpid. Perhaps I should not say so, Brother Chairman, but if I had the ordering of things, such gentry would not even be admitted to a respectable cemetery.

But I depart from my theme. The great Beta whom we are to think about together this evening was a rare spirit and his ardor for Beta Theta Pi was so intense and so articulate that he left his mark on the Fraternity more completely and more indelibly than any Beta of his generation.

As the older brethren who are present will instantly surmise, I am referring to the Grand O ld Man of Lambda, M ajor W yllys C. Ransom, Michigan 1848, who was initiated into the Fraternity only seven years after it was established and who for 60 years provided a living and powerful liaison between the founders and the towering leaders of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s who transformed Beta Theta Pi into a strong and influential national fraternity.

I think I cannot better suggest the measure of the man than by quoting at some length from an editorial written at the time of M ajor Ransom’s death by William Raimond Baird, then editor of our magazine, who was not given to sentimentality and whose appraisals even of his Beta brethren often were quite searchingly objective. “ M ajo r W yllys Cadw ell Ransom, M ichigan 1848, died at G rand Rapids, M ichigan, February 1, 1908, at the age of 83 years. T o the w orld at large this m eans merely that one more old soldier of the Union A rm y has passed away, to a wide circle of friends it means that they have lost from am ong them a cultured, well bred gentlem an of unfail­ ing courtesy, high ideals and pleasing m anners, but to every member of Beta T h e ta Pi it means the loss of an elder brother. . . .

M ajo r Ransom had a w inning personality. His devotion to Beta T h e ta Pi was unique. N o expense or pains could have been too great for him w hen its welfare was concerned. He gave to it his time, his thoughts, his purse, his very self. . . .

W e would our brethren could know, as we know, w hat an inspiration

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he was to the younger men in the F raternity. He was entirely sincere in the belief that Beta T h e ta Pi was in every respect the best fraternal organization in existence. He regarded other fraternities with a spirit of amused tolerance and yet could earnestly w ork in any Panhellenic move­ m ent. His enthusiasm for Beta may be imagined w hen it is stated that he persuaded one of the professors at the University of Kansas, an alum nus of a good eastern fraternity, to resign that membership and join him in the m ovem ent to organize Beta at that university.

W e first m et him at the conference between the delegates from Alpha Sigma Chi and Beta at N iagara Falls in 1879 and were surprised then at his single-hearted devotion to his F raternity. H e could not understand any other attitude tow ard it and was thoroughly impatient at any other spirit.

Probably he was personally know n to about three thousand Betas.

T h ey will ever revere his m em ory and he has a m onum ent in their hearts which m any a m an m ight envy.

In the Novem ber [1 9 0 7 ] num ber of T h e B e t a T h e t a P i we wished him long life and happiness. L ong life he had. Happiness he has.”

I turn now to another Lambda man and to another M ajor, the Fraternity’s historian— who is so greatly missed here at Bigwin— George Moseley Chandler, that clear-flowing Pierian spring from which so much of the material for these talks has come. In a letter written to me more than a year ago, Brother Chandler said, “ From my study of the records, I have always been sure that the first great, glowing power in Beta Theta Pi was the M ajor.” And again, on July 15, 1 9 5 2 , M ajor Chandler wrote to me: “ O nly a few of our G reats have had the real ‘fraternity m ind’ of M ajo r Ransom. H anna, yes; Robb, yes; Sisson, yes; Shepardson, yes, richer in sentim ent but not as clear; Baird, yes, quicker but not as rich; W am baugh, keen and deep, expressed in few er words. W e say W ash­ ington and Lincoln, G ra n t and Sherman, Lee and Jackson. If I were to w rite the order for m uster for passing in review in colum n of twos, I would w ithout hesitation place P ater Knox, A I f ha 1839, in the front row and obviously on the m arching right and on his left, as became the younger brother in Beta T h e ta Pi and lifelong friend, M ajo r W yllys C. Ransom , Lam bda 1848.”

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The Fraternity might well accept that as a definitive order for muster, pausing only to remember, as our good M ajor George himself does, Dr. Shepardson’s musing remark that Brother George Chandler’s admiration of M ajor Ransom was of such depth and earnestness that if he were offered a promo-

G urdon

G. B l a c k , W ashington

(S t.

W i l l i a m L. G raves , Ohio State 1893.

L ouis) ’01.

tion from M ajor to Lieutenant Colonel, he would decline it!

M ajor Chandler’s most recent reaction to Shep’s remark was one of skeptical amusement. H e said he felt constrained to call my attention to the strong military tradition that a man would “ strangle his own grandmother to advance one file.”

The first reference to Brother Ransom in the literature of the Fraternity that I have been able to find is this single sentence from the minutes of a meeting of the Michigan chapter held on March 29, 1847, “ M r. Gray read a review of M r. Ransom’s last essay before the society.” One hundred years ago, the pres­ entation of one or more formal essays at each chapter meeting was standard procedure and perhaps the Phi Beta Kappas

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among you will feel that the custom should be revived. In any event, young Ransom apparently had delivered a paper at an earlier meeting and we may be sure it was a good one, for we have some samples of his literary style as an undergraduate.

I offer you just a few excerpts from a letter which he wrote on May 28, 1847 to Jerome T. Gillet of Miami: “ W e consider, brethren of the stalw art Alpha, that a new era has daw ned upon our existence; that the Beta T h e ta Pi has begun to breathe the breath of life anew. . . . A re we not all that we claim to be— the Q ueen Society of the W est? O th er associations may find a home and a foothold am ong the rocky glens of the E ast and her cold, sterile hills, but the Beta T h e ta Pi will hold for inheritance the wide spreading prairies of the W est; she will claim the supremacy of her broad and majestic streams, and claim as her cherished children the gems of the W estern states. T e n years have not yet passed away, and there are ten chapters who are, we hope, united firm and immovable by the bonds of— kai— . T h e re is nothing more to prevent our onw ard and upw ard course. . . . L et us all endeavor to extend the influence of our glorious confederation by increasing its branches, but let us be sure we are right and then go ahead.”

The language is flamboyant, of course, and the apparent reference to New England’s so-called mountains may be a bit provincial, but I could wish I had been able to write as well as that when I was an undergraduate and I think some of the rest of you may entertain similar sentiments.

In the same year, 1847, we find a Michigan chapter minute reporting on talks which Brother Ransom had had with several members of the faculty of the university and at the same meet­ ing Ransom was appointed one of a three-man committee authorized “ to confer with the faculty in reference to reorganiz­ ing us as a society.” And we may be sure that young Ransom was listened to with attention and respect, because his father was Governor of Michigan at the time! Again it was in 1847, while Brother Ransom was a junior at Michigan, that he suggested the curving inward of the sides of our badge, which then at­ tained the final form later brought to ultimate development by another Lambda man, M ajor Chandler.

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L et me apologize here for the extensive use of quoted ma­ terial in this talk. The practice seemed both necessary and in­ evitable because most of the events to which I am referring took place before I arrived on the planet. Furthermore, I believe, with my friend Pierce Butler, Jr., of St. Paul, that all work and no plagiarism makes a dull speech.

The first Beta convention which Brother Ransom attended was that of 1848, held at Hudson, Ohio, and he already had become so well known in the Fraternity through correspondence that he was elected convention secretary. Incidentally, only four chapters were represented at that gathering, a marked contrast with the Baltimore convention of 1880, over which M ajor Ransom presided and which brought together delegates from 32 chapters.

After his graduation, young Ransom served for a time as secretary to his father, studied law and was admitted to the bar.

H e also practiced civil engineering and, as Chief Clerk in the Surveyor-General’s office, made explorations of the natural re­ sources of Kansas and Nebraska, while after the Civil W ar he served as an executive of several railroad companies and also held public office for brief terms. In 1861 he entered the Union forces with a Kansas cavalry regiment, saw strenuous service in the W estern campaigns, was promptly promoted to M ajor, then brevet Colonel and finally Colonel before the end of the W ar, but he was always known in the Fraternity as “ the M ajor.”

- M ajor Ransom reappeared on the Beta scene in 1872, when he and L. D. L. Tosh, a Beta transfer from Miami, assembled an excellent petitioning group at the University of Kansas. The necessary approvals having been obtained in a matter of months, the new chapter was installed in M ajor Ransom’s home and he was in large measure responsible for its early development. For several years, Alpha N u held all of its meetings and initiations under the M ajor’s hospitable roof, a kindness which led to what I believe is the only recorded use of a goat in any Beta ceremony.

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But let the M ajor’s son, Robert B. Ransom, Michigan 1882, tell the story in his own words: . . T h e re was at this time a T o m Sawyer gang of boys in L a w ­ rence, of which I was a very active m em ber, and our peace of m ind was greatly disturbed by the secret meetings of Alpha N u in our hom e; we were just determ ined to know m ore of the mysteries of Beta T h e ta Pi. T h e way we disturbed those meetings of Alpha N u was a shame. O u r activities became so intolerable that my father came out of a m eeting one night and told us that the hindering of these Beta meetings in the law ful and peaceful enjoym ent of their rights m ust cease, and if we did not desist he would bring the whole gang in the house and make them ride the goat. . . . T h e gang w ent into executive session at once.

No one had seen a goat around home or smelled one at the Beta m eetings, and still there was plenty of noise and loud laughter in those Beta meetings, and we finally decided that some one was being made the goat or was trying to ride one. . . . A t a subsequent meeting, with initiation and a banquet, in our home, the gang prepared to receive that goat. T h e house and premises were thoroughly searched, and our scouts were so placed th at a goat could not be brought into the house w ithout being discovered. A t a late hour the goat had not put in an appearance, so the gang decided to furnish one. W e knew where there was a perfectly good goat in one of the livery barns. W e w ent over and borrowed him. W e tied an old arm y cap on his head and strapped a saddle on his back, and painted ‘Alpha N u ’ on his blankets. . . . W e led him up the front steps to our front door, which was partly open. I n ­ stantly that goat became non com fos mentis. H e butted open that front door; with his first attack he put the presiding officer, my father, under the piano; he butted the secretary of the m eeting, his ink and records, all over the floor; he next made for the library, and all those Betas who did not adopt ‘safety first’ by climbing upon tables and chairs got a ram m ing astern that was painful to look at. T h e goat then tore into the banquet hall and leaped upon the banquet table, breaking some of m y m other’s best dishes; sampled some of the ‘D o rg ’ on the table, and then returned to the front rooms to clean up on w hat rem ained of the mem bers of Alpha N u. . . . Everbody laughed; the initiates thought it was part of the regular cerem ony; my father said to the boys that in all his military career he had never been taken by the enemy in the rear. T h a t was my first entrance into Beta T h e ta Pi and my first frater­ nity activity.”

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M ajor Ransom’s place in any Beta hall of fame is secure on many counts, but he would have earned our everlasting grati­ tude if his only fraternity activity had been the establishment of Alpha Nu, which from its earliest beginnings has brought honor to itself, to Beta Theta Pi and to the college fraternity system.

Scholarship Commissioner and Vice-President Earl Sneed, Jr., was speaking, I believe, for the entire fraternity when he said, at O ld Point Comfort: “ . . . I m ention Kansas first because I do not think that any chapter of any fraternity can equal or approach its record. T o win the scholar­ ship cup 25 times in 29 years, to have in addition the intram ural cup m ore than any other fraternity, to have versatile representation in all w orthw hile campus activities, is a superb achievement. . . .”

For more than 30 years after the Kansas chapter began its outstanding history, M ajor Ransom was a regular attendant at the annual gatherings of our Beta clans. H e served as presi­ dent of the conventions of 1873, 1875, 1880 and 1883, was a convention vice-president on three other occasions, and was un­ questionably the most influential wearer of our badge through the entire period from 1873 to 1897.

Betas would be constrained to remember M ajor Ransom at convention time if only as the author of the great “gatheringin” song with which we invariably open these annual meetings.

W e sang it Tuesday night, and we shall sing it a dozen times or more before we leave Bigwin Inn: W e are coming from the East, boys, W e ’re coming from the W est, Shouting, O ld W ooglin forever!, A nd the boys of sunny Southland are coming with the rest. . . .

T hat last line is one of the most significant in all Beta hymnology, because, at the time it was written, the United States was still a divided nation, the wounds inflicted by the war between its two sections yet unhealed, and it was M ajor Ran­ som’s express purpose to extend the hand of affectionate fellow­

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ship to our brethren from the South. Be it said, too, that he rejoiced greatly over the return of “ the boys of sunny South­ land” to our fraternal fold.

M ajor Ransom’s services to the Fraternity were numerous and significant. H e was a member of the old Board of Directors from 1879 to 1885 and of the Board of Trustees from 1894 to 1897. H e served as Visiting Officer of the Fraternity from 1880 to 1883 and as Alumni Secretary from 1884 to 1888.

H e was chairman of the commissioners who represented Beta Theta Pi in the negotiations which brought about the merger with Alpha Sigma Chi in 1879. As a member of the vitally im­ portant Code Commission which made its final report in 1897, he was in large measure responsible for the development of the present corporate structure of the Fraternity, which has re­ mained substantially unchanged for 55 years. H e was tre­ mendously influential in systematizing and making uniform our quite haphazard ceremonial practices and was the author of the famous “ X Y Z” ritual which was used for a number of years. In fact, M ajor Chandler says that to M ajor Ransom “ must go the credit for the separate ritual, with its orderly arrangement of initiation features and its interpretations, by short speeches, of the basic ideals and aspirations of Beta Theta Pi.” T he Cincinnati convention of 1879 had under consideration, as this convention has, the adoption of fraternity colors, and M ajor Ransom was an active participant in the debate, but let me give you the story as it was told by a contemporary, W alter E. Dennison, Ohio Wesleyan 1877: . . M ajo r Ransom espoused the royal purple and seemed to need only the ballot to determ ine the discussion in his favor. T h e ta and D elta chapters by a mere coincidence had for m any years w orn the same colors, Pink and Blue. P aul W ilcox, D eP auw 1879, and myself of Ohio W esleyan 1877, w ere assistant secretary and secretary, respec­ tively, of th at convention. O u r duties kept us from joining the discus­ sion until just before the vote. M ajo r Ransom , the then greatest indi­ vidual pow er in the F raternity, seemed to have everything his own w ay;

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but the prospect of seeing our beloved colors go down was too much for the insurgent blood of W ilcox and myself and we literally jum ped in with w hat I, at least, rem em bered as impassioned speeches and won the day for our beloved Pink and Blue.

M y sw eetheart then, and my wife now , had for years made up the bows of Pink and Blue for T h e ta . I w rote to her of our victory and requested enough bows to supply every active chapter with a sample. I prepared a letter which was mimeographed and sent to the secretary of every chapter with a sample bow of the colors in their most delicate and true shades, as prepared by her loving hands.”

Last year I asked M ajor Chandler what he thought of the royal purple championed by M ajor Ransom and his reply was, “ No! Purple is not a ‘legitimate’ color. It is a mixture of (red and blue) the two ends of the solar spectrum and it does not long satisfy the eye. W hile in national flags, the supreme test of colors, design and color arrangement have been well nigh exhausted, no country makes use of purple. ‘The M ajor’ was a master of the classics and perhaps the lilt of ‘Illyrian purple’ or of ‘Imperial purple’ fascinated him. The British State uses purple for royal mourning and the English Church uses purple in the robes of its Bishops but there is no purple in the British national flag or in the coat of arms of any English cathedral.”

Yes, in this field, Brother Chandler does speak “ as one with authority.”

Perhaps M ajor Ransom’s most significant contribution to the Fraternity was his carefully considered and vigorously pre­ sented insistence that Beta Theta Pi should re-write its constitu­ tion, segregating all internal or secret material, and should then publish our purposes and objects to the world. H e urged this then quite revolutionary idea upon the convention of 1877 and was promptly appointed chairman of a committee which re­ ported at length to the convention of 1879. Dr. Shepardson has written that the report of this committee, which was largely M ajor Ransom’s work, must be considered the greatest docu­ ment in the entire history of the Fraternity. I venture to read just a few of its sentences, not only because of their intrinsic

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merit, but also because they afford some measure of M ajor Ran­ som’s clear insights and of his firm grasp upon basic college fraternity problems. . . If we interpret indications aright the time is close at hand when a general m ovem ent will be made to suppress the G reek L etter Societies, whose nam es have come to be legion in the educational institutions of the country. A nd it will be only those who fortify themselves against the threatened attack who will be able to outlive the energy with which it will be made. . . . T h e object and purposes for which Beta T h e ta Pi was instituted are pure and w orthy, and we can in no way prejudice its interest or prosperity if they, with the plan of organization by which it is proposed to promote those ends, are published and throw n open to the criticism of the entire w orld. Satisfied with an organization that can challenge adm iration for the dignity and manliness of its proceedings, the correctness of its purposes, and the purity of its morals, those charged with the administration of educational institutions will care but little about the particular form or ceremonies adopted for the initiation of members, or the details of the cabala by which the fraternity protects itself against those not entitled to its privileges. . . .

I t is not practicable, were it desirable, to successfully blend provisions for business administration with form ulae belonging exclusively to the esoterica of the organization. T h e latter should be carefully m erged into a dignified and simple form , preserving the secret symbolism, obligations and traditions of the society in such recital as w ould impress the neophyte with its purity and beauty, and this be com municated in cipher for uniform use am ong the chapters. A nd then let no other forms or ceremonies be interpolated on those authorized by the law of the Fraternity. . . .

If we have failed to present this subject to your consideration as clearly and as forcibly as we could have wished, in support of the con­ clusions we have reached, it has not been from w ant of thought or indifference to the great importance of the results involved. But, after years of unfaltering devotion and love for our noble society, we cannot but believe that the change in its constitutional provisions suggested in the resolution referred to us by your past convention would place it a step in advance of all other Am erican college fraternities, would attract the attention and win the approval of college governm ents hitherto inimical to our existence, and secure for us the sympathy and coopera­

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tion of many ever before indifferent to the fate or fortune of the Beta T h e ta Pi. If such indeed is to be the outcome of the action recommended in this report, w hat brother can for a m om ent question its expediency or desirableness, or cherish a lingering doubt that its adoption would place our society am ong the recognized and perm anent institutions of the land, beyond the reach of successful attack or the inroads of wasting decay? . . .”

Of course the M ajor’s proposal was carried by an over­ whelming vote and thus Beta Theta Pi became the first college fraternity to publish its objects and purposes, an enlightened decision which did much to allay the fears and distrust of col­ lege authorities and of the uninitiated generally.

Col. H . Sheridan Baketel, Dartmouth 1895, former VicePi*esident and Trustee and deeply devoted Beta, remembers vividly the impression made upon him by M ajor Ransom at the Niagara Falls convention of 1894. W riting to me some time since, Col. Baketel said: ‘M a jo r Ransom was a m an of much dignity who greatly enjoyed the society of his young confreres. He was a w arm ly enthusiastic Beta idealist and his knowledge of the fraternity’s history and traditions was profound. A t the 1894 convention he was the clearing-house for all of us who desired to know w hat our most honored customs were and the ‘w hat we should do in this case.’ ”

M ajor Ransom quite certainly knew more members of the Fraternity than any other Beta of his time, his record in that particular having been surpassed only by Dr. Shepardson, who was one of the M ajor’s warmest admirers. In the detailed his­ tory incorporated in “The Beta Book,” Shep has this to say as he records that, in 1908, “ the fraternity was called to mourn one of its most distinguished workers, M ajor Wyllys C. Ran­ som. From the time of his initiation he had been conspicuous in the annals of Beta Theta Pi, shaping its badge, formulating its ritual, expressing its ideals in constitution and laws, alert in its interest, active in its outer expansion and its inner develop­ ment, a firm friend, an inspirer of youth.”

I think it properly may be said that the Fraternity has had

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no serious internal dissension since the famous controversy of the 1890’s between Cal Hanna, Willis O. Robb, Charles L. Thornburg and other nationally minded leaders and a devoted but somewhat provincial Cincinnati group, which included Pater Knox, and which, under the leadership of Charles M. Hepburn, Virginia 1880, was determined to prevent the thorough-going reorganization of the fraternity sponsored by Hanna and his associates. At the 1894 convention, temporary agreement be­ tween the two factions was achieved only when the convention president appointed a special committee with M ajor Ransom as its chairman to deal with all controversial problems. The point was that M ajor Ransom was recognized by both groups as above all factional differences in his utter devotion to the F ra­ ternity’s best interests and although the action taken both by his committee and by the convention completely vindicated Hanna, Robb and Thornburg, the resulting schism was quickly and completely healed. The Fraternity might well have suffered irreparable damage if it had not been able to appeal to a leader possessing M ajor Ransom’s recognized stature and integrity.

One final appraisal of M ajor Ransom and his contribution to the building up of Beta Theta Pi. It comes from the pen of Willis O. Robb, Ohio Wesleyan 1879, who had been designated a committee of one to report to the Niagara Falls convention of 1908 on M ajor Ransom’s death. I have considered myself rarely fortunate in being able to quote Brother Robb in this series of talks, for I think he wrote more eloquently than any other contributor to the literature of the Fraternity. I know you will understand why I entertain those sentiments as I allow Brother Robb to speak for himself: “ I f we consider his career and character in the double light © of his influence on the legislation and organic development of the F raternity and his influence on its fraternal spirit, he was almost certainly the greatest Beta who ever lived. . . . T h e interval between his first and his last convention was nearly fifty years. H e was four times president and thrice vice-president of the convention. H e served nine years on the

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governing body of the F raternity and was its president for two years.

H e was visiting officer for four years and alum ni secretary for four years. H e was the sole author of the Constitution of 1879, which re­ mained in force until 1897, and chairm an of the commission of three which prepared the Constitution and Code that have been in force since the latter date. H e prepared the X .Y .Z . ritual in use from 1880-1886, gave our badge its present shape (while still an undergraduate), was one of the two founders of the Kansas chapter, one of the two revivers of the M ichigan chapter, and chairm an of the commission that planned and of the committee that executed the union with Alpha Sigma Chi. In addition, he did more than any other college fraternity man ever did to give direction to the m ovem ent that disarmed the hostility of college authorities, by suggesting the publication of our Constitution and the legislation against combinations in college politics.

T h is record is unexam pled in our own, probably in any, fraternity history. B ut it represents only one side, and that the less im portant side, of M ajo r R ansom ’s Beta influence and career. M ore than any other m an he typified and helped create, and to instill into the membership of the F raternity, the Beta spirit that has made Beta T h e ta Pi unique am ong G reek L etter Societies— the spirit that has made us and kept us a fraternity. His bearing tow ard the Betas he m et everywhere, w hether they w ere the dear friends and brethren of his own generation, with w hom his m utual affection dated, say, from the Convention of 1848, or the equally dear lads of a period sixty years later, some of them sons and grandsons of those early Betas, his simple, sincere, always fraternal attitude tow ard every question of fraternity policy or legislation he dealt with, his single-hearted loyalty to the ideals, and not merely to the traditions, of the Fraternity, dear as the latter always were to him— it was these things, after all, that made him ‘the M a jo r’ we loved, and it is they that prove him to have been w hat we have long ago agreed to call him , the greatest of all the Betas. In our hearts, as in our annals, his place is secure foreverm ore.”

W hat shall we say of a fraternity which can evoke such spirits? Surely we can find time and thought and energy and enthusiasm for the beloved association to which they brought enkindled minds and warm and tender hearts. Surely we all are “ more than what we are because of what they were.”

1953

George Moseley Chandler This is the eighth in a series of annual convention talks which have attempted to appraise the contributions to Beta Theta Pi of its outstanding builders. As I have tried to indicate on other such occasions, the criteria sought to be applied in selecting Beta heroes for this modest tribute are rigid and exacting. Not only must the contribution have been substantial; it must also have played a significant part in making Beta Theta Pi an unique, as well as a great and good, fraternity.

Let me disclose by a mere itemizing of his fraternity achieve足 ments why I believe the rare spirit we are to think about tonight belongs emphatically in the company of Knox and Ransom, Shepardson and Robb, Baird and H anna and Sisson: H e de足 signed the standard badge worn by every Beta initiated since 1909; the coat of arms of the general fraternity and of the chapters, the Beta seal, the pledge button, the Beta flag, the whole lovely heraldry of the Fraternity are his alone; he is in large part responsible for the policy which has shaped our ex足 pansion for forty years; throughout half a century, he has been engaged in the supervising and strengthening of our ritualistic practices; he served for seven years as Keeper of the Rolls and for six years as a member of the Board of Trustees; he was the first subscriber to the Baird Fund; he has known every great Beta leader except Charles Duy W alker, founder of the Magazine; and he has a more abundant store of knowledge about the development of Beta Theta Pi, its lore and its per足 sonalities, than any wearer of our badge has ever possessed. His name is George Moseley Chandler, Michigan 1898, and it is our privilege to have him with us tonight.

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The warmly cherished Historian of Beta Theta Pi was born on March 27, 1876, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Edward Bruce Chandler, Michigan 1858, and Emily Moseley, a Rock­ ford College graduate. His grandfathers were both “log cabin” pioneers, one having come from New York to Michigan by way of the Erie Canal and the other having travelled from Massa-

E d w a r d B r u c e C h a n d l e r , M ichigan 185 8, a n d G e o r g e M o s e l e y C h a n d ­ l e r , M ichigan 1898.

chusetts to Marietta, Ohio, in a Conestoga covered wagon and then down the Ohio River to Illinois.

Brother Chandler’s Beta indoctrination began early. His father was vice-president of the Semi-Centennial Convention held at Wooglin-on-Chautauqua in 1889 and, to use the son’s own language, he “ was present at the age of thirteen as an old convention-goer,” having been at Wooglin for the preceding year’s convention with his father, mother and sister. I think none of us could say, as M ajor Chandler does, “Thus as a boy in grammar school, I caught the Beta spirit.”

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The elder Chandler was one of the outstanding figures of our first fifty years. D r. Shepardson wrote of him, in Beta Lore, “ It is doubtful if a more loyal Beta or son of Michigan ever lived . . . of the many Fraternity conventions he attended, he was president of that of 1892. H e was a member of the Board of Trustees from 1894 to 1897. One of the founders of

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the Wooglin Club, he stood behind it as long as it existed. H e was one of the original members of the Chicago Alumni chap­ ter, of which he honored all the offices. H e was one of three to whom we owe the Northwestern chapter; and a like debt is due him for the Chicago chapter.” Then Shep quotes this tribute recorded by the Loyal Legion: “ E d w ard Bruce C handler was a modest, dignified gentlem an. O f rugged honesty, his w ord was a bond at par. W hile he was forceful and strong of opinion, he left not one enemy in the w orld. No more generous heart ever beat in a m an’s breast.”

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Yes, Brother Chairman, George Moseley Chandler’s devo­ tion to Beta Theta Pi came to him as naturally as the very air he breathed. Incidentally, it should be said that the two Chandlers are the only father and son who have served the Fraternity as members of its Board of Trustees. They are also the first great-grandfather and grandfather in direct line in Beta Theta Pi. M ajor George’s son, Bruce Cooley Chandler, Michigan ’24, is Lambda’s first third-generation initiate and his son is George Moseley Chandler, II, Lawrence ’51. And all the Chandlers have worn the same Beta pin, the “ Kirby” badge which Edward Bruce received when Lambda “ admitted him to the light” in 1855.

M ajor George M . Chandler’s official fraternity career began 59 years ago, when he served as Michigan’s freshman delegate at the Niagara Falls convention of 1894. H e again represented Michigan at the 1895, 1896 and 1897 conventions and was elected secretary of the 1897 gathering, held once more at Niagara Falls.

The good M ajor was not present at the 1898 convention, but his excuse was an excellent one, for as he wrote me on June 26, 1953, “ Fifty-five years ago, I was in battle in the Spanish W est Indies, the very day my class graduated.” H e had left college within a matter of days after war with Spain had been declared, his thesis not completed and not submitted, and had telegraphed has father that his address was “ Norfolk Navy Yard.” It was not until 11 years later that the record was checked and he was recalled to Ann Arbor to receive his B.S. Engineering degree, nunc pro tunc, “as of the class of 1898.”

Let me offer you a picture of the Spanish West Indies naval campaign as the M ajor gave it to me in a letter written only two months ago: “ T h e U.S.S. Brooklyn had been in action at Cienfuegos before join­ ing the fleet at Santiago and she had taken a shot through one of her funnels. O u r station in the blockading fleet was between the Brooklyn and the Indiana— steam up, lazily moving in a great ellipse before the m outh of the harbor— and as the Brooklyn sw ung between my ship

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and the sun, I w atched eagerly for the perfect m om ent w hen the sun, the shot holes on either side of the funnel and my eye were in line. “ I shall long rem em ber June 26, 1898, for on that day I came under fire the first time. T h re e Spanish ships were reported headed for San Ju an , the capital of Puerto Rico. M y ship had shown herself sm art— had landed the first troops in our small boats on Cuban soil.

Incidentally, I had pulled bow oar in the first boat. A t the m om ent we were the nearest ship to the threatened trouble, so were detached from the blockading squadron and hurried eastward. “ San Ju an , Puerto Rico, battle quarters at 5:30 a . m . I fell in, star­ board, midship gun, main battery; bare feet, blue trousers, no shirt. A bucket of sand and a bucket of w ater at each gun. T h e fog lifted and right there within our range were three Spanish ships and the big land fort, our ship within that range. T h in g s commenced to happen. “ I have never been back to Puerto Rico, but I am told that the three iron hulks which we left on shore were towed out to sea and sunk some years later. O u r shooting was perfect. T h e Spanish shooting could not have been better. As we sw ung ship in circles and figure eights to con­ fuse the enem y’s sighting, I stood in my gunport and a big one threw salt w ater in my face as it fell a few feet short. I w atched the string of bubbles until the next one passed overhead. I adm it that I ducked as the thing passed overhead, range a few yards too great. T h e re isn’t any­ thing pleasant about that rising note as it approaches. Five years later came a check to me in Chicago from the N aval Prize C ourt in W ash­ ington for ‘Prize M oney’— later abolished. W e had fought the only action ‘against odds’ in the w ar with Spain and had been aw arded prize money— two for one. “ In 1924 I passed through the Panam a C anal on an A rm y T ra n s ­ port and looked up to see two ships heading through, Spanish flags aft.

I jum ped as though I had been hit, for the last time I had seen these red and yellow ensigns I had been shooting at them. “ I f you w ant to know w hat Spain’s A dm iral C ervera and his officers had, it was guts— officers and gentlem en if such ever lived.”

Now another scene from the vividly retained memories of a long and interesting life: “ I was in M anila in 1926 w hen the Spanish fleet put in,” the M ajo r w rote to me this Spring. “ W e gave ’em a big reception— whites, medals and all. O f course we learn one another’s ribbons and as I came alongO

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the line to be presented, one of the Spanish officers pointed to my ribbons and spoke quickly to his side partner. I bowed and said some­ thing about having had the great honor of fighting against their very noble country. I thought they were going to kiss me and I guess my hand never did get loose again. Always get in that w ord ‘noble’; it goes a long way. T h e re is a camaraderie in the fighting services— with the other fellow just as with your own. I shall never forget how per-

G e o r g e M o s e l e y C h a n d l e r (le ft) with A. J . G. P r i e s t on occasion of this address at 1953 General

Convention.

sonally humiliated I felt w hen the news came that the G erm an Navy had m utinied— m en in their country’s blue and w ouldn’t fig h t!”

M ajor Chandler was perhaps more self-revealing than he had intended in his recitation of that episode. The officer and the gentleman; the man of honor who, as the M ajor has often said, “ always is under oath” . Yes, and the friend whose loyalties run deep and never can be compromised.

But I get ahead of my story. After the Spanish W ar, Brother Chandler became a practicing civil engineer and at once re­ sumed his Beta activities. H e served as Keeper of the Rolls

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from 1899 to 1906 and was an effective District Chief in the Chicago area and also in the Washington, D.C., area.

H e became one of the editors of our Song Book in 1902 and his official supervision over the ritual of the Fraternity also began in that year, with the appointment by the Board of Trustees of a ritual committee, consisting of Dr. Shepardson, Francis H . Sisson and M ajor Chandler, which prepared what is the basic form of our present initiation ceremony. New edi­ tions came out in 1916, 1926 and 1936, again under the edi­ torial direction of Dr. Shepardson and M ajor Chandler and the present edition, that of 1947, once more was revised and edited by the M ajor, with D r. John Allan Blair, Wabash 1893, and Karl W . Fischer, Indiana ’25, as his associates.

In the 1936 revision, D r. Shepardson had this to say about Brother Chandler’s contribution to the development of the ritual: “ W ith his wide knowledge of heraldry and the traditions of the age of chivalry and with his studies in religious ritualism and military cere­ monies to guide him, M ajo r C handler enriched the ceremonial by many valuable suggestions. F o r exact shades of m eaning, he had the advantage of consultation with John Calvin H anna, a fine classical scholar and successful teacher.”

In addition to his suggestions for improvement of the text of the ritual itself, the M ajor prepared the specifications for all the properties used in the ceremony, including the gowns, the transparencies, even the plan for wiring the initiation hall.

Brother Chandler’s contribution to the symbolism of the Fraternity actually began in his college days, for it was an undergraduate that he designed both the pledge button, which reached its present form in 1899, and the Beta flag, officially adopted by the convention of 1902 and as pleasing to the lay­ man as it is to the heraldic expert.

Long recognized by the United States Army and by the Episcopal Church as an outstanding authority in the field of heraldry, M ajor Chandler completed all the lovely, clean-cut

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heraldic symbols of Beta Theta Pi in the first decade of this century: the Great Seal, the coat of arms of the general fra­ ternity, with its crest displaying the dragon in true form, “ seated [as the M ajor describes him ], calmly defiant, defend­ ing his own,” and the coats of arms of the several chapters, each with its distinctive symbol in the first quarter and each conforming to recognized principles of heraldry. Brother Chandler even found, in the course of his travels in China, a poem from the H an Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 25) paying tribute to the dragon. I can’t offer you the original Chinese, but an approximate translation goes: W h en the dragon comes, oh !

T h e wind stirs and sighs.

W h en the dragon goes, o h !

T h e wind also is still.

As I have already indicated, every one of us initiated since 1909 has received the Chandler standard badge, manufactured in accordance with the M ajor’s drawings and his rigid specifi­ cations, which particularize as to the weights and fineness of the gold and the diamond and which have given us what is, in my serenely objective opinion, the most attractive emblem in the entire Greek letter world.

Brother Chandler was elected to the Board of Trustees at the Detroit convention of 1912 and promptly became a member of a committee, consisting of W . A. Hamilton, Dr. Shepardson and himself, to study all institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada in which Beta Theta Pi was not rep­ resented in order to chart the course of the fraternity in its expansion program for the next half-century. The situation was restudied in 1916 and a third survey was made in 1923, again with D r. Shepardson and M ajor Chandler at the laboring oars.

“The tenor of all these studies,” as the M ajor wrote in his story of the Second Fifty Years of the Fraternity, “ was that Beta Theta Pi was a truly national fraternity in thought, herit­ age and development, and in that role it had no desire or

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possibility of change; that in the fulfillment of our destiny we desired to be just as small a great fraternity as it was possible to be; that we aimed to have all the chapters necessary to fairly cover the country, but no more, this to the end that the field be covered but that our fraternal bond not be endangered by the added weight of numbers.”

These conclusions quite clearly have guided the fraternity’s expansion for the past forty years and I cannot doubt that they will continue to chart our course in the immediate future. The Board of Trustees has recently appointed another survey com­ mittee, under the chairmanship of Vice President Elm er H .

Jennings, to consider what further institutions we might enter and from what institutions we might withdraw, but I shall be greatly surprised if the basic concepts stated by D r. Shepardson and M ajor Chandler are altered in any material respect.

The M ajor never has had any hesitancy about letting his Beta brothers know that he is a Lambda man, but he has had close and intimate relations with many other chapters. For instance, he was the leader of the official delegation which wel­ comed the Illinois chapter into the fraternity in 1902; he installed the Utah chapter in 1913; he and George Howard Bruce officiated when Washington and Lee received its charter in 1917; he helped G. H erbert Smith bring Sewanee into Beta Theta Pi in 1949; and his personal investigation of the W il­ liams situation was largely responsible for the revival of that excellent New England chapter in 1914.

I happened to be on hand for the Williams initiation banquet in February, 1950, and heard District Chief Larry R. Flint read a letter from the M ajor telling in sprightly detail the story of his visit to Williamstown 36 years before. H e paid particu­ lar tribute to Carl Glock as the leader of the petitioning group, recited incidents and episodes with as much vividness as if they had occurred only a week earlier, and concluded with this characteristic sentence, “Verily, Williams is a gentleman’s college and I am glad that I slept two nights in March, 1914, in the Williams Inn.”

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The M ajor was re-elected to the Board of Trustees at our first California convention, that held in Oakland in 1915, and one of the features of that gathering was a model presentation of the ritual under his direction. Three years later, again in uniform, but then with the Construction Division of the Army rather than the Navy, M ajor Chandler served as president of the W hite Sulphur Springs convention held in July, 1918, and it was as the result of discussions had at W hite Sulphur that he became, on the spot, the first subscriber to the Frater­ nity’s vital Baird Fund.

H e remained in the Regular Army after W orld W ar I, but his constant service to the fraternity continued. As you all know, he has long been our Historian, a duty obviously required of him, since he has known intimately, saving only Charles Duy W alker, every significant builder of Beta Theta Pi from John Reily Knox down the years to G. H erbert Smith and since he is the great, living repository of detailed knowledge about every aspect of the Fraternity’s development— knowledge which none of the rest of us ever can hope to possess.

I first met the M ajor at our 1917 convention and then be­ came somewhat better acquainted with him at the Mackinac gathering of 1924, where I represented, as a young District Chief, what I still think was an admirable petitioning group from the University of Montana. M y hair was redder at that time and my boiling point lower and when some of our elder brethren, for whom I have since developed the warmest ad­ miration and affection, opposed the Montana petitioners, I am afraid I may have disagreed rather vigorously. The Montana petition was rejected by a few votes and I recall with particular clarity a conversation held later that day with the M ajor and his good friend, Frank G. Ensign. By way of explaining what ensued, I think I should say that my then vocabulary had been tinctured by duty as an enlisted man in W orld W ar I and by service with Idaho surveying crews and in Idaho newspaper offices. In all events, when the M ajor made a remark about Montana which seemed to me to contain at least two or three

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degrees of condescension, I replied hotly, “ Oh indelicacy!” or used a phrase of somewhat similar import. The M ajor turned on his heel and walked away, as was eminently proper in the circumstances.

Then some weeks later, when my sense of the proprieties had been partially restored, the M ajor wrote Frank Ensign a letter in which he referred to me as Frank’s “ Idaho barbarian.”

Frank showed me the letter and I immediately sent the M ajor a note of apology. H e, being the gentleman that he is, ac­ cepted my avowal of error in the best possible spirit and we have been warm friends ever since.

Perhaps I may be permitted to add, quite parenthetically, that I remain convinced that we made a mistake when we turned down those Montana petitioners.

I have had the privilege of being a guest in the M ajor’s home, as he has been a guest in mine, and I have known the rare pleasure of listening to his vivid and compelling reminis­ cences about the W ar with Spain, about his long Army service, about his world-wide travels, and especially and particularly about incidents, events and personalities in Beta Theta Pi. I assure you that this series of talks about the Great Ones of the Fraternity literally would not have been possible without the M ajor’s enthusiastic interest and close collaboration. In fact, this is the first occasion in these eight years when my manu­ script has not been submitted to the M ajor for his editorial criticisms and suggestions.

After he had been recommissioned in the Regular Army following W orld W ar I, the M ajor served on the W ar D e­ partment General Staff from 1921 to 1925. H e was the Army’s representative at the National Flag Conference held in W ash­ ington, D.C., in 1923 and 1924 and is the principal author of the “ Flag Code,” which controls all uses of the national em­ blem. H e also had active duty with troops in the Orient and at various posts in this country. In March, 1940, he was retired “ by operation of law” upon arriving at his 64th birthday, but in that same year he was recalled to duty and served throughout

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W orld W ar II in the Historical Section of the Army W ar College. Thus he had the unusual distinction of wearing his country’s uniform in three wars, each separated from the other by almost an entire generation— the W ar with Spain and our struggles with the German Kaiser and his wretched successor.

W hen the M ajor was again placed on the retired list at the end of 1945, the medical officers who examined him said that he “ was good for another war” and I really am surprised that he was not called back to duty when Stalin’s North Korean puppets crossed the 38th Parallel in June, 1950. Incidentally, he has admitted to me under severe cross-examination that he wears “ a shirt front full of medals,” but he modestly insists that “none of them amount to much.”

Brother Chandler has been throughout his life a devoted member of the Episcopal Church. H e was a delegate to the Triennial General Conference of his Church held in 1928 and he is the co-designer of the appealing official flag which the Church adopted in 1940. And I believe that the M ajor’s engagingly direct and lucid prose style can be attributed quite as much to his familiarity with the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Version as it can to his study of the classics.

Even such a brief biography as this would be incomplete with­ out at least some reference to the always charming and attractive M rs. Chandler, the former Fannie Cooley, a granddaughter of the great American jurist, Thomas M. Cooley, and a member at the University of Michigan of what George calls, “the snooty local sorority, Sorosis.” They celebrated their Fiftieth W edding Anniversary in June, 1951, and their life together has been golden all through the years.

I wish that time permitted me to tell you much more about this many-sided Beta brother of ours; for example, about his activities in the numerous other organizations to which he be­ longs, among them the Society of Colonial Wars, the Sons of the Revolution, the Cosmos Club and the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C., the American Historical Association

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and the American Society of Civil Engineers, of which he is a life member; or about his interest in baseball; or about his phenomenal memory, which is just as sharp and encyclopedic tonight as it must have been in his undergraduate days; or about his life-long friendships with Beta enthusiasts like Clarence L. Newton, John R. Simpson, Otho E. Lane, H . Sheridan Baketel, John L. Baker, Morris R. Ebersole, and many others. But I think I have said enough to make you realize at least in some measure what he has meant to the Fraternity and what the F ra­ ternity has meant to him. H is contributions to the building up of Beta Theta Pi have been as amazing in quantity as they have been unique in quality and it is with the deepest satisfaction that his fraternity pays tribute to him for his 60 years of fidelity and devotion.

I think I can offer you no better final paragraphs than those with which Brother Chandler closed his picture of the Second Fifty Years of Beta Theta Pi, written for the Centenary con­ vention. Let me quote him: “ In the Spring of 1899, there was unveiled at M iam i University in a spot carefully located a bronze tablet bearing a relief portrait of P ater Knox, a laurel w reath and three stars and the legend, ‘In 1839 John Reily K nox and his associates founded here the F raternity of Beta T h e ta Pi.’ A t a meeting of the Board of T rustees the w ording was under discussion. H am ilton, always to the point, and quoting the w ords of the constitution, said the inscription should m ore tersely read, ‘founded here Beta T h e ta P i.5 ‘N o,’ said Robb with that almost prophetic light in his eye and in his charm ing voice, ‘no— “ founded here the fraternity of Beta T h e ta Pi,” for the time may come w hen it will be necessary to recall th at it was a fraternity which P ater K nox and his associates founded.’

T h e n the M ajo r concluded: “ T h e first hundred years have come and gone— yes— it was and is a fraternity which P ater K nox founded and G od grant th at it may always rem ain so. ‘C arry on.’ ”

I pledge you, George Moseley Chandler, Lambda 1898, that we will carry on, endeavoring with all our hearts to make the fraternity you love, and of which you have been a prime

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architect, worthy of you, and of its founders and of its other mighty builders in the years long gone. You have laid hold on immortality by the work of skilled hands and an enkindled mind— aye, and an ardent spirit. You have our affection and our gratitude, pressed down and running over. Long may you grace our tables when we take counsel together! Long may you enrich us with your presence!

C h a r l e s J . S e a m a n , Denison 1871.

1954

T he Hymnologists of Beta Theta Pi This is the ninth talk in what may well have become an unduly long series honoring those builders of Beta Theta Pi whose contributions have been at once enduring and unique.

T urn with me, if you will, to our hymnologists, to those pe­ culiarly gifted wearers of our badge— most of them young men when their hearts were poured forth in song— who have made us preeminently a singing fraternity.

In particular, we shall turn to the author of that finest of all fraternity songs, “The Loving Cup,” not to mention “ In The O ld Porch Chairs,” “ Come Smoke a Friendly Pipe W ith M e,” “ Oh, W hen Our Sons To College Go,” “ She Wears M y Beta Pin,” and so many others of the songs we warmly cherish. H e is Horace Gillette Lozier, Chicago 1894, and it is our high privilege to express to him tonight our admiration, our affection and our gratitude.

Let me begin with the beginnings of our Beta minstrelsy.

W e may be sure that the Founders themselves lifted their voices together in song, and as early as 1847 the Wabash chapter was using a printed collection of Beta odes. There were opening and closing odes, a benediction, an ode to the chapter and a song to the initiated. One verse from the opening ode will give you at least an inkling of that long-ago expression of fraternity sentiment: A t Friendship’s pure and holy shrine L et all dissensions die,.

A nd m utual confidence entwine O u r Beta, T h e ta , Pi. 123

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The first song book deserving the W estern Reserve chapter in Western Reserve 1864, tells the were put down forty years after give you a brief extract:

that name was published by 1865. William H . Gaylord, story in reminiscences which the event and from which I

“ Beta chapter had, in the fall of 1863, some sweet singers and poetic spirits. W hile some of the brothers were silent and only beat time, Beta’s hall often rang with the most angelic rhapsody of song. W e felt that some effort should be made to put in perm anent form all the scattered leaves of song in the different chapters, and opened correspondence with them to that end. T h e responses were tardy, some discouraging, or at least indifferent, and some sealed their dissent by silence. But Beta chapter’s enthusiasm for a song book had reached such a tension that, undismayed by poverty, undaunted by the indifference of brother chap­ ters, we resolved that we would not only edit, but w rite a song book.”

Then Brother Gaylord quotes from the minutes of a meet­ ing of the W estern Reserve chapter held on November 3, 1863: “ T h is evening each of the brothers was to hand in an original song, and m ore than half of our members did so. T h e songs were sung. A ballot was taken to decide w hat songs composed by brothers should be published.”

If each of our chapters undertook a similar assignment in this year of grace, 1954, and an equal percentage of the brethren responded, we would produce approximately 2,000 songs. But I am not sure how many of the 2,000 would be better than the five songs selected 91 years ago at Western Reserve. In any event, two of those original five, “ Beta’s Emblems,” by M. L. Brooks, 1864, and “ Our Founders,” by S. E. Williamson, 1864, are sung to this very day by many chapters. For those of you who are not familiar with it, here is the first verse of Brother Williamson’s tribute to our Honored Eight, written in the fraternity’s twenty-fifth year: W h en we m eet to sing the pleasures T h a t the bonds of Beta yield, L et us not forget our founders,

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Those who raised our noble shield.

Ties they gave us naught can sever, T ies that speak our m otto’s w o rth ; Ties that bind us fast together, T ies am ong the best of earth.

R efrain: N ever shall our shield be low ered; F rom our stars w e’ll never sw erve; W e will cherish still our diam ond; A nd the w reath w e’ll still deserve.

The next important step was taken when the convention of 1870 directed the Denison chapter to compile a song book for the fraternity. This work was undertaken with great enthusiasm

by Charles J. Seaman, Denison 1871, who wrote two songs himself, “ Brightly on This Summer N ight” and the more popular “W e Are Singing Again In The Dear O ld H a ll” and who pressed into service his own chapter mates and other Beta friends.

Joseph S. Tunison, Denison 1873, who, even as an under­ graduate, wrote as eloquently in Latin as he did in English, came forward with the immortal “ Gemma Nostra” and our mag­ nificent “Beta Doxology.”

In this connection,t I once heard Dr. j Shepardson say that the doxology is the most difficult of all songs to write and that ours achieves entire perfection.

D r. J. O. Stilson, Hanover 1871, contributed the stirring lyrics of “There’s A Scene W here Brothers Greet” and Chap­ lain John H ogarth Lozier, DePauw 1857, made the first of the great Lozier additions to Beta hymnology with his Wooglin song. Chaplain Lozier was, of course, the celebrated “ H igh Priest of Wooglin,” warm-hearted and high-minded lover of Beta Theta Pi whose legend of Wooglin and his Dorg was both unique and indispensable in the development of the fra­ ternity as we know it. The tribute we pay tonight to the author of “ The Loving Cup” is intended in part for the dear Chaplain, since we may be sure that much of Horace’s enthusiasm for the o

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fraternity, as well as his rare poetic and melodic gifts, came to him from his splendid Beta sire.

I can assure our undergraduate brethren that there is nothing new about the emphasis we have placed on scholarship at recent conventions. Chaplain Lozier was also thinking of devotion to the cultivation of the intellect when he wrote, more than ninety years ago: T h e re ’s legend am ong us you know, brother, T h a t W ooglin only reigns W ith those in these regions below, brother, W h o value the force of brains.

Included in the 1871 collection was a memorable Beta hymn written by Charles Hemmenway Adams, DePauw 1865, for many years editor of the H artford C ourant and one of the most influential journalists of his time. It has been sung thousands of times at initiations, chapter meetings and alumni gatherings a^ hands have been linked in the mystic circle: A nd now let hand grip into hand, A nd eye look into eye, As love flows free from heart to heart In Beta T h e ta Pi.

The next compilation, that of 1884, contained the actual music of the various songs for the first time, and there were further editions in 1886, 1888, 1891 and 1894 under supervi­ sion of Frank M . Joyce, DePauw 1882. However, it was not until 1902 that the song book attained its present attractive form.

T hat 1902 edition was edited and published by a young Chicago alumnus, Horace G. Lozier, and through the following halfcentury he has been the only editor of the Beta Song Book.

I think I should say in this connection that Brother Lozier delivered at the 1903 convention— a mere 51 years ago— what D r. Shepardson calls in his Beta Book “ an enlivening and instructive address” on the singing of fraternity songs and I am sure, Horace, that you are quite as capable of guiding and instructing us now as you were then.

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In addition to “The Loving Cup,” “ Come Smoke A Friendly Pipe W ith M e,” “ In The Old Porch Chairs,” and other great Lozier songs, the 1902 edition found Chaplain John H ogarth Lozier and his talented son collaborating on “ Beta Sires and Beta Sons” and “W e’ll Toast The Silver Grays,” for which Horace wrote the brilliant music and Wooglin’s “H igh Priest”

H o r a c e G. L o z i e r , Chicago ’04, and J o h n H o g a r t h L o z i e r , DePauw 1857,

at approxim ately the time “ T h e L o v in g C up” was written.

the inspiring lyrics. Listen again to only two of Chaplain Lozier’s verses which have quickened the aspirations of un­ numbered Betas: T h e y shine am ong the stars th at grace the galaxy of F am e; T h e y add new luster to the place and honor Beta’s nam e.

In field and forum , church and state, they lead the van always; T h e ir powers great w e’ll em ulate and toast the Silver Grays.

and also:

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O ld W ooglin watches with sleepless eye E ach m an of Beta T h e ta Pi; A nd cheerily smiles on all who aim T o keep to the fore dear Beta’s nam e.

A nd thus from cherished sire to son T h e links of our bond fraternal run, W hile Beta sons of Beta sires A re guarding forever our altar fires.

Sam W alter Foss, Brown 1882, was a vastly popular and widely read poet for more than 40 years and also a real Beta enthusiast who provided the lyrics for one of the finest songs in Brother Lozier’s first compilation. I commend “ Good Betas Sing Forever,” set to sparkling music by Robert W . Dunn, Michigan 1 895, to favorable undergraduate attention. H ere are two verses, just to whet your curiosity: L e t the zephyr sigh or the tempest blow, L e t the tossing waves roll high or low, L e t the w orld go fast or the w orld go slow, Good Betas sing forever.

In the hopeful ray of the m orning light, In the tw ilight gloom of the gathering night, W h en the stars are hid or the heavens are bright, Good Betas sing forever.

F o r our hopes are bright and the w orld is wide, A nd we launch our skiff on the outw ard tid e; A nd we sing as we sail— w hatever betide— Good Betas sing forever.

W e sing as we sail from our sheltered lea T o the sum m er isles or the w inter sea, W h atev er our course or our port may be, Good Betas sing forever.

Chorus T h e n sing we the song of the young and the strong, O f the friends of the right and the foes of the w rong; F o r our hopes are bright and our hearts are light, A nd the songs of joy are our songs tonight.

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Did you ever have the experience, as I have, of returning to the chapter house or hall of your college days after the fra­ ternity had surrendered it to heedless and unfeeling strangers?

Such a moment is, I assure you, one to tug sharply at the heart-strings and it has found tender expression in “The Old Chapter H a ll” by Osman C. Hooper, Denison 1879. The musical setting, by Carroll Ragan, Wabash ’01, is written in five flats, but that should not deter a genuinely ambitious chap­ ter song leader. Again, two verses from lyrics which are models of their kind: H ere is the place where oft we m et; Rap gently at the door, F o r m em ory holds it tender yet A nd will foreverm ore.

W h a t e’er it be ’tw as once the shrine O f your fidelity and mine.

T h e toilsome years that m ark our brows H ave w rought their havoc h e re ; A nd alien feet through our retreat M ove w ithout qualm or fe a r; W hile forms no stranger eye can see R eturn, and here com m une with me.

Acknowledgment must be made, in the presence of so many charming Beta girls, that the dear ladies have inspired many of our most popular songs. Brother Lozier himself has de­ clared, “ Stars that light the Beta skies lend their luster to her eyes,” and has also sung to “ the absent member, she for whom you pine,” while Ralph E. Gabele, Denison ’25, ascribes to his Beta girl “eyes blue as skies of Beta blue, cheeks like the rose of Beta hue.” And our tributes to the fair were just as ardent in the past century, when serenading was an even more sedu­ lously cultivated outdoor sport than it is today. T ry these two, for example, on your old guitar:

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W e have gazed on the fairest of beauties W h en attired in their richest array, But never before felt a passion So ardent and free from decay. and D ear to us all are the smiles of the fair W h o in the trium phs of Beta can share; E ver may they, as our Diam ond bright, D azzle with beauty’s light.

As I have already indicated, most of our great songs were written either by undergraduates or by younger alumni and that may well account for their freshness, their sincerity, their spontaneity. Their expressions of sentiment came welling up, quite unabashed, from warm, young hearts and in our better chapters— for our better chapters are singing chapters— they

J a m e s T a f t H a t f i e l d , Northwestern

D ean

1883, Johns Hopkins 1890.

1871.

St a n l e y

Coulter,

Hanover

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still strike responsive chords. The first version of “The Loving Cup,” Brother Lozier tells me, was written when he was only six years out of college and Stanley Coulter, Hanover 1870, produced the tenderly appropriate “As Betas now we meet, a brother new to greet” at what he himself has called “ the ma­ ture age of fifteen.”

I am inclined to think that better, and certainly more literate, song lyrics were written before Tin Pan Alley spread its ap­ palling bilge over the land. I am not referring to the brilliant Oscar Hammerstein or to other modern song writers who ap­ proach his stature, but rather to the boys who industriously rhyme “June, moon and spoon; love, dove, above; ripe and tripe; mush, gush, slush” and all the reeking rest.

W e are talking tonight about Beta’s hymnologists and I as­ sure you that the term is used advisedly. Perhaps I can best illustrate what I am thinking about by employing what is, in effect, the parallel column technique. Consider then, for ex­ ample, the verses and chorus of “ California, H ere I come” : W h en the w intry winds start blowing A nd the snow is starting in the fall, T h e n m y eyes tu rn w estw ard; T h a t’s the place th at I love best of all.

California, I ’ve been blue Since I ’ve been away from you.

I can’t w ait ’til I get going, Even now I ’m starting in to call.

Chorus: California, here I come, Right back where I started from .

W here the flowers, the flowers bloom in the Spring; Each m orning at daw ning the birdies sing— and everything.

Sunkist misses, don’t be late.

T h a t’s why I can hardly wait.

O pen up that G olden G a te !

California, here I com e!

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That really is a superior Tin Pan Alley product. Of course the tune is catchy and there are two or three clever turns of phrase, but if that lyric as a whole does not make poets from Shakespeare to Amy Lowell gyrate in their cerements, nothing can disturb them until Gabriel blows his slide trombone.

By way of contrast, I offer you a California hymn, “ Omega’s H ym n,” to be specific, written by Charles S. W heeler, Cali­ fornia 1884, while he was still an undergraduate. Brother W heeler, be it said, was a towering figure in the life of Cali­ fornia, a highly successful lawyer who twice rejected the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of that State, a leader in every significant civic enterprise. H e served the fraternity as a District Chief and remained an interested Beta to the day of his death. H ere are just two verses from his eloquent hymn: Sun in the western sky, nearing the foam, L ight with thy closing eye, O m ega’s home.

Shed on her loyal sons light from above; Strengthen fidelity, friendship and love.

Stars, show thy haloed heads! Come forth tonight, Flow ers of G od’s azure meads, sparkling and bright; As in the darkened dome glistening you stand, So, by good deeds on earth, shines W ooglin’s band.

If the difference between the product of Charles S. W heeler’s fine, enlightened mind and the essential second-rateness of Tin Pan Alley is as apparent as I think it should be, my point has been made.

Glance through the song book and note some of the words used by our Beta lyricists— words that express a sound phi­ losophy, words which indicate that those who used them had as their exemplar the great Greek who “ saw life steadily and saw it whole.” There are nouns like friendship, love, effort, pride, fidelity, truth, strength, duty, success, honor, fame; such adjectives as faithful, loyal, lofty, tried and true; yes, and such phrases as this from a 90-year-old song which thrilled me as

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an undergraduate, “Looking forward to the future, far its dazzling prospects try !”

W hen you turn to our remarkable Beta Collection, you may note that the Denison chapter leads the Fraternity in the num­ ber of songs contributed— twelve, while Chicago is second with eleven, ten of them the work of Horace Lozier. There is a tie for third place, DePauw and Syracuse ranking together with seven, all of the Syracuse songs having been produced, both words and original melodies, by the brilliant Kenneth Rogers, Syracuse ’17. For fourth position there is another tie, six songs having come from the minds and hearts of the men of N orth­ western and six from M ajor George Chandler’s Michigan chap­ ter.

Among the songs which have somehow fallen out of under­ graduate favor in the past twenty-five years is a set of verses by the mighty James T aft Hatfield, Northwestern 1883, which quite certainly comes close to voicing the essential genius of the fraternity. Under the title, “The Three Stars,” these lyrics were set to original music by Carl Beecher, Northwestern ’06.

They are to be found at page 110 of the present edition of the song book and they deserve many a careful Beta re-reading: H ere’s to those who share our lot, friends till death shall part; Com rades true in grief and joy, m en of loyal heart.

N ever shall life’s weal or woe brothers’ love divide: In the battle and the storm standing side by side.

H ere’s to joys of thought and m ind shared by spirits rare, M ounting higher day by day, breathing purer air.

Richer gains that crow n our toil, less of low er earth; Life that grows m ore deep and full, souls that know their w orth.

H ere’s to faith th at’s firm and strong, proof against all fa te ; Confidence of m an in m an, brave to hope and wait.

L e t the seas between us roll, rage each hostile g ale!

W e have know n each other once, trust shall never fail.

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H o r a c e G. L o z i e r at L am bd a R ho C hapter T rib u te to him in June, 1955.

Brother Chairman, unquestionably the greatest name in Beta hymnology is Lozier, but if Kenneth Rogers, Syracuse ’17, who wrote both the words and the music for “ Marching Along,” “To The Pledge,” “ The Beta Chorus,” “The Beta Stars” and

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“ The Sons of the Dragon,” had lived, he might well have been a challenger for that high guerdon. And certainly this tribute would be incomplete without special reference to the brilliant, the greatly gifted Ken. I remember Kenneth Rogers best as he appeared at the

K e n n e t h R ogers , Syracuse ’ 17.

W hite Sulphur Springs convention of 1923, just after his “ Marching Along” had been introduced. The delegates were fascinated by him, caught up in his enthusiasm, charmed by his warm friendliness, carried away by his infectious gifts as a song leader. One of the pictures of that convention which I shall always carry with me is that of Ken at the piano, surrounded by twenty-five or thirty undergraduates, making the welkin

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resound with college and fraternity songs.

Let me give you the appraisal of another contemporary, Gordon S. Smyth, Pennsylvania ’18, former Trustee and former Editor of The Beta Theta Pi, who knew Kenneth Rogers much better than I did. W riting soon after Ken was called to the stars, Gordon said, “ Of all the young Betas I have known, Ken typified to me Beta Theta Pi. To know him was to love him, and to touch his life was to gain inspiration.

I saw quite a bit of him when I was a Chief and he was at Mercersberg, and I know how he won his way to the hearts of the boys at Penn State, at Dickinson, at Lehigh, at Pennsyl­ vania, at Hopkins. Those chapters were all stronger for having known him.”

Gordon had received from Ken’s foster-father a copy of a poem, “ The Light,” which Ken had written just before his death and which was published in The Churchman. Its last stanza will afford an insight into his character and his faith: A nd as the shadows lay their deeps Beneath the twilight in the west, Some lingering ray of sunlight leaps Across the dim horizon’s crest; M ay we look up and see that light A nd know its ray will trail the m orn Across horizons, through the night T o daw n m ore glorious, day new born.

Beta Theta Pi h as lost many young men of great promise, but certainly none in my own time who might have made such a full contribution to the fraternity as Kenneth Rogers. H e was endowed with every gift save that of long life and his zeal for this fellowship of ours fairly flamed. I think it is quite certain that we “ shall not see his like again.”

Great care has been exercised in the selection of songs for inclusion in succeeding editions of the song book. Material which seems obviously ephemeral in character, which does not reflect Beta Theta Pi at its best, or which even mildly vilifies

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other fraternities, has always been excluded. For example, I doubt that “The Beta Mating Call” will ever appear in the company of “ Gemma Nostra.” That particular effusion seemed amusing when I first heard it, but I must confess that its rancidity has increased in geometric proportion with each repe­ tition. Allow me to report in this connection that the ballad about our rivals sizzling on the coals and introducing Beelzebub himself is, I firmly believe, a straight steal from Kappa Sigma.

At least, as I heard it forty years ago in the Kappa Sigma house at the University of Idaho, the final line was, “And Satan gave the good, old grip, for he could not renig; he was a jolly fellow and a loyal Kappa Sig.” Our official policy as to the use of Beta songs by others, par­ ticularly in circumstances which might tend in the least toward commercialization, has been admirably stated by former Presi­ dent G. H erbert Smith, DePauw ’27, in his “ Son of the Stars” and deserves repetition here: T h e songs of Beta T h e ta Pi have been w ritten by Betas for Betas and every precaution has been taken to guarantee that the sentim ent and appreciation of the fraternity expressed in our songs will not be cheapened by popularizing them for general use. T h e songs of Beta T h e ta Pi have been copyrighted by the fraternity and we have adopted the policy th at permission to broadcast our songs will be given only under special conditions, such as the broadcast of an interfraternity sing in which one of our chapters is competing. In no case is permission given to broadcast one of our songs on a commercially sponsored program .

Such, then, Brother Chairman, are the songs— the hymns— of Beta Theta P i; and such, also, some of the rare spirits who have given them to us. Shall we not agree that these earnest, consecrated Betas have breathed “ purer air,” that there has been about them much, much “ less of lower earth” ?

Now, finally, what shall we say to the editor of our mag­ nificent song book through 52 years, to the author of the finest and the best in Beta lyrics and in Beta music? H e has been an outstanding leader in his chosen field, that of insurance, for longer than he likes to remember; he is an authentic American

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poet whose verse has been widely published and admired; he is an inspired and thoroughly trained musician; he is a deeply devoted Beta.

General officers come and go in Beta Theta Pi, fulfilling a useful function (at least so we would like to think), but al­ though some of them have been great exemplars who may well have inspired our Beta poets, their influence quite certainly is more transient than that of one who has succeeded in capturing the sentiment and spirit of the fraternity in literate and ap­ propriate verse and in appealing melody. I feel very sure that even a Shepardson, a Robb, a Hanna, a Baird, a Sisson, a Daw­ son, a Newton, a H erb Smith, a Seth Brooks, would cheerfully have forfeited all his fraternity honors if only he might have written: O h , you and I can ne’er grow old while this fair cup is n ig h ; H ere’s life and strength, here’s health and wealth, here’s all in Phi kai Phi.

H orace Gillette Lozier, Lambda Rho 1894, we can never be sufficiently grateful for the talent, the ardor, the loveliness of spirit, you have poured forth all these years without stint or limit. You have warmed and lifted up our hearts and you have enkindled our minds. Accept the laurels of our admiration, our affection, which you have so fairly won. You and we know they can never grow less bright or fade away!

1955

T he Good, Rich Gift of Laughter This is the tenth— and last— in a series of talks about the Great Ones of Beta Theta Pi. It began with verses from the inspired pen of Edgar Lee Masters and it has attempted, for this generation, to italicize the significance of our quite unusual leadership.

Most of those who have guided the fraternity have been persons in their own right; others have discovered in Beta Theta Pi the golden “ fellowship of wisdom and dreams.” That they have been an extraordinary group this series has sought to recall rather than to prove. Advocacy was not required. The only endeavor has been to direct attention to qualities of mind and heart which have developed a great fraternity.

Kindliness, tolerance, insight, understanding, patience, firstrate intelligence, often warm eloquence, and, in addition to much else, the good, rich gift of laughter— all these were theirs, and were used generously. If I may single out only two of the group, William Raimond Baird and Francis W ay land Shepard­ son were beyond all question the first Greeks of their time.

Their primacy was accepted throughout the college fraternity world and I rather doubt that equal recognition has been ac­ corded any other fraternity.

Tonight I am to talk about Wooglin’s humorists, about cer­ tain fraternity leaders who saw life whole and who, perhaps because they did, were able to smile at it. They are the earth’s anointed, the kindly, the gentle, the serene, who discerned and relished humor and who expressed it, brightening other lives as well as their own.

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The importance of this conception is stressed in Aubrey M ennen’s shrewd retelling of that vivid H indu epic, “ The Ramayana.” This final question is put by Prince Rama to Valmiki, who has been his tutor, philosopher and friend, “ In this world of illusion, is there anything you believe in as real?” “ Certainly,” Valmiki replies. “ Three things: God, human folly and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.”

H ow ard Webster Adams, Indiana ’05, belongs high on any such list as we are examining. H e was a long-time District Chief, he served as toastmaster at numerous convention ban­ quets and he had the happy faculty of being able to express humorous nuances in seven or eight languages. Webb’s anec­ dotes ranged the globe. W hen he told British stories, his gentle­ men of Piccadilly strolled down Mayfair with monocle in eye and stick in hand; when his subject matter was Scandinavian, the listener’s ear caught, like a faint violin obligatto, the rattling of round tins of Copenhagen snoose; and when he told Irish stories, the blessed shillelaghs themselves could be heard playing softly upon Hibernian skulls. There, Brother Chair­ man, was a raconteur!

One of the gentlest and kindliest of all the fraternity’s leaders was George Howard Bruce, Centre 1899, General Secretary from 1917 to 1926, an outstanding educator under whom many who later were to become general officers of the fraternity served as District Chiefs. One of George Bruce’s most appealing characteristics was his sharp, if unobtrusive, sense of humor.

Indeed, many of us suffered from time to time under its chas­ tening sting.

George’s follicular foliage was somewhat less than lush and luxurious; and as an impertinent young District Chief whose hair was distinctly pinker and more ample than it is now, I remember suggesting to him, “ Brother Bruce, I guess you just weren’t around when St. Peter was handing out the hair, were *1 you?7 George H ow ard looked me over sternly and a little sadly

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before he replied, “Ah, yes, A. J., my boy, I was there. But all he had left was red hair.”

Brother Bruce was an enlightenedly orthodox Presbyterian and, at the wedding of Louise and Gordon Smyth, I recall hav­ ing said to the kindly minister who performed the service, “ Doctor, you may not believe this, but my friend M r. Bruce here is so completely Calvinistic that he actually believes in infant damnation.”

Again the slow, gentle appraisal. And again the soft reply, “ I certainly would, A. J., if you were an infant.”

George Bruce was entirely too faithful a Christian to use the expletives which sometimes bubbled unbidden to the lips of lesser Betas, this speaker among them. Yet he, too, had his moments of deep exasperation on the golf course. For example, when he dubbed a short approach shot, he would sometimes exclaim, “ Peanuts,” and then, when he missed a three-foot putt, he had been heard passionately to ejaculate, “ Double peanuts!” P ll confess that I have often heard stronger, but vastly less scorching, profanity.

One of George Bruce’s District Chiefs was W illiam W arren Dawson, Ohio Wesleyan ’14, who was an admirable chief, an altogether exemplary Vice President and Trustee and a bril­ liant President of the fraternity. Bill Dawson had the good lawyer’s talent for assembling the facts completely, and his gift of analysis was crisp and certain. On occasion the Omega Gamma chapter, let us say, would have difficulty and Bill would be put in charge. A ll the circumstances would be his in an afternoon, that night the problem would be solved and in another day Bill would persuade the leaders of the under­ graduate and alumni bodies to accept his solution and to put it into effect. H e had an immense capacity for winning the other person’s confidence and then directing it into the right channels. Furtherm ore, he used that capacity time after time for the strengthening of the fraternity. I doubt that we can ever be sufficiently grateful to him.

I know but few men who loved a good story as Bill did.

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H is laugh was deep and warm and infectious, delighting and carrying along all who heard it. For more than 20 years I had saved my choicest anecdotes for Bill’s regalement, and I am sure the habit will persist. Let me say here that if, by some peculiar Puritan twist, humor has been barred from Bill’s area of the Undiscovered Country, he and I will seek out another

Left to rig h t: G . H e r b e r t S m i t h , J a m e s L. G a v i n , W i l l i a m W . D a w s o n .

section. I need hardly suggest that we shall be in good company when we do.

For many years, the Dawson family cook was one Aunt Lucinda, whose husband once was accused of purloining an automobile with felonious intent. Bill was employed as his attorney and succeeded in demonstrating to a Cleveland ju ry ’s entire satisfaction that the accused must have been in Toledo or Cincinnati, or both, when the automobile was mis­ laid. Aunt Lucinda was restrained from praying publicly while the court was in session, but when the jury retired, she exhorted long and earnestly. Then the verdict of acquittal was brought

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in and Aunt Lucinda marched triumphantly down the broad court house steps exulting, “Praise th’ Lawd! Praise Lawyer Dawson! Praise th’ Lawd! Praise Lawyer Dawson! H e ’s a’ extra average man! ” So he was, in all respects, an extra average man— as a lawyer and teacher of the law, as a soldier and as an administrator bringing hope and enlightenment to the German people; yes, and as one of the gifted leaders of Beta Theta Pi. Bill Dawson was one of those who understood the uses of humor; he knew, for example, that the effect of ridicule may be deadly. Let me give you a 1938 episode that involved Bill and a certain D r. W agner, who was attached to the German con­ sulate at Cleveland. Nazism had a certain fascination for some Americans at that period and D r. W agner had been riding the wave buoyantly. H e had been particularly successful with aca­ demic people in the Cleveland area who had studied in Ger­ many or who had German connections. And then he en­ countered Bill Dawson.

The meeting had been arranged at the Dawson farm in BrecksvilJ^e and D r. W agner arrived just as Bill was hiving a swarm of bees about to yield to the suzerainty of their new queen. “ So interesting, H err Professor Dawson,” said D r. Wagner. “ So interesting! You will observe that we have here the fuehrer principle in nature.”

Bill Dawson turned on his brightest and most urbane smile. “ I shall be interested in human fuehrers,” he replied, “when you show me one who can lay eggs! ” Dr. W agner executed an abrupt, military about-face. H e did not look back. Nor did he remain long in Cleveland.

I have mentioned the uses of humor. Unfortunately there are still a few, even among the wearers of our eight-sided Grecian badge, who do not understand how humor should be employed; who, in particular, are not aware that laughter is required as an alleviator of tension, as a dissipator of the raptly serious. Such gentry used to distress me, but now that my 60th

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birthday is not so far away, they no longer do. Nor should they perturb you. The emotion which they properly evoke is affectionate sympathy, commingled with appropriate pity.

I am frankly sorry for the man who does not yield himself to laughter, who is not seized upon and convulsed by it. Per­ haps you are a connoisseur of humor. You may well remain wholly unaffected by the twice or the thrice told tale. But when you really are amused, I venture to hope that you let yourself go. Knowing how to laugh deeply and fully is at once one of the most satisfying and the most refreshing of all arts.

Certainly I could not imagine a protracted stretch on the psy­ chiatric couch for a man who could be heartily amused by himself.

Do you know the first recorded humorous effort in Beta Theta Pi? No one can be sure, but Michael Clarkson Ryan at least used a thoroughly established American technique when he wrote to Pater Knox on March 27, 1841: “ Business is very brisk in town now. You might stand on the public square any hour of the day and you would not see a single wagon.” That is, of course, the ages-old twist of understatement, and it be­ longs, like its counterpart, exaggeration, to the humor of the frontier. You will remember that Paul Bunyan’s mighty blue ox, Babe, measured 42 axehandles and a plug of tobacco be­ tween the eyes. And in converse vein, you might stand on your public square any hour of the day and not see a single wagon. Mendacity, to be sure, but for the sweet sake of amuse­ ment.

D r. Shepardson has reported that David Linton wrote often and entertainingly about a certain red-haired girl Pater Knox loved. H e said that if he ever had a red-haired child, he would drown it. Fate brought him two such children and he seems to have been especially devoted to them. I think you will recall that Founder Linton was a Quaker and that he was often referred to as “ the laughing philosopher.” In conversation, he seldom offered contradiction or demurrer, but listened, and when he did not agree, literally laughed his opponent out of court.

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F o u n d e r D a v id L i n t o n .

Now if you will wing yourselves more than a century from the Founders to the scene which lies around us today, I would like particularly to cite as one of W ooglin’s foremost humorists our outgoing Vice President and Trustee, Clem B. Holding, North Carolina ’18. Those of you who attended the Bigwin convention of 1950, which he served as president, will remem­ ber his story-telling gifts. And those talents have been fully brought home at other gatherings of the fraternity. If her beneficent majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, ever establishes the honorable company of Knights Commander of the O rder of the Raconteur, Clem most certainly must be among the earliest designated. If only I might be the first to address him as “ Sir

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Clem” ! Women and children should not be present, but it will be an instructive moment.

At the Pasadena convention of 1953, we had one exceedingly tense period. The group was strongly and earnestly divided and what might have been real hurt to the fraternity seemed possible. Then Clem told a story indicating that things are not

C l e m B. H o l d i n g , North Carolina ’ 18.

always what they seem. I shall not repeat it for two reasons: first, it is his and you should hear it from his own lips and, second, it is impossible wholly to reproduce its setting. But I say to you quite flatly that, the occasion and the opportunity considered, it was the best anecdote I have ever heard.

The tale was not new to me and yet I laughed until I cried.

I repeat that the moment was an agonizingly tense one and yet when Clem sat down, the relaxation, the blessed ease, had spread like April sunshine over the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia or, if you please, over Idaho’s snow-capped Owyhees.

Clem had told the perfect story on the perfect occasion. Only

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to a favored few does Providence accord that summum bonum.

Clem’s aureole is not apparent to the undiscerning, but in the minds of those who heard him, it will glow forever and for­ ever.

There are perhaps a good many of us who are devoted to humor and yet are not often its public practitioners. For ex­ ample, my cherished friends, the Sm i(y)th brothers, Gordon S., Pennsylvania ’18, and G. H erbert, DePauw ’27, and my col­ league on the Board of Trustees, Elm er H . Jennings, N orth­ western ’12, all great servants and great lovers of Beta Theta Pi, yield themselves to laughter and profoundly enjoy it, but they are not characteristically tinklers of the buffoon’s bells.

Nor do I quarrel too seriously with the discretion which they exercise.

I think the University of Virginia’s contribution to this sym­ posium should come from my law school colleague, Col. H ardy C. Dillard, Virginia ’23, who spoke brilliantly and memorably at the centennial anniversary banquet of his Omicron chapter this past June. H ardy tells about another associate of ours whose teen-age son could quote baseball statistics like a sports encyclopedia, but whose academic interests were less than ardent. Finally the boy seemed to be enthusiastic about a course in the history of civilization at his preparatory school and his father was delighted. Thinking to probe the young man’s knowledge, the father inquired, “H enry, have you come across Copernicus? Can you tell me who Copernicus was?” The lad listened intently, knit his brow and replied, “ I ’m sure I ’ve heard of him. Can’t you please give me just one little hint?

Dad, what position did he play? ” W illiam L. (Billy) Graves, Ohio State 1893, warmly de­ voted Beta who is said to have visited our Theta Delta chapter house more than 5,000 times, was toastmaster at one of the convention banquets of the early ’30’s, after having spent the Summer in England. George V then reigned and it will be recalled that his consort, the late and magnificent Queen Mary, quite soared over him. I remember especially that Billy ob­

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served, “And if George and M ary ever quarrel, it’s going to be a case of ‘God save the King’. ” I also remember having heard that delightful Beta veteran, D r. H . Sheridan Baketel, Dartmouth 1895, a rare spirit who was taken from us only last month, account for his election to

W illia m

E. B o r a h , Kansas 1889.

W i l l i a m L. G r a v e s , Ohio State 1893.

the Board of Trustees of the fraternity. H e spoke of one Elmer Digby, whose antecedents were doubtful and whose present distinctions were negligible, but who had been chosen a deacon of his church. “W ell,” Elm er had declared, “ d’rough element got together and decided one of our boys was go’ be put over.”

Of course the fact was that “ Bake” had thoroughly earned his place on the Board of Trustees by long, devoted and greatly effective service as a District Chief.

One of the towering figures of his time, his name probably better known throughout the world than that of any other American except the then current occupant of the White House,

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was W illiam Edgar Borah, Kansas 1889, for many years chair­ man of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and always an interested Beta. I once asked Senator Borah for the most completely devastating bit of repartee he ever had heard on the Senate floor and he told me this story: A n outstanding personal feud on the Dem ocratic side of the Senate was that between John Sharp W illiam s of Mississippi and Furnifold Simmons of N orth Carolina, who hated each other with all the passionate enthusiasm of their ardent natures. O ne day Senator Simmons was m aking a speech on the Senate floor w hen John Sharp came reeling down the aisle tow ard his desk. Simmons forgot that liquor unhinged John Sharp’s knees long before it affected his keen brain and he said tartly, “ I would like to observe, M r. President, that w henever I ad­ dress the Senate of the U nited States, I am always in full possession of my faculties.” John Sharp was quite deaf and he inquired, “ W h a t’s th a t? ” “ I would like to repeat, suh, for your particular benefit, suh,” Simmons replied, “ that w henever I address the Senate of the U nited States, I am always in full possession of my faculties! ” Senator W illiam s snorted contemptuously. “ H u h ! ” he said, “ w hat good does that do you? ”

M any years ago, I heard in Columbia, S.C., the account of the battle of Sand Ridge. It was told by M ajor Hezekiah Staunton, who said that he had been a member of our old South Carolina chapter. The fragmentary records do not bear him out, but that has nothing to do with the M ajor’s endowments as a reconteur. H e was greatly given to tales of the W ar Between the States and on one occasion it was my privilege to listen to him. I obviously can offer you only a greatly condensed version. “ Yes, my dear friends,” said he, “ the M en in Blue form ed on the northern side of the ridge. T h e y wore handsome, new , whole uni­ form s; they carried the best M odel 1861 rifles; they had eaten three meals the day before and I would have you know that they all had shoes.

“A rrayed on the southern side of the ridge were the em battled forces of the Confederacy. O u r uniform s were in tatters; our weapons were ancient percussion muskets; every m an of us was hungry and our feet were bound in rags. Y et so fired and inspired were we by our zeal for

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our great and righteous cause that we moved forw ard and we swept them Yankees before us like chaff, suh.”

T h e n the querulous voice of Abel H offm an spoke up from another corner of the room. “ But, M a jo r,” he declared, “ that just ain’t right. I fit the Battle of Sand Ridge too. I fit not ten feet from you. A nd them dam n Yankees was too m any for us th at day. T h ey run us down the valley about ten m iles! ” T h e M ajo r choked, then expectorated harshly. “ H u h ,” he said, “ another perfectly good story ruined by a dam ned eye w itness!”

As I have attempted to recount the virtues of the Great Ones of Beta Theta Pi— and this has been particularly true in recent years— the question has been asked, “ In your opinion, was there a first among the foremost?” I have avoided answer­ ing, but in this last talk, the time may well have come for a reply.

Permit me to say, then, that in my own time, the greatest of the Betas was and is D r. Shepardson. I am aware that he had his failings, and I think some of the others did not, but for a period of thirty years, Shep was the personification of the fra­ ternity. H e certainly knew more Betas than any man who ever lived and he gave us so completely the very stuff of life itself that the recognition which I now suggest is not to be denied him.

Shep enjoyed and appreciated humor, but in all the years I knew him, I heard him deliberately reach for a laugh only three times. One of his stories involved an Indiana author who, back in the brave, old days when Indianapolis was the literary capital of America, was transferred to a large city on the south­ ern shore of Lake Michigan. H e epitomized his catastrophe by saying, “ Good-bye, God, Pm going to Chicago!” However, in the merest fortnight, he had become infused with the spirit of the Illinois metropolis and when he was called upon to speak at an Indianapolis luncheon, his emphasis had been changed: “ Good, by God, Pm going to Chicago! ” I have spoken of George Howard Bruce and I cannot men­

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tion him without referring also to two of his most intimate friends and associates, James L. Gavin, DePauw 1896 and John Allan Blair, Wabash 1893.

Jim Gavin’s record as treasurer of Beta Theta Pi was un­ paralleled either in our own or any other fraternity. H e served forty-two annual terms and at each convention he was able

E l m e r H. J e n n i n g s , Northwestern ’ 12.

J o h n A l l a n B l a i r , Wabash 1893.

amazingly to report, “All accounts collected, all bills paid.”

H e was both a successful lawyer and an outstanding business man and he had a deep, warm, outgoing affection for this fra­ ternity and for its members, young and old. Jim had been a top-flight tackle at DePauw and he was a big man from any point of view. I am sure the veterans will recall that at one of our Bigwin Inn conventions of the 20’s, mention was made of the establishment’s rotunda and that Johnny Blair rose to ob­ serve, “Boys, if you want to know what a rotunda is, just take a look at Jim Gavin.”

John Allan Blair received wide recognition as one of the

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leading ministers of the Presbyterian Church and he was for many years minister-at-large to Beta Theta Pi itself. H e was an inspiring District Chief; he was a forceful and effective Trustee and Vice President; he spoke often and with telling eloquence at our convention banquets; it was he who paid ten­ der and appealing tribute to Dr. Shepardson at the memorial exercises held at Granville, Ohio, after Shep’s death in August, 1937, and his Sunday vesper services at our Centennial pro­ vided one of the glowing features of that great occasion. Dr. Blair’s mother was initiated into the fraternity in 1861 in order to preserve the secret papers of our Wabash chapter when Tau’s undergraduate group entered the Union forces as a body. That rare person was one of only three women ever entitled to wear the Beta badge in their own right and each of them was initiated under circumstances of extreme emergency.

In the years I knew him, Johnny Blair’s hair was gray; his eyes were large and sparkling; his other features were some­ what rugged and yet handsome; and he had in overflowing measure the quality which can perhaps only be described as “ presence.” H e had the true Christian’s genuine humility, but his personality quite suffused any gathering at which he was present.

I first heard Johnny Blair speak formally at the Estes Park convention banquet of September, 1921. There were others on the program— Shep, of course, and certainly one or more local figures— but now that more than a third of a century has passed, it is Johnny whom I remember.

In his peroration, he had referred to the rugged boulders which mark the right of way of the New Haven railroad, say­ ing that he had seen them glorified by climbing roses in the Spring. H e also recounted a Beta experience which is not un­ usual in the Rockies— that of thrilling as our pink and blue become radiant in an evening sky over the harsh ridges of the Front Range. Then he closed with this sentence which I think I should not forget even if another lifetime were allotted to me: L e t us see the pink and blue above the g ran ite; let us crow n the rocks with roses.

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Dr. Blair wrote, with Clarence Dickinson, Northwestern 1894 (who supplied the music), our stirring Centennial Hym n, which certainly deserves more general popularity than it has thus far attained. Let me attempt to indicate its quality by quoting only the last two verses: W e thank T h ee for our hundred years O f love and faith and mystic tr u th ; F o r friendship’s bond that time endears As age fulfills the hopes of youth.

O u r solemn vows we here renew.

W e pledge ourselves with loyal hearts, T o Beta— to be ever true T ill ages end and time departs.

I offer you only two brief quotations from D r. Blair’s ad­ dress at the vesper services which ornamented our Centenary celebration. Their inherent excellence seems to me completely to justify their repetition tonight.

F o r a fraternity preserves the m orning powers, keeps the vision glow­ ing. Y ears m ean little or nothing. W e follow a path upon which light shines from within us. No true fraternity m em ber ever knows the day w hen that light dies.

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I t is well to cherish the outw ard form of Beta T h e ta Pi, and make it as beautiful and perfect as we can. B ut if we w ould have it eternal, we m ust conceive th at outw ard form as the symbol of an invisible and inw ard grace, a sacram ent; we must transform the outw ard perfectness into love, for that is spirit, which alone endures forever. Against love the powers of death cannot prevail. I t is outside tim e’s jurisdiction.

Brother Chairman, I think I cannot better close this series than with the verses which began it: O great ones, who though dead yet live A nd O ye great ones over the earth w ho shall never die, Leave ajar the gates of your paradise of light, T h a t we m ay com m une with you, and rise F rom the com m onalty of little living T o the fellowship of wisdom and dreams.