1930–31 Volume 55 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

Vol. LV, No. 6THESCROLLPHI DELTA THETAParmenter, late vice-president ofBaker University, Lindley H. Hadleyand Louis Fitzhenry, U. S. Congressmen,and William H. Burks, formerpresident of the American Bankers'Association.Another of our short-lived chapterswas that at Trinity University inTexas, and here again it was facultyantifraternity sentiment and ruleswhich spelled the doom of the chapter.Texas Alpha at Trinity is also to becredited to the efforts of George Banta,Sr., that noble warrior who with WalterPalmer steered the Fraternitythrough some of its darkest days.Brother Banta in 1878 wrote to anIndiana Phi in Dallas, Texas, askingassistance in establishing a chapter atTrinity. Obtaining the names of twoTrinity students, Brother Banta begancorrespondence with them, receivedwritten pledges of secrecy, forwardedthe Bond and Constitution, andreceived an application for a charter.The National Convention on May 23,1878, granted a charter to Texas Beta.Two years later, in an ill-consideredrevision of nomenclature, this namewas changed to Texas Alpha.The president of Trinity announcedin 1881 that the trustees and facultydesired that there should be no secretsocieties in the institution. As a result,Texas Alpha decided to operate subrosa, one member writing to THESCROLL that "the boys of Texas Alphaare too enthusiastic and have too muchpluck to give up their chapter withouta great struggle." The struggle wasfutile, however, and the chapter finallysuccumbed in June of 1883. The chapterwrote in December 1882: "Ourteachers watch us like a hungry hawkhis prey. In the lonely hour of midnightwe have to meet—if at all—inthe halls of our college, and with darklanterns read the dear old Bond." Thenames of seventeen Phis were revealedto the faculty by nonfraternity menand amnesty was promised by thefaculty only on terms which precludedany further attempts to operate. Onlyforty-one men had been initiated.[379]Walter B. Palmer was responsiblefor the chartering of our first SouthCarolina Chapter, that at WoffordCollege. He obtained from a NorthCarolina Phi the name of a Woffordstudent and opened a correspondencewith him. Palmer requested the chapterat Georgia, being the closest one, toconduct the initiation of the chosenmen and a representative of GeorgiaAlpha did so in January, 1879. Thecharter was duly applied for andgranted by the National Grand, thenat Lafayette, January 31.The bane of the chapters along theSouth Atlantic coast, small attendance,began its operation, however. Onlytwo Phis returned to the chapter atWofford in 1884-85 and only one thefollowing year. Deeming the strugglehopeless, he surrendered the SouthCarolina Alpha charter October 31,1885. But thirty members were on theroll altogether; this number, though,included a future governor of SouthCarolina, William H. Ellerbe. TheGeneral Council rejected a propositionreceived in April, 1891, from a chapterof another fraternity at Wofford thatit abandon that fraternity and unitewith * A 0.The second South Carolina chapterwas also destined to suspend its activityafter a brief existence. It wasorganized at South Carolina College asa result of the work of a charter memberof the Wofford chapter and aV.M.I. Phi. The Richmond Convention,1882, received the application fora charter and ordered the GeneralCouncil to grant it. Eight fraternitieshad preceded South Carolina Beta atthe state institution although all buttwo had then suspended.The South Carolina legislature in1887 changed the school to the Universityof South Carolina and made aliberal appropriation for support andenlargement. Apparently rosy dayswere ahead. The leavening of a"Pitchfork Ben" Tillman brand ofpolitics soon began its insidious course,though, and in 1889 the legislature establisheda separate agricultural col-