1905-06 Volume 30 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

THE SCROLL. 139lines strung along our northern border, with cool effronteryclaim it. Geography is not debatable. One may speakdisrespectfully of the equator, but hardly call its location intoquestion. The sectional fraternities, until recently, braggedof their sectionalism. There were no noble men but NewEnglanders, New Yorkers and Pennsylvania Dutch. They hadno part in that very substantial work of uniting all sections ofthe land performed by the national fraternities. Their lackof catholicity is now seen to be a disadvantage, and occasionallythe organizations which a decade ago got into a fine furyof contempt for those which had chapters in Dixie, or couldconsider the barbarous west, are now from their hyperboreanfastnesses proclaiming themselves "national." I have foundthe gatherings of my fraternity, with their hundreds of educatedmen drawn from every section of the country, highlyinstructive. The resulting acquaintance and friendships havemade me know the country as I never otherwise could. In amaterial way, my membership has been a social advantage,has brought me into the life of many communities.In the central states and south you find that the public issurprisingly familiar with fraternity badges and inclined toaccept them as social guarantees, that is, if the society is representedin that section. The sectional fraternity member ishere at a disadvantage. The name of his society, perhapsfamous in the section where it exists, means nothing in theregion where fraternities mean most. The fact of membershipnot only means a kindly reception by members of your ownsociety, but members of other societies also. Individually,of course. You would not introduce yourself to a chapter ofanother fraternity, but in traveling you may approach an individual,or in meeting him in the ordinary way you find itmakes a difference.The fraternities are broken up into alliances, groups. Mostof these groups run in threes. While the individual chaptersmay squabble, the allied fraternities as a whole stand by oneanother, say nice things of one another, and tell how muchbetter their group is than some other group. My own groupis a very large one. It includes all but one of the nationalfraternities, which is partially included in another alliance,though logic forces it in with the rest of its class. As the nationalfraternities had to meet widespread criticism for theirpolicy of wide extension, and as they now feel that their judgmenthas been triumphantly vindicated, the alliance, begunin times of trial and continued in the hour of proud victory.