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

2 10 THE SCROLL.the council of the society he was the only one who was rejected.This resulted from an incident which occurred lastyear when young Gould was a freshman. Fearing that hewould be kidnapped by several sophomores, he drew a revolverand fired over their heads, then finding refuge in the houseof his fraternity, AKE. Four of the sophomores were suspendedfrom the university, causing much dissatisfactionamong the students. The friends of Gould who desired hisadmission to King's Crown urged that he should be electedbecause he had given liberal financial assistance to the athleticinterests of the university, and recalled especially his giftof S6oo to the class of '08, for the purchase of a new shellfor the freshman to row against Yale, but, according to theNew York Sun, "student sentiment about the campus wasstrongly in favor of the action taken by King's Crown."THE SCROLL for June quoted accounts of the origin of K 2from the 1898 and 1905 editions of "American College Fraternities"and noted the differences in the two statements. Itquoted also an account from the April Caduceus, which nearlywith that in the last edition of that book. The October agreesCaduceus explains that K 2 was uncertain about many of thefacts relating to the origin of the fraternity until an historianwas appointed in 1904, that a voluminous correspondencewas followed by long personal interviews," that there hasbeen "much studying, sifting and weighing of evidence,"that "higher criticism" has demolished some accepted fraternity"traditional notions," that the account of the origin inthe April Caduceus "embodies as much as can be told," andthat the account in the 1905 edition of Baird agrees with itexcept as to the year when the fraternity was founded. Formany years previous to 1905 K 2 believed that it wasfounded in 1867, but recent investigations show that the yearwas 1869. The Caduceus makes no effort to explain how K 2connects itself with an order which is alleged to have beenfounded in Italy five centuries ago, and it makes the followingremarkable statement: Not even to the fraternitv itselfhas Founder McCormick yet consented to reveal certain details.As is said in Baird of 1905, the fraternity professesto be, in a spiritual sense, the successor of the ancient order.'Naturally, only its own members can be made fully aware ofthe manner in which it makes good this profession." Whythe founder will not consent to reveal details concerning theorigin of the fraternity to its own members, and why the fra-