yond these, only the secrecy that belongs
to every firm or corporation — the priv-
ilege of attending to its own business.
They tell us too that these Greeks waste
precious time, and squander papa's
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shekels, and cultivate snobbishness, and
acquire false ideas of life; some of which
are dire charges if they should be true.
They tell us, truthfully enough, that
many a perfectly good fellow never
"makes a frat;" and yet he learns his
lessons like a little man and goes out into
the great old world, perhaps even to be-
come vice-president or invent a new
breakfast-food. None of these proposi-
tions does it behoove us to argue, but a
few fundamental truths of life keep star-
ing at us till we 're cross-eyed. Most men
revel in a secret, even a trivial secret,
almost as much as a woman does. The
harshest criticisms of fraternity life come
from those who know next to nothing
about it. We have quit heaping criticism
on the church every time a class-leader
makes tracks for Canada. The fellow
who didn't make a frat, even though it
was composed of his inferiors, was usually
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in the recipient condition of our old
friend Barkis. Finally, the clan spirit
never has been crowded out and shows no
signs of disappearing. Now let us turn
to our mutton.
The Greek fraternity made its ap-
pearance at Oxford when Miami was ten
years old. In the fall of 1835 Samuel
Eels came into Ohio from Hamilton Col-
lege and settled in Cincinnati to practice
law. At Hamilton he had been a member
of Alpha Delta Phi, instituted there three
years before. As he fell in with various
Miami graduates and students about the
city, it occurred to Eels that here was a
fine chance to do a little missionary work
and extend the field of his new fraternity.
The process was delightfully simple. Se-
lecting W. S. Groesbeck, C. L. Tilford and
J. B. Temple as the most promising ma-
terial, he called himself into executive
session, voted these men into the organ-
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ization without a single black-ball, and,
having found them willing to assume the
trust, promptly initiated them at his of-
fice in Cincinnati. Then he notified the
Hamilton chapter that they had a nice
new brother out here in the Ohio Valley,
and he already bore a marked resem-
blance to the family. There wasn 't much
red tape about those times.
The first activities of the baby chapter
were entirely in the dark. It was getting
its eyes open, so to speak. Nine members
were enrolled before even the existence
of the thing was revealed. Then the
president of the university, who had a
pious horror of all secret societies, was
asked one day to read an announcement
of one of their meetings. Laboriously he
spelled it out, '^the Alpha and Delta and
Phi Society," and his hostile suspicions
were aroused from that moment. This
feeling apparently was one of the few
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tilings passed on to Doctor Junkin, for in
the last year of his brief administration
the latter issued a written protest to the
trustees against the existence of the
Alphas. The Board investigated these
young terrors, but failed to find anything
incriminating or unorthodox.
In the meantime Alpha Delta Phi had
instituted her school of applied politics,
giving special attention to night sessions;
and had made the two literary societies
lie down, roll over and jump through
paper hoops till they were fast losing all
their self-respect. Then came the revolt,
culminating in a resolution passed in both
halls, that no hated follower of this
Greek crowd should ever be admitted to
membership. One result of this was the
creation of the Miami Literary Society.
Another, less direct, but farther reaching,
was the founding of Beta Theta Pi.
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During the spring of '39, when this
conflict took place, one of the hardest
fighters on the anti-fraternity side was
an aggressive young junior with the good
old Covenanter name, John Knox. He
was a natural leader and did much in
person to bring about the ousting of the
Alphas from the halls. The things he
said concerning them, and the masterful
and convincing arguments with which he
disposed of all fraternities everywhere,
legend does not record. Rather lucky
this for John's reputation for consistency.
For even as he fought, and in the leisure
moments when the smoke of battle
cleared away and men had time for girls
and books and meditations, John got to
thinking. After all, those pesky Alphas
were a pretty good sort. Arrogant and
conceited — whew! But nearly all of
them had good minds and kept strictly to
business, and they certainly did have an
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organization there that was some pump-
kins. Their solidarity and team-work
were a wonder, and they had the nervy
spirit of good losers, too. After all,
where was the harm in such a brother-
hood?
In the midst of these meditations
John went home on a vacation trip. At
the psychological moment he went brows-
ing about dad's book shelves one day and
made a find. It was a rare old volume,
shape and title since forgotten, which re-
tailed a little fact and much hair-raising
fiction about the chivalric practices of
the Middle Ages. Particularly creepy
were the accounts of the Knights Templar
and similar secret orders of the period.
The knightly vows and pledges were re-
peated, and strange and fascinating
sketches given of their secret history and
inside workings. As Knox read, and
thrilled with delicious horror at the read-
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ing, the notion suddenly struck him all
in a heap: "There are plenty more good
men in Miami. These secret orders are
worth while, and fascinating, too. Why
not organize a Greek fraternity all our
own, to have all the good qualities of
those conceited Alphas and none of their
undesirable ones'?" Alpha Delta Phi's
lessons in practical politics were coming
home to roost. Even as she had done it
unto the Union and the Erodelphian,
John Knox was preparing then and there
to set up a competing business in his own
back yard.
To the unprejudiced observer there is
one feature about Knox's plan, novel
enough in his day, that gets to be pain-
fully familiar as time goes on. The new
brotherhood was to have all the good
qualities of Alpha Delta Phi and none of
its bad ones. In the same way, nine years
after. Phi Delta Theta was to have all
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the virtues of the Alphas and Betas to-
gether, and of course none of their obvi-
ous defects. Likewise D. K. E., breaking
away from the Phi Delts, was to have
all the excellence of the parent chapter,
etc., etc. Four years later, Sigma Chi,
sprung from the Dekes, was again to par-
take only of the good and leave the bad
to soothe the bereaved survivors. The
logic of this process seems complimentary
enough to Sigmi Chi, but appears to put
the Alphas in a rather unpleasant light.
Then, too, one wonders where that con-
stant remainder of bad keeps coming
from.
When Knox returned to college he
immediately got hold of his closest friend,
Sam Marshall, and poured the entire
plan into his rather willing ears. Mar-
shall had been interested in the recent
exposure of the ritualistic work of some
popular secret order, and was all agog
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
over grips and pass-words and hailing-
signals of distress. He was already mut-
tering secret mottoes in his sleep and
scribbling cabalistic signs all over his
text-books. He entered into the whole
scheme with much enthusiasm, — so much
indeed that to the day of his death neither
man could say positively which composed
the first draft of the constitution.
About all they knew about Greek
fraternities was that there had to be a
name — some two or three Greek letters
— which should be the initials of the
Greek words in the secret motto. It
seems a little back-handed, but they con-
fess to selecting the name first, choosing
such letters as sounded well together, and
then leafing through the lexicon till they
evolved a motto that would fit the letters.
The name selected was Beta Theta Pi.
Then came the badge — in those days an-
other element of secrecy. They seem to
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
have had some knowledge of that worn
by their rivals, for the form adopted was
little more than a variation on the old
breastplate of righteousness then weight-
ing down the vests of the Alphas, but
carefully hidden underneath their coats.
The constitution took the most time.
Apparently the two boys worked together
on this; for both, you remember, had dis-
tinct recollections of making out the first
version of it. It was really a simple but
dignified document, built on such whole-
some ideas as improvement in knowledge
and scholarship, mutual support and as-
sistance, and absolute faith and confi-
dence among the brethren.
Naturally enough, a few traces of
Knox's medieval fairy stories crept in.
Much was made, for instance, of the per-
fect number nine and its factors, even to
the placing of three stars on the badge.
Membership in a chapter was to be not
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less than three nor more than nine.
Wearing of the badge was solemnly pro-
hibited while in college. Most gruesome
of all in its suggestion of occult and un-
holy practices was the obligation seri-
ously imposed on each initiate in relation
to his fellows, that ''their friends should
be his friends and their enemies his
enemies." We are not surprised to learn
that some of these rules were modified as
time went on.
Once the constitution was completed,
it was easy enough to get material for the
goat. There were plenty of good men,
and Knox and Marshall chose carefully
from these the few congenial spirits they
required. Soon Beta Theta Pi was able to
extend its skirmish lines quietly through-
out the institution, as the Alphas had
done at first, and to gather unto itself
a fat and comfortable share of col-
lege honors and distinctions. Their men
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were vigorous and alert, entering freely
into every student activity. Gradually
the harsh rule of the literary halls against
the Greeks was undermined, and in 1843
the Alphas came like prodigals back into
the fold. Thus the societies had no
trouble in presenting a united front on
the growing question of faculty super-
vision.
It's a hard matter, these days, to ap-
preciate the difficulties in the path of
"Pater" Knox and his cronies. Keeping
the very organization secret seems no
vital matter in our eyes, but the strong
chance of faculty opposition made it so
to them. Then, too, there's such a joy in
springing a thing full-fledged before a
gaping and wide-eyed populace, instead
of having curious and uninvited neighbors
watch you stick every feather on. It's
hard to keep them guessing, too, when
these deepest secrets of your heart must
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
be rehearsed and even your ritual enacted
on the same floor with two dozen prying
youngsters, especially if there's a broken
lock on the door and the windows won't
track. In this case one fellow did learn
too much. This was Grimke Swan, a par-
ticularly tiresome bore, whom nobody had
use for. What was worse, he demanded
to be made a member, or he would divulge
that precious little he had already
learned. In sheer desperation they hit
upon a plan. Swan was given a nice lit-
tle burlesque initiation and allowed to
buy a badge, but was then informed that
the society had no written constitution,
would take no more members, and did not
made a practice of holding meetings. He
was solemnly admonished as to secrecy,
especially about his pin, and was cast
cheerfully adrift. Luckily he drifted
straight out of college at the end of the
term, or he might have made things warm
for some of his resourceful brothers.
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
In the winter of 1847 occurred the
largest concerted prank in the history
of Miami, — the Snow Rebellion. The
members of both fraternities, being in-
clined to get underneath the spotlight in
everything and being on none too loving
terms with the faculty, were of course
ring-leaders in this. But the experience
played havoc with their bands of choice
but restless spirits. When the snow fell
there were eight Alphas and eight Betas
in college. Of the former there were two
each of seniors, juniors and sophomores,
together with one freshman and one prep ;
of the latter, four seniors, two juniors, a
sophomore and a prep. When the ax fell
and got through falling, there were two
Beta seniors left to graduate, and not an
Alpha on the premises. This doesn't
mean wholesale expulsion, as will appear
later; but chiefly for reasons connected
with those eventful nights these men lost
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interest in the institution. At any rate
the Greek fraternities were left in a state
of general disability.
At this juncture appeared Phi Delta
Theta, conceived and instituted by Mor-
rison and Wilson. In some ways it's an
old tale retold. Again there is the inten-
tion to discard the despised shortcomings
of others; again the choosing of euphon-
ious letters from the Greek alphabet and
the finding of a motto that will fit. But
there are two marks of distinction. Phi
Delta Theta w^as not organized in the
spirit of rivalry, for at that moment there
was not enough combined opposition to
utter one expiring croak. Neither was it
an organization out of tune with the fac-
ulty. Rather, the professors were friend-
ly to it from the start, and before long
their names began even to decorate its
rolls. Indeed with this society a new era
of fellowship dawned between instructor
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and instructed, and for some years it was
a rather extended practice among frater-
nities to solicit and initiate faculty peo-
ple, together with such imported orators
and itinerant lecturers as might add their
bit of tinsel to the general glitter of fame.
These first two Phi Delts planned
wisely and well. Between them a consti-
tution and a fraternal bond were drafted,
and the fellows they desired set apart.
All were expected to fall into the plan but
Ardivan Rodgers, the lad who afterward
displayed a mind of his own in submit-
ting an Erodelphian appointment to the
faculty. Rodgers was known to like the
crowd, but to oppose all secret societies.
Fortunately Morrison was generally sup-
posed to have the same prejudice. So all
the prospective members were called to-
gether one night in Wilson's room, where
they signed an obligation of secrecy — not
in blood — and then listened to their host
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propose his plan. All agreed to it
promptly but Morrison and Rodgers.
Then Wilson turned his guns on Mor-
rison, who yielded his life-long opinions
(sly old rogue!) only after a good half-
hour of persuasion. Rodgers listened
eagerly and fell into the trap so easily
that Wilson almost fainted. "This soci-
ety," he explained carefully, "is really
not secret to me, you see."
Then came the usual experiences of
these infant secret-foundries. Meetings
were held at each other's rooms, where
business was transacted in thrilling stage
whispers. In pleasant weather they
assembled on the creek bank and put out
sleepy pickets. Their existence was not
widely known. In fact various of the
boys were invited to help revive the other
societies that had gone defunct. It is
handed down in the archives that they
proudly scorned these base and ignoble
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
offers, or words to that effect. Their
badges were another variety of breast-
plate, about the size of a young tea-tray.
These, too, were kept under cover until
the spring of '52, when they were at last
flashed upon the world at a senior party.
A Phi of the period, probably a sopho-
more, wrote modestly to a friend of the
effect produced: "The boys developed
themselves in grand agony — agony in-
deed of the Alphas and Betas, as glitter-
ing of the golden shields drew tears from
their eyes." Sounds like Homer, doesn't
it?
These early Phi Delts were great
experimenters. Like their esteemed
friends the Betas, they were aggressive
in passing a good thing along, and soon
had lively young chapters established
at various strategic points. Then they
got hold of some kind of visionary
plan, which nobody quite understood,
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
for a fraternal organization among their
own graduates. "The Higher Order of
Alumni," they called it. This wheel
within a wheel was too much of a good
thing, though, and survived only a couple
of meetings. There was also the scheme
of ''bicameral chapters." Some one had
started the notion that a chapter should
have only a mere handful of active mem-
bers, and Phi Delta Theta had limited
this number to ten. When she reached
her limit there were still some good fel-
lows she hated to let go. A second chap-
ter was created at Miami, with a name
and organization all its own. This lin-
gered on for some years, a cumbersome
and awkward arrangement, until finally
the partition was shattered and the two
rooms became one.
It is well that a mere slave of a chron-
icler approach the next period with lag-
ging step and terror in his heart. For lo,
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
it is a period of division and strife, wliere
brother's hand is raised ao^ainst brother,
and each sayeth unto other, "Bah, go to!"
On either side in both tourneys there
were good men and true, and every sad-
eyed contestant felt that he was offering
some of the dearest friendships of his life
on that same old overcrowded altar of
principle. Conservative and liberal were
fighting in those little bands of Greeks,
just as they have been at it, under one
disguise and another, down through the
ages. Out of the dust of both encounters
gleamed the ruddy 'scutcheon of the
Demon Rum, a proboscis gules above a
thirst rampant; and as might be ex-
pected, he was always with the liberals.
The most peculiar thing about it lies right
here. There was one party taking part
in both the lists; but in one it contended
as a dashing liberal; in the other as a
stern conservative. So much for the con-
sistency of college boys.
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The first arena was the premises of
Phi Delta Theta. They had seen some
three years of prosperous existence, and
were taking themselves very seriously.
It was a splendid crowd, with the stubby
figure of Ben Harrison as a leading spirit,
when he could spare the time from
Scott's. For some months they had been
considering a total-abstinence regulation,
but one faction claimed that this was a
matter of a man's own conscience. Har-
rison and his cohort, with some faculty
backing, urged the measure upon them.
The opposition kept shoving it on into the
future. Then one day Gid. McNutt came
laughing into their midst, and the prop-
osition could be shoved no farther. You
have known men like Gid. : brilliant, mag-
netic, impulsive, devil-may-care ; the kind
of man you love in spite of you, and your
heart aches as you watch him take some
fatal plunge with a song on his lips.
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The whole chapter wanted Gid. at
once, and soon had his promise to join
them. But the total abstinence law was
never framed that Gid. could keep. He
was always falling by the wayside, to
rise again in the ashen daybreak and give
a tearful pledge of everlasting rectitude.
And he meant it too. He joined the col-
lege temperance society, was made its
prosecuting officer, and bless me if the
imp of the perverse didn't tempt him into
stumbling on the very nights when the
society was meeting.
The chapter told him he must
straighten up or never be initiated. He
promised sincerely; and two weeks later
went through the ceremony happy as a
king, but somewhat more than half seas
over. Then came the crisis. One party
was for expelling him at once, together
with another brother who had assisted
rather largely in his excesses. The lib-
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
erals argued for forgiveness and still one
more trial: they had lost count just how
many that would make. Finally, in the
heat of controversy, they asserted that if
these men went they would go too. Sol-
emnly they approached a ballot, dreading
all of them to face the issue. At last it
came. McNutt and his convivial comrade
groped their way from the room, and
after them came three others of the little
group — never again to enter the counsels
of the chapter. Under an elm in the
campus the culprits and the bolters met
and swore allegience, while back in the
dimly-lighted little room, Phi Delta Theta
sat silent but triumphant after her bap-
tism of blood.
Before long Gid. had one dramatic op-
portunity to right himself before the stu-
dent body, and his friends, the bolters,
quickly appropriated a share in the glory.
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The abolition question was then waxing
hotter every day, and the advent of some
professional spellbinder was almost a
weekly occurrence. An eloquent specimen
of the class, the rabid abolitionist James
G. Birney, appeared one night before a
large audience in the Town Hall, pre-
sented his case vigorously, and then — as
was his wont — challenged discussion. A
prominent student — some folks say he
was a Phi Delt — rose to reply. But when
he was well under way, Birney directed
a few adroit questions which left the poor
fellow floundering and defeated. Some-
body called for Gid., and he was on a
chair in a moment. Evidently this was
not the night for temperance society, and
he was at his best. As he always could,
he won his hearers ' hearts at once. Then
for two hours he assailed the attitude
of extremists on both sides, pleading
earnestly for the preservation of the
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
Union. The lecturer confessed his sur-
prise and asked a day to prepare his re-
joinder; but somehow business called
him out of town next morning after
breakfast. Gid. enjoyed a triumphal
entry into chapel, with his loyal cronies
tagging gleefully along behind.
Soon after this, Jacob Cooper, a D.
K. E. from Yale whose parents lived
near Oxford, visited at Miami and became
acquainted with this Gideon's band. He
proposed to them a chapter of his own
fraternity, and ultimately succeeded in
establishing it. Thus the Dekes appeared
in the University in 1852, and entered
their claim for recognition. Into their
ranks came such men as Millikin and
Runkle and Whitelaw Reid, and in four
short years they were called upon to face
a crisis exactly parallel to the one that
had created them. Once more conserv-
ative faced liberal. Once more one caught
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WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
a glimpse occasionally of the proboscis
gules above a thirst rampant. Once more,
indeed, there came a parting of the ways,
and the liberals groped their way out into
the darkness to found a brotherhood of
their own.
As Harrison seemed to dominate the
earlier controversy, so Reid stands out as
leading spirit in this, with Minor Mil-
likin, then an alumnus, just behind the
scenes, ready to enter when needed as the
deus ex iiuwliina. The immediate occa-
sion of conflict this time was political.
Eeid was then a long-haired, pale-faced,
graceful youth, nervous, industrious and
ambitious, and in fraternity life his fa-
vorite hobby was compact organization.
The liberals could not go with him quite
all the way. Their motto was "Bum vivi-
Tnusvivamus/'and they couldn't see what
difference it made to J. Whitelaw if they
chose to readit " Diun hihii)ius hibanius.''
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'DOM VIVIMUS VIVAMUS'
WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK
Then, too, this caucus business looked all
right to them, when there was no oppo-
nent that you wished to vote for. But
Reid insisted always, in storm or calm,
on strict obedience to King Caucus.
The slate was in the making for the
winter Exhibition of the Erodelphian So-
ciety, 1856. "For chief orator, J. White-
law Reid." Nobody could quibble or ob-
ject on that selection, for Reid's fame was
recognized far and wide. "For poet — ?"
There was the rub. Nary a Deke had
ever courted the Muses so that you would
care to notice it ; and if the sad truth must
be known, few of them could have told a
caesura from an anaepest. But Reid
would fain have a poet, and for him there
was no joy in life until a candidate for
bardic honors made the slate complete.
Then the liberals, with Runkle and Cald-
well at their head, walked calmly into