Frat Men

Fraternity-pinned chests swelled with pride at a piece in the Magazine of Sigma Chi, by its editor, one Chester W. Cleveland.

"Today," wrote Brother Cleveland, "fraternity folk pretty much direct the affairs of the nation. The White House is 100 per cent. Greek letter, with President Coolidge flying the royal purple of Phi Gamma Delta and the First Lady of the Land wearing the arrow of Pi Beta Phi. Vice President Charles G. Dawes of Delta Upsilon guides the destiny of the U. S. Senate. Nicholas Longworth, of Zeta Psi, is in command of the House of Representatives."

Editor Cleveland recalled that Delta Upsilon, to which Charles Evans Hughes as well as the Vice President belongs, "gave Garfield to the Presidency"; that Beta Theta Pi has never "given" any one to the Presidency but that it enrolls Frank Orren Lowden, William Edgar Borah, Robert Marion La Follette. "And here is a scoop. . . . Harry F. Sinclair ... is a Phi Gamma Delta brother of President Coolidge. Will Hays is a former National President of Phi Delta Theta, which gave us President Benjamin Harrison."

Fraternity-pinned chests subsided, however, when Editor Cleveland was carried by his exultation to make the following statement: "There is not much doubt about it. The next President of the United States, if a Republican, will be a fraternity man unless Herbert Hoover is elected." To this prophecy, lame enough in its omission of the two leading candidates for the Presidency (Democrat Smith and Republican Hoover), Editor Cleveland added the following: "Herbert Hoover is non-fraternity and anti-fraternity. Hoover worked his way through Stanford by waiting on table at the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house. There he met and courted Lou Henry, now Mrs. Hoover. It is alleged that her sorority sisters were considerably embarrassed in a social way. Their actions and the attitude of the Stanford fraternity men toward him are responsible, undoubtedly, for his feeling of hostility toward the college fraternity system."