George B. Thomas was editor of The Scroll in February 1883, when he announced that for the very first time the magazine contained reports from every chapter of Phi Delta Theta. It took a lot of hard work to accomplish this feat, including reaching out to some of the chapters multiple times. The Scroll had communications from forty-three active chapters and nine alumni chapters, which was a larger number than any other fraternity had at that time.

This achievement peaked envy from Beta Theta Pi, who in their own publication, bet that Phi Delt could not repeat this success. However, the next issue of The Scroll once again contained letters, or telegrams, from every single chapter.