Fourth of the Immortal Six and junior John Wolfe Lindley might have shared this about himself if he were speaking to us today.

“I was born in Fredericktown, Ohio, in August 1826. Even though my humble place of birth lay between what was to become Ohio Beta at Ohio Wesleyan University and Ohio Delta at The College of Wooster, I decided to attend Miami University in the fall of 1846. I was a third cousin to Robert Morrison, so perhaps Robert had no choice but to include me in this great brotherhood experiment. When the six of us gathered that day after Christmas in 1848, I was the youngest of the lot.

I completed my studies in 1850 and began teaching Latin and mathematics at an academy in Tennessee. Later, I moved on to Charlestown, Indiana, where I graciously accepted an invitation to become a member of the Masons. However, Phi Delta Theta was always closest to my heart. Founding Father Morrison and I were known to have stayed up until the wee hours of the morning at the 1898 Convention banquet and 1899 Semi-Centennial debating our Fraternity’s direction and the news of the day. Robert could probably be credited with my fluctuation in political views as he was a Democrat. I was a Whig, a Republican, and even a “know-nothing” for a time. I wrote copies of The Bond of Phi Delta Theta until the year of my death in 1907, some still in use today. As it turned out, I outlasted the rest of my Immortal Brothers.”

Seen as a gentleman, tender, professorial, teacher, and eventual college president, John Wolfe Lindley had an open, responsive, and wide-ranging mind. A man of mild manner and balanced judgment, he always thought before he spoke. He seems to belong to the fireside on a winter night, and we can picture him now, making his points in deliberate, well-chosen words while the firelight plays on the faces of his friends. Lindley had a fruitful life.

For more than fifty years, he held offices in colleges and churches in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. The longest-lived of the founders, he laid the cornerstone of the Memorial Chapter House at Miami on the day before Thanksgiving in 1907.

---

The North American Interfraternity Conference (or NIC; formerly known as the National Interfraternity Conference) is an association of collegiate men’s fraternities that was formally organized in 1910, although it began at a meeting at the University Club in New York City on November 27, 1909.

The power of the organization rests in a House of Delegates in which each member fraternity is represented by a single delegate. However, the group’s executive and administrative powers are vested in an elected board of directors consisting of nine volunteers from various NIC fraternities. Now headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, the NIC also operates a small professional staff.

The NIC seeks to provide services that will include, “but not be limited to, promotion of cooperative action in dealing with fraternity matters of mutual concern, research in areas of fraternity operations and procedures, fact-finding and data gathering, and the dissemination of such data to the member fraternities”. However, it notes that “[c]onference action shall not in any way abrogate the right of its member fraternities to self-determination.”

Originally named the Interfraternity Conference, the name was changed to the National Interfraternity Conference in 1931. The current name, the North American Interfraternity Conference, was adopted in 1999 to reflect the organization’s affiliations at Canadian colleges and universities.

Phi Delta Theta was a charter member of the National Intra-Fraternity Conference. In the early 2000’s, Phi Delta Theta was concerned with the focus and direction of the NIC and chose to leave the umbrella organization. Specifically, the Fraternity believed that the main focus of the NIC should be to provide services to its member organizations, rather than to individual undergraduates. Phi Delta Theta believed, and still believes, that the NIC should primarily focus its attention onre presenting the fraternity movement and acting as an advocate for its member fraternities with university administrators, government, the media, and the general public.

Robert Morrison’s birthday, March 15, was established in 1910 as Founders Day. March 15 became Founders Day because the fateful first meeting of the Immortal Six in Elliott Hall, December 26, was too close to the holidays for a convenient annual celebration. Robert Morrison is the original Bond No. 1. Therefore, his birthday is the annual Founders date of celebration.

The following excerpt was published on the change in the 1910-11 Scroll magazine:

“This year, for the first time, March 15, which was formerly known as Alumni Day, is to be known as Founders Day. By the action of the national convention of 1910, the date of Alumni Day was changed from March 15 to October 15 and was observed at that time last fall for the first time. Our alumni clubs now have two annual festivals on their calendar and we trust that the time will soon come when both dates will be observed by all our alumni clubs and active chapters. The topic chosen for discussion on Founders Day this year should be of interest to every member of Phi Delta Theta and at least one member of each alumni club should prepare a paper on the subject and present it at the meeting. This should be followed by a general discussion of the topic by the members present. As officers for the ensuing year are to be elected at the Founders Day meeting, great care should be exercised in the selection of men who will discharge the duties of their respective offices with ability and dispatch. We trust that the reporter or secretary of each alumni club will promptly send us an account of the club’s celebration for publication in The Scroll. We would also be pleased to receive the manuscript of any speech of unusual merit that may be delivered on this occasion.”

The Niagara Falls Convention of 1910 established the birthplace of Phi Delta Theta. The resolution adopted stated:

WHEREAS the room in which Phi Delta Theta was founded is not being duly preserved and maintained.

Be it resolved, that a committee be appointed of the General Council to be known as the “committee on the preservation of the birthplace of Phi Delta Theta,” said committee of two alumni members and two active members of Phi Delta Theta and that they be empowered to adopt such plans as to them seem expedient for the preservation of said room, and that said committee report to the Convention its plans, and that such measures be adopted.

In the September issue of The Scroll, Scroll Assistant Editor Walter B. Palmer wrote, “An act that will undoubtedly be applauded by every living Phi was the decision to rent from Miami University the dormitory room, Father Wilson’s room, in which Phi Delta Theta was founded on December 26, 1848. At the golden jubilee in 1899 the exterior wall of the room was suitably marked with a granite slab. The purpose of the convention of 1910 was to secure control of the Fraternity’s birthplace, that it may not be profaned by ordinary usage, but kept sacred to Phi Delta Theta, that the room be filled with objects personally associated with the founders and relics of the early days, and that in fact that it shall become the shrine of the Fraternity, which Phis from everywhere shall delight to visit. This proposition, which appeals powerfully to fraternity sentiment, originated with Epsilon Province. Already the families of the founders have promised to contribute articles which the founders owned and used, and probably the room will contain within a short time a very interesting and valuable collection.”

---

At the Niagara Falls Convention of 1910, Frank J. R. Mitchell, Illinois Alpha 1896, proposed a plan for a life subscription to The Scroll and The Palladium. The committee approved the measure. On page 20 of the November 1910 issue of The Palladium, the statute appears as adopted. The Scroll Endowment Fund would be built up by each member’s payment of $10.00. The decree reads, in part, “For the purpose of establishing and maintaining an endowment fund, primarily for the payment of the necessary expenses of the administering the fund and for the publication of the periodicals of this Fraternity, each active member of each chapter shall pay the sum of ten dollars in cash, or a larger sum in installments, as he may elect, as hereinafter provided. Said payment shall be as obligatory upon him as any other dues or assessments and shall be collected and remitted to the treasurer of the General Council by the same officers who collect and remit the dues for General Fraternity expenses.”

The statute includes provisions to elect three trustees to administer the endowment. These would be “members of the Fraternity and men of prudence, skill, and experience in financial affairs. The national convention of 1910 shall elect the first three said trustees.”

Recapping the 1910 Convention in the September issue of The Scroll, Scroll Assistant Editor Walter B. Palmer wrote, “One legislative act of far-reaching effect and highest importance to the Fraternity need not be here explained. It was the adoption of a plan proposed by Frank J. R. Mitchell, who presented the original plan at the 1908 convention, and who remodeled it in far more perfect form for this convention. The entire plan in essential principles was adopted, some of the details of the arrangement being worked out on the floor of the convention. It was gratifying that, though this act involved the taxation of members, not a single objection was raised to the plan in its final form. All delegates seemed convinced that this act would result in great ultimate good to the Fraternity.”

The endowment fund grew steadily. Past President of the General Council William R. Bayes, Ohio Wesleyan 1901, wrote in the December 1936 issue of The Scroll, “During the past twenty-five years, the Fund has increased until today the income covers about one-half the cost of printing and distributing the fraternity publications. Brother Mitchell, PPGC, newly appointed editor of The Scroll and The Palladium, may justly take pride in the results of this most constructive piece of legislation which was proposed and advocated by him.

And hence, if the alumni in large numbers become Sustaining Members, they will, from now on, share with their undergraduate brothers in the completion of Brother Mitchell’s plan for the publication of the fraternity magazines. The opportunity is at hand. I believe the alumni will respond.”

George Banta and Walter B. Palmer published the inaugural issue of the Banta’s Greek Exchange in December 1912. This new quarterly publication was labeled as, “A Pan Hellenic Journal Published in the Interest of the College Fraternity World.” Banta’s printing press published the journal. In this issue Palmer wrote, “Fraternities are now on trial; not only that, but they are fighting on the defensive.”

In his discussion Palmer pointed out that opposition to fraternities came almost entirely from non-fraternity men. His solution was that fraternities should increase in size and number so that every student who desired it could share in a regulated and harmonious chapter life. Palmer had a whole-hearted belief in fraternities, not as elite groups, but as congenial bands of students enjoying and sustaining each other. “If the number of chapters was immediately doubled,” he declared, “the clamor against fraternities would in large measure cease.”

Writing in The Scroll, Walter Palmer concluded that the war on fraternities brought some compensations. “The result has been to place all fraternities on their mettle to demonstrate to the world that they are worthwhile and are doing good work in promoting scholarship, morality, democracy and college loyalty.”

The publication advertised in the The Scroll, Volume 37, No. 2, on page 306, described the publication as such:

“This is a new departure in fraternity journalism, “A Pan-Hellenic Journal, Published in the Interest of the College-Fraternity World.” It has a broad field and gives expression to the growing spirit of fraternity cooperation and helpfulness, which happily has supplemented old time jealousies and distrust. The first number, dated December 1912, contains 82 pages, and every Greek who is interested in general fraternity movements would feel well repaid by reading it. Two of the leading articles are “Fraternity Scholarship,” by Frank E. Compton, President of ΘΔΧ, and “High School Fraternities,” by J. Cal. Hanna, former General Secretary of ΒΘΠ.

The magazine is edited by George Banta, Past President of ΦΔΘ, and former editor of The Scroll. The eleven pages of editorials are written in the characteristic vein of his genial personality. George Banta Jr. conducts an exchange department with the news instinct of an editor of long training. The fraternity department is handled by Walter B. Palmer, author of the ΦΔΘ History and Manual, the sorority department by Mrs. Ida Shaw Martin, ΔΔΔ , author of the Sorority Handbook.

The Exchange publishes the general news of interest in regard to all fraternities, articles suggesting improvements in fraternity methods and management, and discussions of problems with which the fraternities are confronted. It is the only medium for an interchange of opinions in regard to questions affecting all fraternities, and in this respect it has a very important mission.

A valuable feature is the Exchange was a list of the addresses of the general officers of the various fraternities and sororities, also announcements of national conventions.

Everyone who cares to keep abreast of fraternity conditions and progress should subscribe for this interesting journal, which occupies a unique position among fraternity periodicals. It will be issued four times a year, the subscription price being one dollar. Typographically it is very handsome and a credit to the Collegiate Press, Menasha, Wis., which is much the largest fraternity publishing house in America.”

Banta’s Greek Exchange continued to explain and promote the fraternity system and to support the sorority system which came into being in the late 19th century with the advance of women’s rights as a national issue.

The Aztec Club at Iowa State College, which long petitioned Phi Delta Theta for a charter, was reorganized under the name Cadduria Club, and chartered by the Chicago convention. Iowa Gamma was installed on the weekend of April 10-12, 1913, by the following officials: Charles Fackler Lamkin past president of the General Council, presiding, Fred Jackson Coxe, General Council secretary, and Frederick R. Cowles, president of Zeta Province.

At the time of the Fraternity’s 100th chapter installation, Phi Delta Theta was second among the thirty-six fraternities in the number of chapters, second in the number of houses owned, eleventh in the percent of houses owned, second in the total valuation of houses, and seventeenth in the average valuation.

When hostilities broke out in Europe in 1914, the majority of North Americans had no idea the Unites States eventually would be involved in the first World War and what would become the greatest bloodbath the world had known up to that time.

European history had been punctuated by a pattern of recurring warfare that did not involve us on this side of the Atlantic.

As a whole generation of British, French, and German young men were sacrificed in the senseless struggle, fraternity life went on as usual in the USA for the first two years of combat.

But this was not the case with our two Canadian chapters at the University of Toronto (Ontario Alpha) and McGill University (Quebec Alpha). Almost 100 men had been initiated in the nine years Ontario Alpha had existed. Within months of the start of the war, twenty had volunteered and more would soon be on the way.

In the best of British Empire tradition, the educated college graduates and/or students were considered candidates for Officer Training Schools.

The summer of 1915 found many Phis in training at Niagara-on-the-Lake and a number were in the first Canadian contingent sent overseas.

Among that group was C.A.V. McCormack, Toronto ’12, who rose to the rank of major, commanding the 83rd Battalion, and Keith Munro, McGill ’10, wounded and captured by Germans at the Battle of Ypres. Dr. Alfred K. Haywood, Toronto ’08, headed a medical contingent and won the military cross for gallantry in the field. Ontario Alpha’s report to The Scroll in 1915 described the situation “… The war has been a severe blow to Canadian chapters of all fraternities … yet we feel that in taking up the sword, we are living up to The Bond in the highest interpretation of the phrase.”

The first Phi casualty reported from Ontario Alpha was Lt. Colin Simpson, killed “somewhere in France” while commanding an artillery battery.

Simpson had been a leader among Phis. “His lie adorned the chapter,” a classmate wrote. “His death leaves and ideal of splendid manhood.: Lt. Simpson was barely twenty-one.

The first Americans to go overseas were volunteers in the American Ambulance Corps. As citizens of a neutral nation, they accepted the hazards of war as non-combatants.

The first Phi on record with that group was Edward F. Sheffey II, Randolph Macon ’13, who had gone to Harvard for his MA before joining the ambulance unit. A letter from Sheffey in 1915 offers a poignant glimpse of his experience:

“Sometimes the scenes at the station are very pitiful. Think of seeing literally hundreds of men with arms and legs gone, suffering sometimes excruciating pain in the transference to the ambulance.”

The United States Army set up a training program at Plattsburg, New York, for civilians who would volunteer for military training. Those who passed the training course would be enlisted in the Army reserves. The program had great appeal to college students who could spend their summer vacations there.

Whether by accident or design, those barracks were situated just a few miles south of the Canadian border where the trainees were hearing or reading about the Canadian war effort which was all voluntary but very popular.

The participation of 1,400 Americans who took military training as volunteers at Plattsburg in the summer of 1915 must have given the military the idea to use college campuses as areas to develop preparedness in the event of future wars. Soon there were military camps operating on the same basis as Plattsburg at other sites. This was the beginning of what was to become the ROTC training for college credit.

In The Scroll, letters from American Phis about their experiences at Plattsburg and messages from Canadian Phis in the trenches began to appear side-by-side.

The Honor Roll of Phis who died in World War I, at the Fraternity’s General Headquarters, shows the 155 men from sixty-five chapters who paid the supreme sacrifice and were killed in action. More than 5,000 Phis served, more than 3,000 in France.

In his lifetime, Walter Benjamin Palmer was journalist, economist, government official, but most of all a Phi. The Fraternity had 19 chapters when he signed The Bond at Georgia Beta in 1873. When he died there were 86 active chapters. No one had done more than he in the growth and development of Phi Delta Theta. From age 23, he attended every convention but one, when he was in Europe.

Described by Havighurst, “His tall, straight figure, his grave and kindly face and his deliberate, thoughtful voice were familiar to thousands of Phis.”

His definitive history of Phi Deha Theta was a landmark in the literature of American education.

Palmer had battled illness of different kinds through much of his 62 years, but his energy never waned and tributes poured in from around the nation.

His funeral was at his home on West 147th Sfreet, February 19, with the Fratemity ritual conducted by two past presidents of the General Council, Guy Potter Benton and Frank J. R. Mitchell. He was buried the following day in the Hillsdale Cemetery in Haverhill, Massachusetts, his wife’s ancestral home.

The General Council, in an unprecedented step, declared that the 10 days between March 5th and 15th be a mourning period with members to wear black ribbons around their pins and other insignia.

Palmer did not live long enough to see the much needed development of a central office take place. But that had been a dream of his and other Fratemity leaders for two decades.