by Nancilee D.V. Gaisel, archivist

Modernizing the Fraternity: The Conventions that Brought Us to Business

The system was broken. Eminent Supreme Archon Don Almy (Cornell 1897) knew it now more than ever. Membership had soared in the past few years and more and more local fraternities were petitioning to become chapters of SAE, producing more work than could be handled. The Supreme Council was overwhelmed. Council members were finding it increasingly difficult to find enough time to dedicate to their regular occupations, family needs and their office in the Fraternity. Almy also knew that it would be nearly impossible to find good men to join the Supreme Council. No one with the executive ability and leadership skills necessary was going to want to take a volunteer position like that. The Fraternity had become a victim of its own success.

Instead of decreased membership, as fraternity officers had expected, the Great War had actually increased the number of initiations and not a single chapter had closed. There had been 3,038 initiations since the last convention in 1916, nearly two and a half times as many initiations as were recorded between 1914 and 1916, the last reporting period. Now, on the eve of the 1919 national convention, the Fraternity was also about to report its largest-ever active membership with 83 chapters and 1,830 active collegiate members. For the duration of the war, the War Department had imposed restrictions on college fraternities that included potential closure, if it were determined necessary. Military training stations were being set up in colleges across the country and some of the fraternity’s chapters had to give up their houses for military use.

In addition to the war, the worldwide Spanish influenza epidemic was taking its toll on the fraternity. Initially, in the spring of 1918 the flu hadn’t been that severe. But that fall and winter it reemerged with unexpected severity. At the end of the outbreak, more than a half-million Americans would die from the disease and 28 percent of the population would be infected. Some universities tried to stop the spread of the Spanish flu by quarantining the campus and not delivering or sending mail. Almy and other national Fraternity officers grew frustrated that they could not get the information that they needed from some chapters. The epidemic had become so severe that the local health inspector refused to issue a permit for the December 1918 national convention to meet, as scheduled, in St. Louis. At the last minute the convention was postponed and later rescheduled for June 1919.

To make the situation even more complicated, Eminent Supreme Recorder Billy Levere (Northwestern 1898) was off serving his country and homesick American GIs in a mud-soaked YMCA cantina in France. No one had realized just how much work Levere did for the Fraternity until he went away. He had worked out a complex system that kept the central office running and made Evanston, Illinois, the heart of the Fraternity. At great personal sacrifice, former ESA Marvin Holderness (Vanderbilt 1902) had assumed Levere’s responsibilities and done a yeoman’s job as acting ESR while Levere was away. Miss Mullen, the office clerk, had been working so much overtime that Almy feared her nerves would snap. No one was conducting chapter visits. Almy advertised in the Phi Alpha for someone to temporarily fill this role, but no qualified candidates appeared. Even when Levere returned from France, there was too much work now for one man to handle, even if that man was as capable as Billy Levere.

The system had to change. The Fraternity had long passed from a volunteer-run organization to a large national fraternity with chapters across the country. It had become a business like any other. This was the 20th century, the modern era, and Almy intended to implement modern business practices and office efficiency. It would take two national conventions and countless hours to implement the centralization plan. It would be nothing short of revolutionary.

THE FIRST CHANGE: 1885

Changing the governing structure of the Fraternity was not a new practice. It had been done once before in 1885 when the Fraternity moved from the Grand Chapter system to the Supreme Council system. The Grand Chapter was a collegiate chapter that was elected at each national convention to serve as the head of the Fraternity and conduct all necessary executive tasks. But as the Fraternity grew, the work of the Grand Chapter increased. When Eminent Grand Archon James A. Glass (University of the South 1880) called the national convention to order in the Tennessee State Capitol on October 20, 1885, administration of the Fraternity was about to pass from collegiate members to alumni. Glass stated the problem: “To do the work of the Grand Chapter, as the fraternity now stands, would require the entire time and undivided attention of the officers … We, therefore, believe that even could a chapter be found ready and willing to undertake this work, it would be wrong to allow her to assume so great a responsibility.” Glass was right. It was unfair to ask a handful of college students to run a 35-chapter national fraternity. All but a few national fraternities, Alpha Tau Omega, Phi Delta Kappa, Psi Upsilon and Delta Kappa Epsilon among them, had already dispensed with the Grand Chapter system. Since at least 1883, rumblings about SAE doing the same had been heard.

By the end of the convention, a new governance structure was in place. On November 15, 1885 the Grand Chapter would hand control of the fraternity over to the Supreme Council. The six-member board, which required all members to live in the same city, would be led by the Eminent Supreme Archon. The ESA was the official head of the fraternity, treasurer, and national secretary. The remaining five Council members did not have any defined roles. The Realm would be divided into provinces, with a Grand Chapter to head each province. Adjustment to this system would be made by national conventions over the next three decades. The Supreme Council would soon include the positions of Eminent Supreme Deputy Archon and Eminent Supreme Treasurer. The 1909 convention would change the title of the Past Eminent Supreme Archon to Honorary Eminent Supreme Archon. The position of Eminent Supreme Recorder was officially created at the 1912 national convention. And, the provinces would no longer be governed by Grand Chapters but by Province Archons.

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