Page 9 - To Dragma May 1930

6 To DRAGMA J
*
ing; this was edited by Helen Arthur of Nu chapter. But undiscouraged *
people know that poor crops, whether in farming, editing, or anything
else, are often followed by abundance. We carried on. p

Viola Gray of Zeta chapter has served in so many varied ways,
unselfishly saying " I w i l l " to anything however arduous or however slight
that she was asked to do—whether the job were to hurry up and inspect
a chapter, to install one, to bolster up another, to perform some little
local service, to contribute a musical stunt during a lull at Convention,
up to serving long and well in important offices and on the Executive
Board itself—that we should not miss this opportunity of appreciating
her, the next Editor and the one who reinstated To DRAGMA. Since
then there has been no break in its good development. I t was only a
short while before she had changed our plan for three issues a year into
the achievement of four.

But the magazine was in a parlous state when she said—"I will" to
»* and the capable Helen Piper Hagenbuch (Zeta), echoed her as
•iusiness Manager. I wish there were time to tell you all they did.
T v e is not even time enough to begin i t ! To DRAGMA had gone West
tc ^iv\ up with the country.

When Viola left this post for another in 1910, we went further west
still, to put golden poppies in our wheat in California.

Virginia Esterly, Editor, and Isabelle Henderson (Stewart), Busi-
ness Manager, both of Sigma chapter and already widely known for their
perfect team play, made us a vital and lively paper. I t was Virginia's
broad vision that extended the scope of To DRAGMA during the long and
formative period of this management—up to the summer of 1915—and
gave it a general literary and artistic flavor, which, while it was kept in
its own field of usefulness, has prevented To DRAGMA'S becoming, as
many fraternity papers are, a "trade paper" merely. The chatty, folksy
note and the inspirational note were emphasized.

Then, as before, and especially with war in the air, the practical
problems of finance and support were weighty. Her work in keep-
ing To DRAGMA on its feet and self-respecting at this period made
Isabelle seem like a little Hercules to those who knew what she
was accomplishing. And she served on the editorial end of the publica-
tion too.

The readable quality that Virginia had given this necessarily small
magazine made it worthy to pass, as now it did, into the hands of one oi
the few American women writers who give promise of holding perma-
nent place in literature, our Mary Ellen Chase, of Gamma. Mary
Ellen had alreadv shown interest in To DRAGMA and to the issue ot May,
1913, had contributed a "leader," "This Truth Against the World,
which I should like to see in everybody's scrapbook. The merit of her
work as Editor of the rapidly growing publication goes, of course, witJ^
out saying. In her first number Mary Ellen gave us the cover with tne
quaint old-fashioned drawing of the wheat stack, the first design eve
shown on the cover of To DRAGMA.