Page 14 - 1911 November - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 13

THE TRUE PAN-HELLENIC SPIRIT

I t was on the Nevada Desert that we met—the Pi Beta Phi, the
Chi Omega, and I—from faraway Gamma of Alpha Omicron Pi.
Our train had stopped an hour at noon in the midst of endless
sand and sagebrush, and we had crossed the hot platform to the
rough station house, where we ate oyster stew, and wondered from
whence it came. The thermometer said 105°, there was not a tree
in sight. A dilapidated awning at one end of the station platform
afforded the only means of shade, and after dinner was over I
wandered in that direction. I t was there that I saw two girls
engaged in conversation, and they wore Pi Beta Phi and Chi Omega
pins.

I felt a little feeling of fellowship at the sight of the pins,
though they were not like my own, but the space beneath the awning
was small, and I did not wish to intrude. I turned to go away but
the girl with the Chi Omega pin called me back, and her hand-shake
was very friendly.

"We're strangers, too," she said, '"and yet not after all. Come
and join us. It's a Pan-Hellenic meeting!" I joined them, and
the Pi Beta Phi's hand-shake was not less cordial.

And then the Chi Omega girl said something, the spirit of which
I think ought to stimulate every sorority girl in the country.

" I always feel," she said, "a friendship with all Greeks, no
matter what pins they wear, for really we're all working for the
same thing—all striving for the highest."

We three talked together about many things in the Greek letter
world in the half hour we stood there under the awning in that
desolate little Nevada town, and I think that we felt in some way
strangely drawn together. I saw them again on the train, and quite
often in San Francisco, but far beyond the charm of their southern
accents and their cordiality, did I remember the saying of the Chi
Omega girl—"we're really all striving for the highest."

I tell it here because I think that i f that sentiment should take
possession of every chapter of every sorority in this broad land,
Pan-Hellenic differences would cease, inter-sorority jealousies would
vanish, and the college world would be a finer and better place to
dwell in. For it is true. Whatever be our name or sign, whatever
be our goal, we are all striving for the highest, the purest, the
noblest. Why is our sorority dear to us? Not because its aim is
higher than the aims of the others—unknown to us. The things