Page 55 - 1925 September - To Dragma

44 TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

W I L L W E B E AN INTERNATIONAL SOME DAY?

A LTHOUGH T H E establishment of chapters in Europe comes as a new
thought to some of us, yet we are more or less accustomed to chapters
in Canada, and any sorority or fraternity which has chapters in Canada
is certainly beginning to take on the aspects of internationalism. We find
six sororities maintaining chapters at the University of Toronto—Alpha
Gamma Delta, Alpha Phi, Delta Gamma, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa
Kappa Gamma and Pi Beta Phi. Several of the fraternities have chapters
not only at Toronto, but at other Canadian universities as well.

* ***

The Alplui Phi Quarterly notes briefly that
Alpha Tau Omega voted at its last convention to appoint a committee
to visit Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland, with a view to the estab-
lishment, in the leading universities of those countries, of active chapters
of the fraternity.
This interesting possibility of extension across the Atlantic is com-
mented upon at length in The Purple, Green and Gold of Lambda Chi
Alpha:
The fraternity world generally will view with considerable interest
Alpha Tau Omega's inquiry into the desirability of extension into colleges
other than those of the United States. This fraternity, we are inclined
to believe, hitherto has had a constitutional provision limiting its chapters
to the United States.
Delegates to the Philadelphia convention this month, according to press
dispatches, authorized national ofiicers to undertake a study of the question
of extension beyond territorial limits of the forty-eight states. Alpha Tau
Omega would not be a pioneer in Canada, but certainly it would be consid-
ered such in nations across the Atlantic, regardless of the fact that Chi Phi
had a chapter at Edinburgh which initiated fifteen men in 1867-70. The
Chi Phi chapter was composed of young southerners studying at Edinburgh
because of the disrupted conditions of the southern colleges at that time,
was founded by Chi Phi transfers, and confined its membership to Ameri-
cans.
Irving Bacheller, the author, was active in urging the adoption of the
Alpha Tau Omega resolution. Mr. Bacheller has been speaking of the
project for several years, suggesting the first extension into Canada, then
into English-speaking institutions overseas, and then, possibly, into other
important universities of the Old World. At the convention he expressed
the opinion that the Rhodes scholarships go "not a fly's step toward foster-
ing mutual good will and fellowship between the English speaking nations,"
as Cecil Rhodes had hoped that they would.
Dr. Otis Glazebrook, one of the founders of Alpha Tau Omega and
now United States Consul at Nice, France, if the press dispatches are
accurate, expressed his pleasure at the extension plan, which, in the words
of its proponents, "will cement more closely the bonds of fellowship and
will add greatly to the maintenance of international peace."
The Alpha Tau Omega delegates did not adopt the investigation reso-
lution without debate. Opponents argued that the plan would meet with
great difficulties, owing to "deep-rooted traditions and differences of opinion
in the various countries and warned against involving the fraternity in
politics." The Purple. Green and Gold rather subscribes to the latter views,
although we realize that the barriers may not be insurmountable. Prob-
ably early fraternity men were equally pessimistic concerning the Alle-
ghenies, the Mississippi, the Rockies, and the Canadian border.

Triangle of Sigma Kappa.