The Grand Council Foregathers

THERE is a

BYRON D. STOKES, Alpha Pi 19:3

Executive Secretary

HERE is a precedent, well-established with members of the Author's Union and other slaves of Cadmus, that, in juggling the assorted components of the alphabet preparatory to fishing an article out of the ink-pot, one should commence at the very beginning. Having stated this, it is here set down that the Grand Council of the Sigma Chi Fraternity convened in Chicago on October 27-28, 1916.

After the manner of the migratory crows, top-notchers aeroplaned in from every approved direction until, on Friday afternoon, the Hotel La Salle was a veritable Mecca for Sigma Chi headliners; and from that time until late Saturday evening a galaxy of Grands and Past Grands vied with one another in holding the spotlight.

The cast of this year's production included eighteen of the stars who have been and still are doing things for the Fraternity. Grand Consul Allen left his Texas estate at the mercy of Villista raiders and hurried to the Chicago front in time to get the boys out of the trenches before Sunday morning. Grand Annotator Adams, Grand Quaestor Brothers, Grand Editor Robinson, Grand Tribune Kerr; Grand Praetors, Hall Wilson, Henning, Mapes, and Smith; Grand Trustees McClain, Heath, Joseph T. Miller, and Mather; Past Grand Consuls Elliot, Nate, Alling, Ade, and Newman Miller; Executive Secretary Grabner; former Grand Historian Hostetter, former Grand Quaestor Potter, former Grand Tribune Arms; former Grand Praetor Lawrence De Graff, of Des Moines, Ia.; Brothers Robert E. Mulroney of Missoula, Mont., Charles Sharer, Herbert Hyde, and Martin A. Flavin, of Chicago and the round world, and members of Omega and Omicron Omicron chapters were on the stage or in the flies from the rise of the curtain, and nearly everyone had a speaking part.

Boarding one of our muzzle-loading surface cars not long ago, we took up our stand in juxtaposition to that traction employee who gives paper securities for real money. We had not proceeded far when a young lady of perhaps twelve years got on. She bore on her cabeza an enormous picture hat, purloined no doubt from an elder sister, and one stocking was obeying the law of gravitation. Our future debutante engaged in a careful inspection of coins to the amount of five pennies. With deliberation she placed three in her right hand, the remainder in her left, and with an air of complete unconcern offered the contents of that right hand to the "Con," whereupon that uniformed individual stopped wetting his transfer thumb and inquired, "How old are you, miss?" Without further parley our little sister of the snows disdainfully proffered the balance of the nickel, saying, "I don't give no sta-this-tics." Following this precedent, we are not giving you statistics. The complete minutes of the Grand Council proceedings from gong to gong are between the covers of the current issue of the Bulletin and we commend that publication to your notice.

The Board of Grand Trustees were rounded up early Friday afternoon and straightway took an increased interest in loan renewals, which fact will undoubtedly take the joy out of many lives. Also, a resolution in regard to the new endowment trust agreement was presented by Grand Tribune Kerr, the adoption of which resulted in the appointment of the Hibernian Banking Association of Chicago as the legal trustee of the new funds.

Later in the afternoon the members of the Grand Council accepted the invitation of Brother Frank A. Werner, Alpha Theta 1899, to visit his new Michigan Boulevard studio, where were hung the portraits of Founders Cooper and Bell. Brother Werner is doing for the Fraternity the work of a Leonardo, and like that luminary he is an all-around man. Brother Werner has taken a group of men we all know and love, has caught the fluid, fleeting expressions of life in color and has transferred them to those wonderful canvases with a broad, human touch. Brother Werner is not at all the temperamental type of artist. Like Kipling, he is a plain, manly fellow-just the sort to fit in anywhere. If there was a trunk to be carried downstairs or a car to get out of a

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND THE GRAND COUNCIL ON THE OCCASION OF EXECUTIVE

SECRETARY GRABNER'S RESIGNATION

rut, you'd call on Werner if he were passing that way, and he'd give you a lift as a matter of course and go on whistling, with hands in his pockets. Brother Werner is not without honor in our country.

Following an informal dinner Friday evening, Brother Martin A. Flavin, president of the Chicago Alumni Chapter, with his usual felicity of phrase, turned over the gavel to Grand Consul Allen, who proceeded officially to set in motion the machinery of the Grand Council.

The reports presented by the chairman of the Executive Committee and the grand officers were examples of the 100-per-cent efficient brand and well worth while. Brothers who desire a succinct statement of official activities of the Fraternity during the past year will find Chairman Heath's report in the forthcoming Bulletin.

William C. Henning, royal entertainer and Grand Praetor-plus, talked informally on plans under way by the St. Louis Alumni Chapter and Tau Tau Chapter at Washington University in connection with the Thirty-third Grand Chapter to be held in St. Louis in June, 1917. Brother Henning accepted the ultimatum of the Executive Committee and said he looked for a peaceful occupation of his city by our cohorts, and that "somewhere in Missouri" the Sigs would be watchfully waiting for the month of roses.

The second session was called to order Saturday morning with the presentation of reports of the Farnham and Dudley Memorial Commissions, the adoption of which authorized the Commissions to engage in the formation of a group with the Fraternity to be known as "The Sigma Chi Friends of Art." The purpose of the new body will be explained in the next issue. Past Grand Consul Nate then offered a perfect tribute in the form of a memorial minute to Founder Benjamin Piatt Runkle, which was ordered spread upon the records of the Fraternity, and copies of which were to be forwarded to Mrs. Runkle and to Alpha Chapter.'

At noon the members of the Grand Council were piloted by Grand Praetor Hall to the luncheon of his husky protégé, the

'Brother Nate has amplified his memorial delivered at the Grand Council meeting into the appreciative study of General Runkle appearing earlier in this issue.

-EDITOR