The History of Phi Sigma Kappa
Though the admonition against "bigness for bigness' sake" was always there, the demand to serve campuses wherever they might be was equally loud. In 1909, for example (after the Grand Council had earlier refused to put a chapter on the West Coast because of the distance involved and because it feared such a chapter would be denied the visits and services of a nearby headquarters), the Fraternity spanned the continent. The Ridge Road Club of the University of California became Omega Chapter-fittingly utilizing the last letter of the Greek alphabet and preparing the way for the first of the Deuteron or second-series units. The national aspect did not escape the notice of the mid-continent. Within six months, petitions were received from Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa State. Some who were there tell us that the induction ceremonies at the early Deuteron units often included a reminder in the form of Founder Hagues' benediction on the night of March 15, 1873, words that still ring of idealism and true worth:
"Let us...keep on growing till our beloved Fraternity shall become full grown...having the strength to help and protect its members, wisdom to guide them to helpful and good things as to college life, and love so warm that its members shall feel its kindly glow, that brotherly love may indeed be a reality and not an idea."
It is significant that our Fraternity did not set up a highly developed organizational chart and then induct chapters to fill the pre-planned niches. Rather, the organization developed as chapter needs arose. As we began our second 50 years in 1924, the Grand Chapter moved to meet some of these needs. The Fraternity was divided into geographic regions, each with vice-presidential representation on the Council. Regional conclaves were planned and provisions made for paying the expenses of undergraduate delegates to national conventions. Shortly thereafter an endowment fund came into existence, and the flag was designed and distributed to all chapters. In 1928, in the first meeting west of Chicago, the Fraternity met in San Francisco. President Alvin T. (Chappie) Burrows opened the Convention in a way that reminded the participants that he was aware of the heritage he now officially personified:
"The outstanding feature which appeals to all of us above all others is the sense of nationality of our Fraternity, which we have hitherto talked about but never realized to the full. The mystic chains of brotherhood which in years gone by bound us so firmly to the eastern shoreline of a great nation, have slowly but surely been extended toward the setting sun."
Phi Sig did not escape the Great Depression; no fraternal order did. But like many of them, she came out of it wiser and stronger for the experience, filled with the knowledge that brotherhood based on a heritage of helpfulness and value cannot be submerged by a flood of economic hardship. Undergraduate delegates had fathered a plan at the 1930 Convention that channeled 25 cents each month from each undergraduate member into a fund to assist chapters stricken by the Depression; the principal of mutual helpfulness could not have been better illustrated. Low manpower, too, had brought about fraternal belt-tightening and more significant national services-training in rushing techniques, a pledge manual, better accounting systems and visits by field representatives.
But perhaps the most significant development of these years came out of the 1934 Convention in Ann Arbor. Brother Stewart W. Herman of Gettysburg wrote and presented the Creed, and Brother Ralph Watts of Massachusetts drafted and presented the Cardinal Principles. More than a half-century later they stand as Phi Sigma Kappa's heritage personified, as much a part of the Fraternity's individuality as any of its more ancient rituals and symbolism.