Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/200

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and hard to please. Often, too, since an election must be by unanimous vote it is the prejudice or the stubbornness of one man in the fraternity that prevents a man from being asked. It may seem to some that it is unfair for one man's vote to keep out an otherwise acceptable freshman, but that is generally the custom of the fraternity. I know men who have worked every possible device, who have pulled every available string, who have even had their relatives come to town in order that their influence might be added to that of the individual himself who wished very much to join. It has even gone so far at times as for interested outside friends to try to influence the college authorities in behalf of their friends who could not get in. The man who resorts to these devices, however, very seldom profits from them. Every year I see the disappointed faces of young fellows who have come to college with the highest hopes of making a fraternity only to find that they had built their hopes upon a wreak foundation.

Sometimes a freshman is asked by the wrong crowrd of fellows, and he has the good sense to recognize this fact and the courage to decline the invitation. Only this week a boy came to me to say that he had had an invitation to join a certain group of men and was not quite certain of their character. He asked me to tell him frankly just