The Fraternity and the College (collection)/Fraternity Finances
Whatever was once the custom, in these days, at least, fraternity men are expected to pay their debts and to do so promptly. The young man with the buoyancy and optimism of Mr. Skimpole, in Bleak House, who held that "the sordid word money should never be mentioned in the relations of friendship" is having little vogue at the present time. The enthusiastic life insurance agent, if you will admit his logic, can prove to you that if you will pay your premiums long enough they will cost you nothing, but every sensible man knows that the thing that is worth anything costs something, and the fraternity is no exception.
Fraternity men in the past have too frequently taken their obligations lightly, and so in a financial way have brought fraternities into disrepute. Fraternity officers have begun strongly to emphasize the importance of financial matters in the fraternity and are insisting upon the introduction of accounting systems into all chapters which will make it possible for fraternity accounts to be kept accurately and which will impress upon the fraternity man from the outset his obligation to meet his bills when they are due.
When a boy goes into a fraternity, neither he nor his father should be deceived as to the actual cost of membership, nor allowed to believe that payment may be evaded or deferred. It is ordinarily as unwise to go into a fraternity with the idea that the cost of living will thus be reduced as it is to enter matrimony with the thought that it will cost no more to support a family than an individual. With us at the University of Illinois the fraternity man is likely to be called upon to expend twenty per cent more than if he had remained outside of the organization, and if he develops popularity and contracts the joining habit, it may cost him considerably more than this.
The payment of bills and the meeting of personal financial obligations is quite as often a matter of habit as of monthly income. So far as I have observed, the man who is broke in college, who allows his bills to go unpaid, or who lets his fraternity brothers meet his obligations is not more punctilious about such matters when he leaves college and begins to earn a regular income. I held for five years the notes of a fraternity man given to the chapter for board, and though the man was soon drawing a good enough salary to enable him to marry, he has not up to this time been getting enough to make it possible for him to pay his old board bill.
Every organization has a longer or shorter list of these grafters whose pocket books and whose memories are short, who are careless or generous with their own money and who feel no compunctions of conscience at living off any one who will stand for it. Their excuse for not paying what they agree to pay or what they are due to pay is usually that they have had hard luck, that they have managed badly, or that they are going to find it easier later. The facts are that there is seldom any good reason except that they have lived beyond their income. It is the man with the small or moderate income who usually keeps his bills paid.
The men who are in these days giving most time and thought to fraternity matters are putting less and less stress upon mere sentiment and melodramatic feeling as a basis of true friendship and are coming to see that there can be no real brotherhood unless it is based upon principles which require every member of such an organization to do his part in keeping up the fraternity and to pay his part of the regular bills incident to such an organization. If a fraternity is to get anywhere, its finances are to be sound and dependable, and usually the finances of the group are determined by the way in which the individuals conduct their money matters. No one ought to assume more financial obligations than he can meet, but, having once agreed to pay, he is under moral obligations to do so whether it happens to be a subscription to the minister's salary, a chapter house note, or a board bill. That fraternity will do its members the best service and give them the best training which insists upon regular and prompt payment of every financial obligation. If a man can not pay he ought not to be in college. He should have pride enough not to allow himself to be carried by those who perhaps can afford as little as he can to meet additional financial obligations. I have had a good many interesting experiences with regard to the way in which fraternity men pay their debts. Possibly one of these, given somewhat in detail, may serve to show how fraternity men meet their obligations, and the methods employed to induce them to pay.
For a dozen years or more, as treasurer or trustee, I have been responsible for the collection of house notes and other pledges of three organizations—two fraternities and one sorority. These duties have brought me various experiences, pleasant and otherwise, and have incidentally resulted in my collecting $10,000 or so for the three organizations. As a remuneration for the expenditure of my time and effort I have been permitted to come into contact with various sorts of human nature, and I have learned much as to how fraternity men and women meet their obligations.
The funds for the building of most of the fraternity houses at the University of Illinois have been raised in part through notes given by the alumni and by members of the active chapter. These notes are usually for ten dollars each and are ten in number, payable one each year for ten years following the student's entrance into the university or following his graduation. Sometimes only five of such notes are given. The keeping up of the payments on the house is usually absolutely dependent upon the fidelity with which the individuals keep their obligations, and failure on their part to that extent embarrasses the officers who have the responsibility for looking after the finances of the organization.
The form of the notes which I hold is legal, I suppose, but, though I have never tried to do so, it is rather unlikely that they could be collected by process of law, and so they must be considered more as debts of honor than as legal obligations. The form which has been used I give below.
Two years after date, for value received, I promise to pay to the order of Thomas A. Clark, Trustee of Chapter House Fund of Beta. Theta, the sum of Ten Dollars ($10), with interest at 6 per cent after maturity.
The proceeds of this note are to be applied to the purchase of a Chapter House, and will be used for no other purpose.(Name) E. E. Fisk.
Address: Street....................................,
City...................................., State....................................Of the three sets of notes which I hold and have made an effort to collect, two were for purposes of raising money to pay off a debt some time ago contracted, and the other set was to help meet the expenses of building a chapter house. The former I have found more difficult of collection than the latter, for the reason perhaps that there was a less tangible and visible object for raising the money. Paying for something that is already eaten up, or burned, or worn out is too much like paying for a dead horse. The house was an object of interest and pride, an object which the men could enjoy, and come back to, and for that reason, perhaps, they more readily put their money into it. My experiences were similar in each of the three cases; but to avoid confusion, my discussion and my illustrations will have to do with the collection of the money for the house fund.
To begin with, the signing of these notes was entirely voluntary. The use to be made of the money and the need of raising it were usually explained to the fellows, so that they did not enter into the obligation blindly or through force. Not all the men signed them, and no men lost caste or favor who refused to do so. In the majority of cases the first note came due within a year after the student's graduation, though some were payable at the beginning of the sophomore year. Even though the man at first drew a small salary, or lived upon a moderate allowance, ten dollars a year could not be considered a very heavy assessment.
The work which I do in the attempt to collect these three series of notes is of course entirely gratuitous. There is no personal advantage to me in the collection of the money. I have paid my own notes as any other alumnus might. It takes time and often time which I can very ill afford. I have never received in return what the collections have actually cost me, and I seldom get thanks, even from the people whose interest I am trying to conserve. I have always felt that if I were willing to work for nothing and pay a part of my own expenses that I am at least entitled to a courteous reply to the letters that I write, but whether I am or not I often receive none. I have written men regularly twice a year for ten years and have never received a word of reply—and these men were quite able to pay. I no not care so much what they write as that they say something. I should rather have an impertinent letter than none at all. If they do not intend to pay, if they have lost interest in the fraternity, if they have objections which they wish to make to the management of the organization, I welcome all these various points of view. If they are hard up, broke, going to be married, or going to pay in a month, or even if they have no intention of paying and think I am a swindler or a grafter, I am glad to know, for all these things give zest and variety to an otherwise monotonous task. It is this dead silence, like a freshman just before initiation, that gets on my nerves. A good many of the men to whom I write are bankers, lawyers, or business men quite familiar with the courtesies and traditions of business methods; all that I want is that the matter be treated in a business way. I have always felt that a man who paid his own personal part of a subscription and who then was willing to spend his time and try his patience in an attempt to collect what is justly coming from me was entitled to most polite consideration from me. But quite the contrary is often true.
It is a great delight to find an exception. I have in mind one man who always answers my letters with a promise of payment in the near future. He has been doing this for years, and though he has never paid a cent, I like him for his courtesy. He is a gentleman, if he is a liar, and I should a thousand times rather do business with him than with the fellow, who having given his word, ignores all communications advising him of his obligation, or who is peeved because having made a pledge he should be expected by anyone to redeem it.
The men who paid the most readily were not always the men who could do so with the least sacrifice. The man who was first to cancel his ten notes was a young fellow working for fifty dollars a month, who without notice from me paid the first five notes when they came due and then discounted the last five at five per cent and took them all up. I have more than once been interested in seeing that the men who can most readily return to their alma mater to see a football game or to attend the annual dance are most likely to find it difficult to pay when a chapter house note comes due. Whether or not a man can get money is often determined by what it is to be spent for.
The men who have not yet paid a single note, though the entire ten are now past due, are in general prosperous fellows quite well able to meet these obligations easily. These men have never acknowledged any one of the twenty or more letters which have been written them, but if they should do so and should analyze their reasons for not paying and should put them down in black and white, they would probably resolve themselves into two. In the first place, upon leaving college these men moved far away from the scenes of their undergraduate life. In the localities to which they went there were few college men and few associations to remind them of the fraternity. Naturally, they thought less and less of college ties as they went on, and when the first letter came reminding them of their overdue obligation, they resented it and neglected it, and thought no more of it, perhaps, until the notice of the second overdue note came. Now an obligation of ten dollars is not so hard to meet, even by one whose income is small, and who is practicing economy, but when this sum grows to twenty dollars the strain upon the pocketbook is considerably more than twice as hard. To many young fellows the problem of meeting an unexpected financial obligation of twenty dollars seems so difficult of solution that he gives it up and thinks no more of the unpleasant business. When these delayed payments amount to thirty, fifty, or one hundred dollars, the idea of payment is unthinkable.
The second reason why men like those I have mentioned do not pay is found, I believe, in the fact that they were taken into the fraternity late in their college course, were in college only a year or so, never assumed, or possibly never were allowed to assume, any responsibility for its control and management, and so left college without much to tie them closely to the fellows left behind. The fraternity to them, seen in the widening perspective of the years that have intervened, seems little more than a boarding or lodging house in which they may have spent a few transient weeks. To send money to keep up such an institution seems to them a good deal like dropping it into a friendly rat hole.
The solution of the first of these difficulties lies with the man himself who should take his obligation to the fraternity seriously and who should meet it honestly and promptly as he would meet any other business or social obligation which he has assumed. He tries to excuse himself on the ground that such obligations are in a different class from ordinary promises to pay. If it were a laundry bill, or a bill to his tailor or his grocer, it would be different. The facts are, however, that such men will frequently dodge a laundry bill quite as readily as a house note. If they argue that the obligation to the fraternity is a minor one and that later obligations should take precedence, they will say that the laundress lost their hose and burned their best silk shirts in the ironing. There is always an excuse and a way out if one does not want to pay.
The second difficulty can be met by an active chapter which should keep more closely and regularly in touch with its alumni than most chapters with which I am now acquainted keep, and which should make a constant and strong effort to get all of the old men back as frequently as possible. The chapter can help, also, in impressing upon the men while undergraduates their obligation to meet all their debts with promptness. The average fraternity man, if on account of his financial limitations he were called upon to choose between the alternative of attending a formal party or of paying his overdue chapter house note, would seldom hesitate long in choosing the former course. Pleasure before business is too often his motto. The fact that I have no personal acquaintance with the tax collector does not, of course, excuse me from paying my taxes, but the fact that a fraternity man often gets out of sympathy and out of touch with his fraternity is to him an easy way to evade keeping his promises.
The excuses for non-payment which men give are interesting. As a rule I have found that the men who do not pay do not have the courtesy to offer an excuse, but simply ignore the obligation. The occasional man, however, having leisure and a stenographer, offers an excuse. Some men hold that money paid by an alumnus to a fraternity, like one's annual contribution to the pastor's salary, is a gift, payment of which may be withheld to any time which may suit the mood or the convenience of the giver. He feels that his "I promise to pay" when given to the treasurer of his fraternity still leaves him free to keep his word or not as he chooses. He does not stop to think that the building of the chapter house was based upon that integrity of his written word, and that if he does not honestly meet his obligation the chapter is often seriously and even irreparably injured.
Marriage, I have found, is considered by most men an adequate excuse for failure to meet any financial obligation entered into before the marriage occurred. When a man entrenches himself behind a little family, he seems to feel safe from any arrows of financial obligations which may be hurled against him. Even an engagement is considered no mean excuse and makes the man immune from the effects of previous debts as vaccination protects him against smallpox. If there are children, his fortress is invulnerable; nothing can effectively storm his financial citadel. More recently assumed obligations also are wont to take precedence of a chapter house note. The man who buys a farm, opens an office, goes into business, takes a trip to Europe, or spends money in any way, considers this a logical reason for not meeting his fraternity obligations. There are, of course, legitimate excuses, and these are generally offered and received in good faith. Even fraternity men suffer misfortunes, are compelled to meet unexpected situations, and fall victims to real hard luck; but they are honest and when the sun comes out and the financial sky brightens they come across with the ten dollars.
The men who never have to be notified, and their number is small, or who, if they forget, respond to the first call are the men who when in college amounted to something in the fraternity and in the college. The really strong men in the active chapter are the dependable supporters after they go out into the world. As I have said, the meeting of obligations promptly is a habit rather than an incident. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but as a general thing the men who, after they are out of college, meet their fraternity obligations regularly and willingly are the men who while in college did the greatest amount of hard work to make the fraternity what it ought to be. The fraternity notes with reference to which I have drawn these conclusions first came into my hands about twelve years ago, so that for many of the men the tenth note is now past due. As I look over the list of men whose obligations were met and who have paid up the entire series, I find few who were not as undergraduates a source of distinct strength to the chapter. They were men who realized their obligations, who took responsibility, who stood for the best things for which the fraternity stands. They were the ones who gave to the fraternity the best that was in them and who therefore received from it the highest that it has to give. Recognizing, as they still do, what the fraternity has done for them they are still willing and anxious to help in its maintenance. The men who do not pay are, on the other hand, usually the ones to whom the fraternity meant little or nothing, and who mean little or nothing to it. Perhaps the fraternity should be blamed for not inculcating in them higher principles, for not holding them while they were undergraduate members to stricter principles of financial practice, for not impressing them more strongly with the value of truth and the obligation to redeem every promise.
As to my methods of collection I have tried every sort of appeal. Sometimes I write a simple note like the following:
"Dear Brother Jones: This letter is simply to inform you that your fourth chapter house note for ten dollars ($10.00) was due July 1st. As usual we need the money.
Last fall, when at our regular home-coming some twenty of the old fellows returned to see the big football game of the year, I presented the case to them, and they all agreed that it was not creditable to the old guard. They passed some beautiful resolutions, got out a "hot" letter to the fellows who were back on their notes and all signed it. It is an interesting fact to note that though perhaps a dozen of the men who signed the resolutions and the letter were themselves behind in their payments, not one has sent in any money, and, so far as I can determine, not a dollar has come in as a direct result of the letter. It is easy to urge the other man to do his duty, to do it ourselves is not always so easy.
One who understands the job of making such collections as those which I am discussing may very well be thankful if he has a sense of humor; otherwise his temper may frequently be tried. I have been interested to note the attitude which the negligent alumnus often takes toward the unfortunate officer whose task it is to collect the money for the fraternity. Not a few fellows have the same attitude apparently as they might have if he were asking them for a personal loan or a gratuity. My ancestry and my general character have more than once been called in question, and all sorts of aspersions have been cast upon my reputation, simply because I have insisted on a man's paying what he had agreed to pay.
I have been asked often what percentage of these obligations I have been able to collect. This is a pretty difficult question to answer, since no one can tell that an obligation is absolutely worthless until the one who made it is dead. Even in this seemingly hopeless situation one can never be quite sure, for occasionally relatives may have a greater sense of obligation than did the man himself when alive, and may come to the financial rescue. Every once in a while a man pays, whom I have considered for years as hopeless, so that for me in this experience "Hope springs eternal." So far in the two cases in which the notes were given to raise money to meet a debt already contracted I have been successful in collecting in one case little more than fifty per cent and in the other about seventy-five. In the case of the notes to help build a chapter house I think I have already collected about eighty per cent of the amounts due and may ultimately bring the percentage up to ninety. In this case the unexpected is always happening. The man comes back and sees the house, or his younger brother or his wife's cousin is starting to college, and, wanting to make good with the active chapter, he liquidates. Maybe he meets an old pal who stirs up his recollections of other days, or he strikes it lucky and has an unusually generous feeling. In any case something happens that makes him send in the ten or the twenty that gives me a sudden shock of surprise. It may be if I live long enough and study the problem hard enough I shall be able to collect it all.
In the meantime I suppose that there are a good many unfortunates like myself throughout the country whose job is to get fraternity men to meet their chapter obligations. To help them and me I believe the active chapters of fraternities may do a good deal. While a man is in the active chapter he should be required to keep up all of his obligations. If he gets behind, his father should know about it. The fraternity is too often sensitive about letting parents know just what their son's financial situation is, and so an obligation which might often easily be met goes unpaid for years.
The fraternity as a whole should not go into enterprises which cost money without seriously counting the cost. House parties and formal dances, and banquets, and automobile trips are all well enough if one has the price, but when young fellows have to go into debt for these pleasures, they should choose the more simple life. "Are you going to have a house party this year?" I asked a fraternity man not long ago. "No more house parties for us, believe me," was his reply. "The one we gave last year has kept us on the verge of financial ruin all year. We've been trying to save on the board in order to make up for our social splurge, and we haven't had a decent meal for three months." He had learned what many of the rest of us have learned, that it is a pretty dangerous proceeding to mortgage the future. No one should be allowed to get behind, for no young fellow ever will have more money next month than he had last.
As to the alumni, perhaps one reason why we have not been more successful in making collections from the alumni than we have been is because the number of letters which our alumni receive in which they are directly asked for money is so much in excess of the number of friendly or newsy letters which they receive from the chapter that they hesitate to open their correspondence for fear of receiving a dun. Some chapters to overcome this situation have begun the publication of a regular monthly or semi-monthly paper which they send to all former members, and others send out a regular series of friendly, newsy letters.
Alumni should be urged regularly to visit the active chapter so that they may not lose interest in it or be ignorant of its affairs. The sooner the chapter gives its underclassmen responsibility and develops their initiative and interest in chapter affairs the sooner these members can be depended upon to have a permanent and vital interest in the upbuilding of the chapter, and the more likely they will be when they are in the chapter to keep up their obligations and pay their just debts, and the more likely also they will be when they leave the active chapter to meet their obligations to it.