December 7, 1941, is a day that has lived in infamy. A little more than a week earlier, fraternity men and women were meeting in New York City at the first joint meeting of the National Interfraternity Conference (NIC) and the National Panhellenic Congress* (NPC). It’s a good bet that some of the delegates had just arrived home when the news hit the airways that Sunday, given that they were likely travelling by train. Some might have combined the meeting with visits to chapters or fraternity headquarters.
An article in the December 1941 issue of The Kleos of Alpha Phi Delta was entitled “Dominant Topic at National Interfraternity Conference Dealt With Fraternities and Defense.” Due to the efforts of NIC Chairman Lloyd G. Balfour, Sigma Chi, a joint NIC-NPC luncheon, sessions, and banquet were held.
Lloyd G. Balfour, Sigma Chi and NIC Chairman
In addition, more than 2,000 fraternity men and women gathered at the Commodore Hotel for a banquet. According to the article it was “the most representative gathering of college Greeks ever held…Delegates of the 59 national fraternities which make up the NIC and the 21 sororities which comprise NPC also carried on separate sessions, which were largely concerned with problems resulting from the defense emergency.”
A drum and fife corps from Cornell University opened the banquet. The flags of the United States, Canada, NIC and NPC were presented. After singing the anthems of both countries, Alpha Tau Omega’s national chaplain Rev. Paul Hickok, gave the invocation. During dinner, 150 members of the Cornell University Instrumental Club and Glee Club “provided music, both classical and collegiate. The individual star was N. Herrmann, Theta Delta Chi, a 19-year-old basso profundo, who fairly startled his audience by his rare musical ability.”**
Additional music selections were performed by professionals Jean Dickenson, Bruce Boyce, Alexander Gray, and Reinald Werrenrath. Kappa Sigma Lowell Thomas served as toastmaster. The guest speaker at the previous year’s meeting, Beta Theta Pi Wendell Wilkie, was introduced.
There were a number of speeches. One was extremely prophetic. Lynn Stambaugh, national commander of the American Legion, in a talk entitled “Fraternities and Defense,” made the assertion that fraternity men, “because they often are in positions of leadership, had a special responsibility to assist in the national emergency. He was emphatic in his statement that this nation is definitely in the war and that people should realize this fact and function accordingly. He called upon fraternity men to do their part in making defense efforts effective.” Did he know that the fraternity magazines of the late 1940s would be filled with pages of pages about the members who made the ultimate sacrifice and those who served admirably and returned home to get on with their lives?
Balfour, in his opening remarks, declared, “There is nothing in college life that is capable of bringing men more enduring satisfaction than fraternity friendships which have grown out of working together, not only for ourselves, but for each other. That is the whole philosophy of the present social revolution. The fraternity belongs in the front of such a movement. Let us take our place on the college campus as a unified force for all that is fine, constructive, and dynamic in the life of the young men who will soon be called to bear the burden of the present chaos.”
That 27th NPC meeting in November 1941 took place at the Biltmore Hotel. Beatrice M. Moore, Theta Upsilon, presided; Juelda C. Burnaugh, Beta Sigma Omicron, was secretary and Helen H. Cunningham, Phi Omega Pi, was treasurer. The following year, NPC scheduled a special meeting on November 14-16, 1942, at the Medinah Club in Chicago, to discuss the problems due to war and the accelerated college program. It was a closed meeting limited to the official delegate and one alternate. The 28th NPC meeting opened on October 30, 1943 in the same venue in Chicago. All social events were cancelled on account of the war and programs were limited to the business meetings and the officers’ discussion sessions. NPC sent $500 from its treasury to the American Red Cross Blood Donor Service. A resolution “that NPC commit itself to active support of the appeal of our military leaders and implement such commitment with a program to urge girls graduating from college to consider seriously enlistment in the armed services,” was passed.***
* Today it is known as the National Panhellenic Conference, but NPC has had several name changes since it began in 1902. ** N. Herrmann was William Edward “Ned” Herrmann who would later go on to work for General Electric as a corporate trainer. In 1978, he created the “Herrmann Participant Survey Form” to identify an individual’s thinking styles and learning preferences in accordance with brain dominance theory. *** See http://wp.me/p20I1i-PI for a post about some Pi Phi WAVES who met Grace Goodhue Coolidge while training at Smith College.© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
