Bro. Edward J. Breyere, Al-'20,
who in April 1920 first brought to New York University
the idea of installing a chapter
of Delta Phi Epsilon Foreign Service Fraternity
The first steps towards the nationalizing of Delta Phi Epsilon Foreign Service Fraternity were taken in February 1920, when Bro. Edward Breyere, Al-'20, sent to Prof. A. Wellington Taylor, the Director of the Wall Street Division of the New York University School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, a letter asking whether NYU had a foreign service fraternity and, if not, whether the Dean would be interested assisting in the nationalizing of Delta Phi Epsilon.
Dean Taylor replied on February 19, 1920, that: "There isn't any such organization as you mention in New York University. I shall be very glad indeed, if this organization is to be nationalized, to know what the requirements are for membership in the organization. Perhaps you could tell me pretty definitely what you have in mind, and we might be of some assistance in making a national organization of it." In the following weeks there was further correspondence, first from Brother Walter J. Donnelly, Al-'20, to Dean Taylor, and then from Brother Wesley O. Ash, Al-'20, in which the Washington group explained further the nature of the new Fraternity. On April 21, 1920, Dean Taylor wrote to Bro. Ash: "I shall be glad to take up this matter right away, though I doubt whether we shall be able to do it this term...We have only three weeks left of the school year...However, I shall begin at once to work it up..."
With the next school year, 1920-21, negotiations were to have resumed. But early in the fall semester, Dean Taylor was injured in an automobile accident and spent the rest of the term recuperating at his New Jersey home. Meanwhile, though, Leonard L. Sutter, a new student in NYU's School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance, was on his own urging the School's administration to establish a foreign trade fraternity.
Dean Taylor's secretary at the time was Richard E. Lambert. Several years later the (by then) Bro. Lambert would write: "For the archives, I wish to record that Len was the prime generator who brought Beta into being. While I was pinch-hitting as Administrative Assistant to Dean Emeritus A. W. Taylor, when he was laid up at home, Len pounded me without mercy every day, night and day, to start a fraternity for foreign trade and foreign service men. The Dean had received a feeler from Alpha at Georgetown, but I knew nothing of it then. Len's persistence drove me in desperation to the Dean's bedside with this problem, along with others, where I learned of AIpha's DPE bid."
When Richard Lambert heard from Dean Taylor about the previous year's correspondence with Delta Phi Epsilon, he tried to re-established contact. On November 24, 1920, he sent (over Dean Taylor's signature) a letter to Bro. Ash (but addressed simply to "Delta Phi Epsilon, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.") saying "I do not know that you are still the Secretary of the Georgetown Chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon, but all my previous correspondence was with you. I am very anxious now to take up seriously the matter of a Chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon on N.Y.U., as suggested in your letters of May 3 and April 23....We have several fellows who are anxious to take this matter up at once if it is still open to us."
Not hearing back (most likely because of the way his letter had been addressed), Lambert sent another letter signed by Dean Taylor to Washington, this time on December 2, 1920, and addressed directly to Rev. Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., the Regent of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, saying "Some time ago I had correspondence with Mr. Ash regarding the organization of Beta Chapter of Foreign Trade Fraternity. I have not heard from Mr. Ash and it occurred to me that perhaps he was absent from the University. We should like very much to take up this matter again...Perhaps you can be of some service in getting us in touch with the proper person."
Fr. Walsh immediately informed the Fraternity, and its officers acted quickly. Herman G. Brock during the spring of 1920 had been an Assistant Director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and was an instructor of "Staple Commodities of World Trade" at Georgetown University's new School of Foreign Service. On May 22, 1920, he had been initiated into the Fraternity; yet soon after moved from Washington, DC, to New York City to work for the Guaranty Trust Company. The Washington group delegated him to become the on-site arranger for installation of a chapter at New York University. And within four weeks he got a core group, including Dean Taylor's secretary, Richard Lambert, to submit to the Fraternity a petition for acceptance as Delta Phi Epsilon's Beta Chapter..
.The Washington group sent to New York during the Christmas vacation an installation team, consisting of Bros. John Walsh, Patrick O'Connell, Bernard Weitz, James Gallagher, Somerset Owen, and John Cromelin, and on Thursday, December 30, 1920, again in the words of Bro. Lambert many years leter: "Beta, after much travail and wet nursing, was labored into being in due course. Its birthplace, with peculiar aptness, unintentionally I assure you, was on Len's Staten Island, at the spacious home of Alpha's Herman Brock"
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The six charter members of Beta Chapter were: Bros. Raymond Z. Fahs, Henry Gully, Maurice R. Hahn, Richard E. Lambert, Francis S. Seymour, and Leonard L. Sutter.
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.........Richard E. Lambert.........................Francis S.
Seymour.............................Raymond Z.
Fahs.......................Leonard L. Sutter
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.....................................................................Henry Gully....................................Maurice R. Hahn
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Bro. Raymond Z. Fahs became the first president of Beta Chapter. And some weeks later Beta conducted its first initiations: on March 24, it inducted two student brothers, Reginald H. Barnwell and Zimri C. Oseland, and on April 1, it inducted five faculty brothers: Dean A. Wellington Taylor and Profs. G. Charles Hodges, Allan B. Cook, Jeremiah W. Jenks, and Harvey R. Moody. One further initiation (of five students and one faculty member) was then held by Beta on April 22, 1921, bringing the chapter's total membership, by the end of the school year, to seventeen.
On July 14, 1921, Beta Chapter was incorporated in the State of New York as "Beta Chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon, Incorporated."
Negotiations meanwhile had begun among the brothers of Alpha Chapter at Georgetown University and of Beta Chapter at New York University over the subject of a national constitution for the Fraternity. On May 8, 1921, a constitutional conference was held in Washington, D.C., at Alpha's Chapter House on Connecticut Avenue, NW, near Dupont Circle. From Beta there were three representatives: Bros. Raymond Fahs, Richard Barnwell, and Horace Cutler. From Alpha there were also three representatives: Bros. Roy MacElwee, John Walsh, and Karl Prickett.
This conference drew up a temporary constitution, which at a meeting the following week in New York City the two chapters agreed to have remain in effect until the Fraternity's first national convention, scheduled to be held at the end of that year, could enact a permanent constitution.
The conference also elected Bro. Roy S. MacElwee, Al-'20, the then Director of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, to be the first National President of Delta Phi Epsilon Foreign Service Fraternity, for the term May to December 1921.
Throughout the summer and fall of 1921 a two-man Constitutional Committee, composed of Bros. Karl E. Prickett and Horace W. Cutler, worked on draughting a permanent constitution for Delta Phi Epsilon. They used as their model the articles of incorporation and bye-laws of the New York State Bankers Association. Their finished draught was circulated between the two chapters, Shortly before the convention, Bros. G. Charles Hodges (Beta) and John J. Walsh (Alpha) were added to their committee to help in evaluating and accommodating various requested changes.
The Fraternity's first national convention was held over Thanksgiving Day weekend, on November 25-27, 1921, in the new Alpha Chapter House at 1503 21st Street, NW, Washington, D.C.
This convention adopted the draught of the constition committee and, with only a few further amendments, this remained as the Fraternity's national constitution until 1938. The convention also elected Bro. William S. Culbertson, Al-'20, then the Vice-Chairman of the United States Tariff Commission, and later the U.S. Minister to Roumania and Ambassador to Chile, to succeed Bro. MacElwee as National President for the term December 1921 - December 1922.
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The Fraternity's second national convention was held on December 19-20, 1922, and was again hosted by Alpha at its Chapter House in Washington, DC. Bro. G. Charles Hodges, Be-'21, a faculty member at New York University, was elected to succeeed Bro. Culbertson as National President for the term December 1922 - December 1923. The new National Board of Governors of the Fraternity had, besides Bro. Hodges, three other Beta members: Bro. Philip S. Smith, Be-'23, as National General Secretary; Bro. Zimri C. Oseland, Be-'21, as National Treasurer, and Bro. W. Guy Chater, Al-'21, as the National Vice-President for Beta.
In March 1923 Beta Chapter produced the first issue of The Manifest, a periodical destined to last for decades keeping Beta's far flung membership informed of what was happening in the lives of the chapter's student, faculty and alumni brothers.
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Beta Chapter, on October 15, 1923, finally acquired headquarters of its own, when it opened the first Beta House by renting several rooms on the main floor of "The Planters", 1 Albany Street (at the intersection of Albany and Chambers Streets), just around the corner from NYU's Wall Street Division.
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The Fraternity held its third national convention on Decemner 28-30, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts, hosted by Gamma Chapter of Boston University.
This convention elected Bro. Rufus Bernhard von KleinSmid, De-'23, the President of the University of Southern California, to succeed Bro. Hodges as National President, for the term 1924-26.
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The Chapter on October 31, 1924, undertook an even more momentous development when it rented (for $150 a month) the parlour floor of a large house at 42 Fifth Avenue, three blocks from NYU's Washington Square campus. That same evening the Chapter held an impressive house-warming party, described by The Manifest, as "the biggest thing that has taken place in the history of Beta Chapter". For the first time, Beta had a House in which brothers could both live and hold meetings and other functions. As Beta reported to the rest of the Fraternity in that year's issue of The GALLEY: "the quarters consist of two very large and high rooms, each having a fireplace, and in addition there is a bath. On the floor below is an exclusive restaurant. The building is of the type in vogue in the early days of the city. In the front room are two large, full-length windows, which in time will prove very popular, as every parade in New York of importance proceeds up or down 5th Avenue." A set of "House Rules" was soon adopted:
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Delta Phi Epsilon
Beta Chapter'''''''''''' House Rules
Adopted unanimously January 23, 1925I. No intoxicating liquor shall be permitted in or about the Chapter House under any conditions.
II. Study hours shall be from 9:00 P.M. until 11:30 P.M. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
thruout the school year except on holidays or when special meetings other than the regular Friday night meetings are held.
During study hours the back room shall be used exclusively for studying
and there shall be no unnecessary noise in the front room.III. No women shall bc allowed in the Chapter House
except on such open nights as shall be designated by the Chapter or by the Chairman of the House Committee.IV. In case of disputes arising between members living in the House and overnight guests who are members of Beta Chapter,
or any other dispute which might arise in like connection, the Chairman of the House Committee shall be the arbiter.V. In case of disputes arising between house members and the Chairman of the House Committee,
the matter shall be refered to the Disciplinary Committee for final action.VI. Members may have the use of the rooms on any Saturday or Sunday evening from 8:00 P.M. until 12:00 P.M. for private parties,
for a fee of not less than $12.50 nor more than $25.00, depending upon the circumstances of the case.
All parties so given shall be properly chaperoned and permission for same shall be given by the Chairman of the House Committee
who shall, before granting such permission, confer with members resident in the Chapter House.
Requests for the use of the Chapter House for such occassions shall be made not less than ten days in advance.
Such parties shall be subject to all House Rules which are applicable.VII. Beds may be had at the Chapter House at the rate of 50¢ per night excepting on Friday, Saturday or Holiday nights
when the charge shall be $1.00; all charges being payable in advance to the House Manager or, should he be absent, to his deputy.VIII. Rent for members living at the House shall be at the rate of $25.00 per month and shall be due and payable one month in advance.
IX. Any infringement of these rules by a member of the Chapter shall be referred directly to the Disciplinary Committee
to take such action as they deem advisable.X. These rules may be amended or added to at any regular meeting of the Chapter at which there is a quorum present.
Beta Chapter in the Spring of 1925.
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