REPORT FROM NAT'L VEEP FOR BETA
BY WM. F. (BILL) MEEKS

As the Nat'1 Veep, for Beta Chapter, I have tried to attend all the regular meetings. I am pleased to report an active turn-out and a decided effort to improve the operation of the active Chapter. This year much emphasis has been placed upon the necessity of a 'house'. Until recently we have had an arrangement for the rental of a house, but new quarters are now being looked for. Bob Neilsen, the active President, gets full cooperation from the brothers and, in addition to the weekly evening meetings, the men in the midtown area lunch together every Wednesday noon. Every effort is being made to swell the active rolls in time for the Convention. I am sure Beta's present active Chapter wants to measure up favorably with past groups. This year in particular we are more in touch with the day school student body.

[Ed.'s addendum: Short and sweet. Bill is also Treas. of N. Y. Alumni Assn., but he says naught about that.]

BETA'S DINNER IN HONOR OF NEW NATIONAL OFFICERS

On September 29, 1950, at New York's beautiful Fifth Avenue Hotel, Beta Chapter tendered a dinner to the new National Officers, or Board of Governors, of our beloved Fraternity.

Opening with a toast to all absent brothers (of all Chapters and Alumni Associations), the new members of the National Board were introduced, and each made a short speech. The presentations were in this order:

Following these introductions, Brother Bob Nielsen, President of Beta, presented an award key to Mr. Jack Stein, senior at New York University's School of Commerce, Accounts & Finance, for the highest scholarship during 1949-50 in foreign trade courses.

Next followed two main addresses of the evening. The first guest speaker was Mr. Robert A. Breen, Secretary of the National Foreign Trade Council, who in addition to his other remarks invited all DPE men to attend the next National Foreign Trade Convention.

The concluding address of the evening was made by guest speaker, Mr. Fred J. Emmerich, partner in the foreign trade firm of Read & Emmerich, who is senior Vice-Chairman of the International Trade Section of the N.Y. Board of Trade. All brothers everywhere will be interested to read Mr. Emmerich's article elsewhere in this issue, prepared especially for our use.

Your editor (Richard E. Lambert], as one of the founder members of Beta Chapter and as visitor (without credentials) at the last biennial convention at Washington, D.C. (June 1950), which elected the present National Board of Governors, served as Toastmaster.

At this testimonial dinner, the identity was revealed of those brothers who were responsible for presenting the elected slate of Beta brothers for this biennium's National Board. All credit for this biennium's progress in DPE should, of course, go to the June 1950 Convention as a whole who elected them. But in case at any time any of you have a legitimate 'gripe' at any of this new Board, you are entitled to know that you can convey same to Brothers Bob Scalapino and Bill Henson (Beta delegates), and Brothers Nick Ponzio and Dick Lambert (Beta visitors). "We seen our duty and we done it; and we done the best we could."

.BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
- GEORGE WINFIELD STRETCH

I was born in Brooklyn at a time when that borough was known as the City of Churches and Trolley Dodgers, the latter appellation deriving from the network, or patchwork, of trolley cars that was spread over the community. I went to business early and obtained formal education at evening sessions and, perhaps what was an equally enlightening influence, general education through travel at an age when impressions were readily acquired.

Let me explain travel first. As I have mentioned, I was working and attending classes, but after a while this program led to an impairment of health, and something definite had to be done for the condition. The solution came unexpectedly as a result of a chance meeting with a Dartmouth man who was serving as a marine engineer in preparation for a shore career as a consulting engineer. He told me of jobs that were available to college men on shipboard. This appeared to offer a solution. But I was unable to obtain the type of job proposed, yet having made the decision, there was no turning back, and I decided to accept the next best job I could get. That was what was wrong &emdash; the next best was an opening as a lowly member of the crew of a freighter. I signed on and had the good luck to end the voyage as Fourth Mate.

The decision to go to sea was one of the most fateful I ever made. It really determined the course of my life. When I left the ship in San Francisco, after a short but beneficial experience, my ambition still was to follow journalism, in which field I did make a start, but I found my thoughts continually reverting to the sea and ships. My seagoing had not been a happy time, yet something about it was holding me. Meanwhile, I was losing the attachment to journalism. Daily I visited the San Francisco waterfront and came to know every ship that regularly called at that port, all the docks, the shipyards, the variety of cargoes handled, and the type of personnel on board the ships of different flags. Inasmuch as this was a spare time activity with me, I finally began to wonder why; and, in searching for a way that would give more meaning to life, I gradually arrived at the conclusion that ships were my first love and that ocean shipping would be my life's work.

With that second decision made, I returned to New York, attended classes at the College of the City of New York and New York University, and eventually became a steamship broker.

Business and pleasure have taken me into every state of the Union, Alaska, and all the Canadian provinces from Newfoundland to British Columbia, as well as Yukon Territory and St. Pierre et Miquelon, and to western and northern Europe as far east as Leningrad, in addition to the West Coast of South America, the West Indies, and Panama. [Ed.'s interpolate &emdash; Where else is there, George?]

Since my first accidental association with shipping, my life has been one of ships and cargoes, captains and owners, located practically all over the world. The antiquity of maritime chartering, a ship broker's chief occupation, has held a special appeal for me. Among data I have collected, is a record of a bill of lading consummated before the Christian Era for the transportation of grain on the Nile River, the original document having been inscribed on papyrus in Greek.

The story of war activities is a separate chapter, which must be omitted from this recital.

A continuing interest in seamen led to election to the Board of Managers of Seamen's House Y.M.C.A., of New York. I am also on the Board of the Camp and Outing Branch, which administers three boys' camps, and a member of the General Assembly o£ the Y.M.C.A. of New York. Other organizations of which I am a member are the New York Produce Exchange, the Maritime Exchange of New York, and the Traffic Club of Montreal, as well as the Downtown Athletic Club, and the Huntington Symphony Society.

Having associated with all of the races and nationalities of the maritime world, I have found them to be much alike at heart. Perhaps shipping people and foreign traders are a breed of their own. With this note of universality, I shall close, as a tribute to the ideals of Delta Phi Epsilon and the far horizons of her members.

[Editor's comment - The foregoing account amazes even those of us who have known him best and longest. He's a modest chap. As you see, we have had a Joseph Conrad or Richard Henry Dana in our midst, and didn't know it.]

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YOUR NATIONAL GENERAL SECRETARY
- WILLIAM GUY CHATER

Born in New York City in 1899.

Son of the one-time Foreign Editor of New York Herald (later Marine Editor of New York Journal of Commerce; deceased in 1915).

EDUCATED at Manual Training High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.; New York University School of Commerce (BCS 1923); Graduate School (MCS 1925), with thesis on "Crude Rubber Production, Merchandising and Uses".

EXPERIENCE - First position with firm of Custom House Brokers in New York, delivering customs permits to piers and getting basic knowledge of physical handling of export and import cargoes.

Later, Manager Import Department, Judson Freight Forwarding Co., receiving merchandise from all parts of the world, clearing same through Customs and reshipping to consumers in U.S.A. Also, supervised preparation of all foreign language consular invoices on export shipments and all foreign language correspondence.

In 1923 joined Biddle Purchasing Co., New York, as Import Manager buying from foreign countries finished consumer items for importation and sale in U.S.A.

Traveled throughout Europe in all countries from Spain and Italy north to Scandinavia. Also traveled extensively in the U.S., visiting wholesale distributors as far as the Pacific Coast.

During the war years acted as Manager of Government Regulations Division, in charge of all matters connected with OPA price controls and WPB priorities and material allocations, spending considerable time in Washington, D. C.

OUTSIDE INTERESTS - Masons; Pres., Fleetwood Knolls Taxpayers' Ass.; Treas., Men's Club, Community Church, Mt. Vernon, N.Y.; Member, Customs & Import Com., Commerce & Industry Assn., N.Y.; Ch., Subcom. to aid Food & Drug importers, subject to Pure Food Sec., FSA; Member, Com. to recommend Price Ceiling on Imports.

MARRIED - 3 children: William Adam, age 14; Deborah Dorrell; Michael Merwin 3.

CHIEF AVOCATION - Ocean Shipping and Railroad Transportation.

[The GUY'S human, too, despite this! I can guarantee that personally. Moreover, he's been the wheel horse who more than any of the rest of us,

over the entire intervening period, has kept Beta Chapter and N.Y. Alumni Assn. alive. -Ed.]

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LIFE-SKETCH OF YOUR NATIONAL TREASURER
- BROTHER FRANCIS E. TAYLOR

(He's human too and not just an adding machine and money merchant)

Brother Frank entered this vale of tears, of all places, in Weeping Water, Nebraska. At the tender age of seven he migrated to Oregon by train (not pack-train, he regretfully adds), accompanying his father who became Professor of Latin and Greek at Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon.

In the Webfoot country he stayed until 1917, when he enlisted in the First Separate Battalion of Oregon Engineers, which became Company B, 116th Engineers, 41st Division. As a "see-here, Private Taylor", he first saw the skyscrapers of New York on his way to the AEF in December of 1917. The enchantment of Gotham stayed with him until long after the War and his return to Pacific University, where he graduated in 1922.

After two more years at the University of Oregon Law School, in Eugene, he was appointed to one of the Penfield Scholarships in New York University Graduate School, in 1924. He received his MA in 1925 under Professor Charles Hodges (B), and also successfully survived the dangers of Beta's stormy waters and shifting desert sands. He was appointed an Instructor in the Department of Government, Washington Square College, N.Y.C. The following year he also became Supervisor of Educational Broadcasting in the Extension Department of NYU in charge of Radio Lectures over WOR. In 1927 he was admitted to the Bar of the State of New York and began practice in 1928.

During his four years at NYU he had been one of the first residents of International House, the Foreign Student Center erected with gifts from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., at 500 Riverside Drive; had been its Secretary of Admissions for one semester, and maintained a lively interest in foreign student friendship and international matters.

In 1929 he went to Haiti as a member of the legal staff of the U. S. Financial Adviser to Haiti. He stayed two years and returned to handle foreign legal work in the law firm of Dills 8c Towsley. In 1931 and 1932 he spent some fifteen months in Mexico City on foreign legal matters for one of his firm's principal clients, the Commercial Credit Company of Baltimore, Md. He became a partner in the successor firm &emdash; Dills, Muecke & Schellier, handling legal matters for subsidiary companies in Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina. In 1934 he obtained a three months' leave of absence to Washington, D. C., to act as Constitutional Attorney in the Office of the Special Adviser to President Roosevelt on Foreign Trade. In 1936 he was appointed Secretary and Associate Counsel for Textile Banking Company, Inc., a subsidiary of Commercial Credit Company.

World War II found Brother Taylor in the Naval Reserve. He went on active duty in January 1942, served as U. S. Naval Liaison Officer in Manzanilla, Mexico, in 1942 and 1943. From September 1943 to January 1946 he was U. S. Naval Attaché and U. S. Naval Attaché for Air at the American Embassy in Port au Prince, Haiti.

Returning to New York after the War, he renewed his association with his law firm and his legal work for Textile Banking Company. In 1948 he was appointed Vice-President and Secretary of Textile Banking Company, where he still functions.

Brother Taylor is Commanding. Officer in charge of one of the divisions of the Naval Reserve in the 3rd Naval] District with the rank of Commander. He is a resident of Scarsdale, N. Y., a member of the Fox Meadow Tennis Club there, a member of the Manhattan Club in New York City. He is a Director of the Kiwanis Club of New York City and a Director of the Manhattan Board of the Big Brother Movement, Inc., in New York. His hobby is his "place in the country" in Sherman, Connecticut. He is a member of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity, a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He is married and has two children &emdash; and he IS bonded.

[Editor's note - well, brothers, did we do right by you at Washington in June last in getting Frank to take over the Treasurer's job? Incidentally, he is a nephew to retired Dean Archibald Wellington Taylor (also of Beta), who for years was Director of Wall Street Division of the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance of NYU, and founder of the Graduate School of Business Administration. But for being confined at home as the result of injury from an auto accident at the time Beta was born, Dean Taylor would have been a founder - a charter member.]

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VITAE ON THE VEEP
- BROTHER LEONARD L. SUTTER

1. PERSONAL

Born on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1896, in Pleasant Plains, Staten Island, New York. Attended New York City Public Schools and High School, finished (sic) at New York University, June, 1925. Sailed for Europe July 1, 1925 on board the AQUITANIA for a month's tour of Europe. Met Marie Beatty on this voyage, who had just been graduated from Mt. St. Vincent College on the Hudson. Was married to Marie in December, 1926. They have their home on a hill at 119 Bloomingdale Road, Pleasant Plains. [Just like Len: mentions Marie in first paragraph. - Ed.]

They now have a wonderful family of five boys and three girls, almost a full baseball nine. All they lack is a set of Quints, another of Quads, a third of Triads, and at least one pair of Twins, to have the world's all time record. Mary, the oldest daughter, was graduated from the same college as her mother, and Ginger, the 2d, is now a Junior at this same institution. Leonard, Jr., is a Cadet 3d class at N.Y. State Maritime College; Richard and Ann are in High School, David and Robert are in Grammar School, and Jim, the youngest, starts to school next year.

Len was one of the original six to form the Beta Chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon. Was once Vice President of the Active Chapter and through the years Chairman of many of the committees. One-time President of the N.Y. Alumni Association and always active and interested in promoting our Fraternity.

Civic Leadership on his native heath (Staten Island) is Len's most serious and enduring avocation. He organized a group of 1,000 men and women - and was elected President of the Staten Island Vigilantes. Obtained a $1,250,000 loan from Secretary of the Interior Ickes, Senator Wagner, and Congressman Prall for a N.Y.C. High School on Staten Island. Dug the first spade of dirt and received the silver trowel for laying the cornerstone of this high school. Was heard over the first National Radio Broadcast of this dinner as Master of Ceremonies.

Organized the Prince Bay Clam and Oyster Association and opened Raritan Bay for Clamming, putting more than 1,000 men back to work after the Bay had been closed to clamming for 25 years.

Has been a life member of the Downtown Athletic Club since it opened. Served at different times on all the committees: as Chairman of the Swimming Committee, organized the DTAC "Whales", a group of fifty members who swam 26 miles in the Pool from World War II, having 130 Skyscrapers to blackout.

Left Corn Products on a lend-lease arrangement to be General Sales Manager of H. M. Hillman, Marine distributors of American Brass Company and Anaconda Company. Traveled all through Canada from Quebec West, and in the States from Maine to the Gulf and from St. Louis to California on special missions in selling and distributing Copper, Brass, aka Steel Products.

Now Executive Director representing S.I. in the Park Association, of which Mr. Robert Moses, Park Commissioner of N. Y. is a member and Mrs. Sulzberger, owner of the New York Times, is the President.

As National Vice President in charge of Placement he will seriously push a plan to aid Delta Phi Epsilon members landing and holding that just-rite job.

[Editor's Note - Each individual member needing placement in the field of foreign relations, or who is burning with an idea on the subject, is invited to make Len's life for the ensuing two years miserably happy or happily miserable. His shoulders are broad, his patience is Job-like (proper - what, for a man whose job is job-finding), his smile is infectious, and his energy exhaust less.

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 (B) at Wall St. Div., NYU, 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. 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, Dec. 30, 1920.]

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NICHOLAS PONZIO:
Roster and Liaison Secretary:

RESIDENCE:
709 North Wayne Street, Arlington, Virginia

DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH:
August 23, 1917, New York, N.Y.

EDUCATION:

(1) New York University, B.S., June, 1940.

(2) Graduate School, Georgetown University (1946 1947),
All work for M.A. degree in Economics completed except thesis.

GOVERNMENT SERVICE:

(1) San Antonio Air Depot, AAF, San Antonio, Texas (1941-1943):
Assistant Chief Clerk.

(2) Civil Aeronautics Administration, New York, N.Y. (1943-1944):
Administrative Asst.

(3) War Assets Administration, Washington, D.C. (1944-1947);
New York, N. Y. (1947-1950):
Asst. Chief, Aircraft Sales Division.

(4) Dept. of Labor, Washington, D.C. (1950- ):
Labor Economist.

DPE SERVICE:

Initiated: Beta Chapter, DPE, January 1938

DPE HONORS:

Honor Key (June 1940).

FRATERNITY OFFICES HELD:

(1) Beta Chapter:

Treasurer (1939);
President (1940)

(2) Washington Alumni Association:

Secretary (1946-1947) .

(3) New York Alumni Association:

Secretary (1949).

(4) National Board of Governors:

Roster and Liaison Secretary (1950-52)

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