IMMODESTY OF PHI BETA KAPPA MEN WEARING KEYS IS FLOUTED BY MARTIN

Answering the attack on the Phi Beta Kappa man written by Thomas W. Slocum '90, and published in the May number of the Advocate, G. W. Martin '10, in the current issue of the Alumni Bulletin, seeks to justify the alleged immodesty shown by "key" men.

Slocum's article in the Advocate read in part:

"Modesty is always desirable; the truly great invariably seem to possess it. We admire the old athlete who keeps his golden emblems in his pocket or at home, rather than dangling from his watch-chain. Which reminds one--have you ever seen a P.B.K. man with a wrist watch? Echo answers 'Watch.' . . .

"It is the duty of a college to make good citizens. To pick good material--not from the intellectual side alone--and to turn out graduates, benefited by their stay in College, better able to handle the problems of life successfully.

"To achieve this end, something beside study of books is required."

In answer to Slocum's question, "Have you ever seen a Phi Beta Kappa man with a wrist watch?". Martin, in his letter to the Bulletin, states, "Mr. Slocum's concern is not so much with the importance of maintaining or abandoning the juxtaposition of the chronometer and the bowels as with the lack of modesty in some possessors of the key.

"Well--whoever saw a Knight of the Garter wearing long pants?

"And is it part of a conspiracy that the gentlemen in the senior class at Princeton voted yesterday almost two to one that they esteemed the key above the varsity letter?

"Surely these phenomena portend a reversal of the experience of history. Even Plato commented with bitterness on the fact that the winner of the foot race in the Olympic Games was better known in Greece than himself. And yet today we hear murmurs because "H" men exploit their position in order to sell insurance, real estate, bonds, and athletic supplies, but what are they to do? It may be reasonable to exclude them from the society of educated men, because listening to a monologue on the stockmarket is pretty painful punishment: but to criticise them for turning an honest dollar in the green goods business is just plain jealousy.

"Mr. Slocum is right. The Phi Beta Kappa men should take someone their own size.

"Furthermore, Mr. Slocum has contributed, in a journal of literary merit, an acute and forceful analysis of an important educational question. This Ajax must not be left in the middle of the road to defy steam-rollers. He is too nice and too generous-hearted for road material.

"Come, gentlemen, do the handsome thing! Elect Mr. Slocum to the society, and send him the biggest golden key that locksmiths can make!"