The Alpha Tau Omega Palm The Official Journal of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. Published The office of the publication is Champaign, Illinois. Mail for the Editor should be sent to 358 Administration Building, Urbana, Illinois. The subscription price is $1.50 per year, payable invariably in ad- vance. Single copies are 40 cents. Changes of address should be promptly reported. The publisher cannot supply copies lost through change of address unless previously Entered as matter of the second class at the Post Office at Cham- paign, Illinois, in accordance with the Act of Congress, approved Published quarterly at Champaign, Illinois AS THE BLUE STARS TURN TO GOLD "Norval's death puts the first gold star in our service flag." [Extract from Annual Chapter letter of Oregon Alpha Sigma, April, 1918]. O'er the portals of our houses "Tween the Lakes and Gulf and Seas, Float our service flags of Freedom; Waving proudly in the breeze. For each star within the centre Means a sacrifice to duty By a brother brave and true. Not for lust and not for conquest, Not for greed and not for gain, Go our brothers forth to battle But that Truth and Right may reign. But with pride comes also sadness As I watch these flags unfold, For I know that all too quickly Some blue stars must turn to gold. SOLDIERS OF THE MALTESE CROSS H. F. HARRINGTON Ohio Beta Omega These are days when goodbys are on the lips of all of us. Just yesterday a fine, stalwart chap came in to express a hurried farewell; he had been summoned to camp and had only time to arrange for a few examinations, to pack up his belongings, and to take the great road of adventure that leads to the battlefields of France. For weeks he had been chafing at his bit, like a thoroughbred waiting the tap of the bell, but as I looked at him and gripped his hand for a moment it seemed that I had never seen him look so boyishly handsome and confident. Instead of languor that more than once had made him sleep through the bombardment of a six o'clock alarm, was now alert enthusiasm; instead of a bored air was now purpose and high resolve. Somehow, he had emerged from a chrysalis, wound by his own gloomy and selfish imaginings, and had become every inch a soldier, endowed with soldierly bearing and soldierly attributes. The war will cost an infinite store of blood and treasure, but it will give to him—and to many others -a new glory of manhood, offered so whole-heartedly for the preservation of the free peoples of the earth. I like to think of this younger brother—a brother by reason of the kindly offices of the pin he wore on his vest-as a symbol of the response college youths are giving to the call of war. Everything unworthy has been burned away in the fires of a newly-kindled patriotism; all the trivial, frivolous, pleasureenhancing avocations of life have been consumed in a flaming desire to serve. The fraternity house is no longer a soft, downy nest for its fledglings, but a testing place where strength is added unto strength, and the fibre of flesh is toughened by the courage that goes forth to battle. I believe the fraternity pin itself has been transformed into a new badge of service. In years past the pin has all too often been the brand of an exclusive set, a coterie of lads bound to gether by secret vows and by narrow social and personal interests. It meant the fraternity first-in many instances-and the university and the nation second. The pin was the wedge that separated college students into small cliques and groups, into mutual admiration societies. As a jeweled decoration it flashed a mystic message from the watch pocket, or enclosed a ring finger, or pulpited itself on an escutcheon on the library wall. I have known fraternity men in college who have forgotten the hidden meanings of the pins they displayed. Alpha Tau Omega men, in particular, have no reason to be ashamed of the insignia they have adopted as their own. The Maltese Cross is not the badge of a snobbish, self-centered brotherhood of fireside patriots and parlor entertainers. On the one hand it signifies sacrifice, embodying the suffering and death of Him who came to minister and to serve; and on the other hand aggressive, militant warfare against the hosts of evil. The Knights of Malta were no beplumed, self-enamoured dilettantes, but high-hearted gentlemen pledged to battle for all that was holy and good. Their token of conquest was the Cross, and in this sign they went forth with shining lance and mailed thigh to translate their vows into heroic deeds. No other issue would satisfy their resolute souls. Today the lists are again open and the greatest tournament of the ages is spread upon the blood-washed fields of France. The call has sounded for a new knight, stripped of ancient accoutrements of warfare, who will offer all the vigor and zeal of his young manhood for the overthrow of the brutal, crushing tyranny of the Hun. To the young American there can be no other call in all the world half so insistent, half so commanding. He must obey; to falter is the act of a craven. A fraternity that inculcates a willingness, nay, an enthusiasm to respond to the anguished cry of the oppressed, one which interprets its precept and practice in terms of human brotherhood and not in terms of miserly personal advantage, will abundantly prove its right to survive among all the institutions touched by the despoiling hand of war. If it does not prove itself a beneficent influence, a binding, energizing force, it must go the way of all other organizations that have ceased to serve. No edifice built upon the sands of selfishness, pride, fancied superiority, and social aloofness can withstand the scourge of the tempests when "all things will be made new." The Alpha Tau Omega fraternity was founded in troublous days following the Civil War, days stained by the blood of men who should have been friends, not enemies under arms. One of its hopes and dreams was brotherhood, a bond that would unite North and South and bring unity out of discord. In that hope it has admirably succeeded. Today it is a national comradeship of loyal men, and has helped to quicken college students into a warm appreciation of all that contributes to the nation's weal. The fraternity cannot forget its mission today, although it is a different one from that which prompted its inception. Alpha Tau Omega does not live for itself, but for service to mankind, a purpose it so beautifully exemplifies in its secret motto. This is the symbolism of the Maltese Cross, and it is this battle-cry that must rally all the wearers of the jeweled pin into a new brotherhood, richer than any afforded by fraternity house associations, nobler than any bestowed by college halls. STIFFENING SOLDIERS' BACKBONES ADAM STROHM Illinois Gamma Zeta Lerom a talk to the Detroit Library Staff, by the Librarian of the Detroit Public Library, now on leave to do library service at Camp Gordon, Georgia. Reprinted from Library Service.] Camp library service, in which eighty librarians are now enlisted, is for one purpose only, to make good soldiers, good fighters. It is official government work with men, but it is the least risky work in camp. Realization of this fact, and the knowledge that service is the only thing asked of the librarian, gives him a feeling of humility in all his work. The staff of the Camp Gordon library is unique in that it consists of two trained librarians and four privates, the latter relieved from drill and detailed for continuous work in the camp library. The library is open seven days in the week, at nine |