Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/137

 for the establishment and continuance of inter-fraternity organizations is that such affiliations bring men of various fraternities together, that they widen acquaintanceships, undermine prejudices, and break down party lines. I think it does widen a man's acquaintances for him to belong to such an organization or organizations, but as for affecting his prejudices or in any way influencing his party affiliations, I think the inter-fraternity organization with us has not had the slightest influence. No matter how many friends a man may have made through these outside relationships, when it comes to voting he stays with his old party. I have known one or two men who refused to vote for a fraternity or party brother who was running for office, but such instances are so rare as to make the individual guilty of such independent thinking seem almost freakish.

The great body of undergraduates and the vast majority of the faculty have given little thought to the power and influence of the political leader in college even if they have gone so far as to recognize his existence. He, far more than the teacher of ethics, is responsible for the moral and intellectual ideals of undergraduates. He has an immeasurable influence over the undergraduate attitude toward graft, toward integrity in business, toward virtue and cleanness of life, and he is on a level with his student companion and talks to him directly and in a language which he can understand. I have seen the spirit of the whole undergraduate body disturbed and changed through the influence of one man; I have seen vicious undergraduate customs set aside and almost completely wiped out in the same way.