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 is always an excuse and a way out if one does not want to pay.

The second difficulty can be met by an active chapter which should keep more closely and regularly in touch with its alumni than most chapters with which I am now acquainted keep, and which should make a constant and strong effort to get all of the old men back as frequently as possible. The chapter can help, also, in impressing upon the men while undergraduates their obligation to meet all their debts with promptness. The average fraternity man, if on account of his financial limitations he were called upon to choose between the alternative of attending a formal party or of paying his overdue chapter house note, would seldom hesitate long in choosing the former course. Pleasure before business is too often his motto. The fact that I have no personal acquaintance with the tax collector does not, of course, excuse me from paying my taxes, but the fact that a fraternity man often gets out of sympathy and out of touch with his fraternity is to him an easy way to evade keeping his promises.

The excuses for non-payment which men give are interesting. As a rule I have found that the men who do not pay do not have the courtesy to offer an excuse, but simply ignore the obligation. The occasional man, however, having leisure and a stenographer, offers an excuse. Some men hold