Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/225

 At our last Home-coming a young fraternity man whom I had not seen for three or four years came into my office to call on me. I remarked on how well he was looking and in reply he said.

"I ought to look well, for I have not drank or smoked for three years."

"Why the reform?" I inquired.

"The firm for which I work," he said, and it is one of the best known manufacturers of men's furnishings goods in the country, "would not keep me on a day if they knew I drank and I found that by cutting out both beer and tobacco I was able to do more efficient work than I had done before."

"I expect to give it all up when I get out of college," a young fellow said to me not long ago, "but a man has to have a little fun once in a while when he is young, and I don't take too much very often."

It is this sort of argument which lowers fraternity ideals and results in periodic "keg parties" and "booze fests"; it is responsible for the setting aside of house rules on occasion, and causes fraternities too often to look, with charity upon escapades which are really discreditable and harmful. When business men everywhere are beginning to see the detrimental effects of drinking upon their employees, when the whole country is being stirred to temperance reform, the fraternity