Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/96

 whether I am or not I often receive none. I have written men regularly twice a year for ten years and have never received a word of reply—and these men were quite able to pay. I nodo [sic] not care so much what they write as that they say something. I should rather have an impertinent letter than none at all. If they do not intend to pay, if they have lost interest in the fraternity, if they have objections which they wish to make to the management of the organization, I welcome all these various points of view. If they are hard up, broke, going to be married, or going to pay in a month, or even if they have no intention of paying and think I am a swindler or a grafter, I am glad to know, for all these things give zest and variety to an otherwise monotonous task. It is this dead silence, like a freshman just before initiation, that gets on my nerves. A good many of the men to whom I write are bankers, lawyers, or business men quite familiar with the courtesies and traditions of business methods; all that I want is that the matter be treated in a business way. I have always felt that a man who paid his own personal part of a subscription and who then was willing to spend his time and try his patience in an attempt to collect what is justly coming from me was entitled to most polite consideration from me. But quite the contrary is often true.