The Fraternity.

The total membership of Phi Delta Phi is 7,875; that of the American Bar Association is 2,021.

Members having extra copies of volume V., No. 4 of THE BRIEF will confer a favor on the editor by notifying him. The issue is exhausted and several copies are needed to fill sets.

The last edition of our catalogue was published eight years ago in 1898. Since then 2,500 members have graduated and located in practice and the addresses of a large majority of the earlier alumni have changed. A new catalogue is needed urgently. The Secretary is hard at work to supply the need and will shortly announce the time of publication.

Edward J. Redington, Story, 'or, Associate Editor of the BRIEF for the past year, has been obliged to discontinue all work in order to regain his health. He sailed from New York December 16, for San Francisco, via the Horn, and will reach California about April 1. He will then take up ranch and mountain life. We trust he will be able to resume his editorial work in the fall.

Our last convention was held in St. Louis in September, 1904, more than a year and a half ago. It is not our policy to hold frequent conventions, and only nine have been held since the Fraternity was founded, at Ann Arbor by Judge Cooley in 1869. A convention is not greatly needed at present except to act on the petitions of the Evarts and the Ballinger Law Clubs, but convention plans should be shaped shortly. Either Chicago or Philadelphia are good cities for the meeting.

The point in the undergraduate field that needs particular attention is Osgoode chapter at Toronto, Canada. The chapter died by nearly all its members enlisting in the Boer War. The material at the institution is the highest grade. Business relations in Canada are becoming more active, and numerous alumni will be needed there as business correspondents. Delta Chi has a strong chapter at the in

stitution, and our own chapter should be revived at the earliest time possible either through its alumni, by a visit from the Council or by delegates from Daniels chapter at Buffalo. We believe the last to be the most feasible, and trust that the work needed will be done this spring.

Chapter houses or chapter rooms are absolutely essential to the proper life and activity of a chapter and it is pleasing to note that many of the chapters formerly without them have homes. Field chapter at the New York University Law School, for the first time since its organization, has rooms at 103 Waverly Place, New York City. Hamilton chapter at the Cincinnati Law School has quarters again at 407 Main street, Cincinnati, and Marshall chapter at Washington, on April 15 will change its rooms in the Deckon Building to a house at 1538 17th street N. W. The house ownerships plans of Kent and Miller chapters are growing, and the next convention will undoubtedly insist that every chapter maintain headquarters.

In our last issue we suggested that the three chapters in New York City, the three chapters in Chicago, and the two Boston chapters make it a custom to hold at least one joint meeting yearly and that the chapters at Washington, Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis and San Francisco hold joint meetings with their alumnus clubs. On March 15 the Chicago chapters met with the Chicago Alumnus Club and on March 9, Field and Dwight, two New York chapters, held a joint meeting. We trust the other chapters will follow their examples before the year closes.

The BRIEF is the magazine of the Fraternity. It is one of the most successful fraternity magazines, but it will never be thoroughly successful until it gets more coöperation from the members. It has been conducted by the present Editor six years. During that time only five articles and eight chapter letters have been submitted unsolicited. The twenty-five chapter letters in this issue from the thirty-four chapters are the result of two notices from the Editor to the chapter officers and one notice from the Secretary. We want the chapter letters and we want them without having to fight for them. We also want the theses of members and papers and addresses at the meetings that are suitable for publishing, so that the members and chapters will get credit for their work, and so that the BRIEF will better represent the Fraternity. The BRief can get articles, but it wants yours.

LOWDEN'S EXPENSIVE JOB.

Under this heading the Saturday Evening Post relates the following which we presume refers to Booth chapter of the Northwestern University Law School of which Mr. Lowden was an active member:

Frank O. Lowden, the lawyer, of Chicago, who made such a fight for the Republican nomination for governor of Illinois a year ago, was elected to a Greek letter fraternity when he first went to college, and made treasurer of the chapter.

At the end of his first term as treasurer there was a deficit of $247, which Lowden paid.

"We want you to be treasurer again, Frank," the members of his fraternity said to him at the beginning of the sophomore year. Lowden considered the proposition with a good deal of care. "All right," he answered finally. "I will serve again as treasurer if the society will give a bond to me."

JAMES BROWN SCOTT.

James Brown Scott, Langdell, who, while dean of the Illinois Univ. Law School in 1901, was largely responsible for the founding of Langdell chapter at that institution, on January 27 was appointed solicitor to the Department of State at Washington by President Roosevelt, Story, '82. He succeeds Judge William L. Penfield, Marshall. Those who were at the Eighth Convention at Chicago in 1903, will recall that Professor Scott attended with nearly the whole of Langdell chapter.

Mr. Scott is a recognized authority on international law. He was born in California, about thirty-eight years ago, graduated from Harvard in 1890, had a travelling fellowship from 1891 to 1893, and took his doctor's degree at Heidelberg in 1894, became dean of the Illinois Univ. Law School, and in 1904 accepted the chair of International Law at the Columbia Law School. He is a man of large private wealth, and accepted the present position in order to work in his chosen field.

SECRETARY TAFT.

Henry B. Brown, Kent, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, has announced his retirement because of failing eyesight. His position has been tendered to William H. Taft, Kent, the present Secretary of War, whose acceptance is doubtful.

Mr. Taft is at present engaged in three strenuous campaigns. The first is to build the Panama Canal, the second is to pacify and govern the Philippines, and the third is to reduce his weight, each of which

seems about equally difficult. When he returned from the Philippines, the Secretary weighed 350 pounds. On December 2 his weight was 314 pounds, net. By diet and horseback riding, he has reduced it to 294. No report on the horse has been published, but the diet is as follows: Breakfast, biscuit and six ounces of meat; luncheon, four ounces of meat; dinner, a pound of meat, and a quarter of a pound of fish. His ambition is to reach 250 pounds, so as to weigh less than Justice Harlan, also Kent.

THE BALLINGER LAW CLUB.

Elsewhere in this issue, appears the petition of The Ballinger Law Club of the Law Department of the State University of Washington. The Club was organized in 1904. It presented a petition in the spring of that year directly to the chapters pursuant to the provisions of the constitution that then obtained. The petition was sent out so late that many of the chapters could not act upon it before the law schools adjourned, and the petition was thereafter presented at the Ninth Convention in St. Louis, in September. The constitution then did not provide for the granting of charters by the convention, but it was amended to that effect. The amendment did not apply to matters before the convention, so it could not regularly act upon the Ballinger petition. But the petition was so strongly endorsed, that a motion was made to suspend the constitution, and issue a charter to the petitioners, but was lost by a close vote. However, the convention endorsed the petition and requested the club to present it again, pursuant to the amended constitution, which it now does.

The petition is as strongly endorsed as any petition that has ever been presented. The petitioners are of high standing, and the school has an assured future. The alumni of Seattle endorse it strongly, and believe that a chapter there will unite them in an active alumnus club. Unquestionably the petition should be granted with the possible exception that the name of the club should be changed to one of a more national significance.

Unless a convention is held shortly, the chapters should act upon the petition directly, partly for the reason that the petition is worthy, and partly for the reason that the club has maintained its organization and waited so long for its answer. This is in accordance with the constitution, and we believe the Fraternity will agree with that course.

CHAPTER DUES.

The effect of the Council's suspension of Harlan chapter of the Wisconsin Law School has been beneficial, for with two exceptions the other chapters in arrears are making honest efforts to settle

with the treasurer. The two chapters in question should take notice that the Council, largely through the efforts of Bro. Chandler, believes in enforcing a strict and impartial business administration. Harlan chapter has paid up a considerable portion of its back dues, and the Council recently adopted the following resolution:

WHEREAS, article X., section 3, of the constitution provides that each chapter shall be responsible for all initiation fees and annual dues; that article IV., section 4, provides that the scriptor shall forward the annual dues of each member within a month after his return, and that article III., section 3, provides that the Council shall enforce the constitution, with executive and judicial functions, and power to decide all questions arising in the Fraternity, which may be brought before it; and,

WHEREAS, The Secretary has, by communication dated February 16, 1906, laid before the Council for its action, the fact that the annual dues of chapters are in many cases allowed to fall delinquent, not only for months, but sometimes for years, and to become almost impossible of collection; that initiates are reported without their fees or dues being remitted at the time, and that the stringent measures necessary to get in old accounts make for harsh feeling between the delinquent chapter and other chapters; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is necessary to take steps to prevent chapters from running into debt to the Fraternity, and to necessitate the payment of each item of the chapter's account with the Fraternity as soon as the obligation accrues, and while the man because of whose membership the debt accrues is still in the chapter and interested in keeping his record clear, and that the Secretary-Treasurer be, and is hereby ordered, for the accomplishment of the aforesaid purposes, to await each chapter's payment of accrued annual dues and initiation fees before enrolling such initiates as it may report.

FRATERNITY GINGER.

One swallow may not make a summer, but one man with the right mettle can make a chapter or an alumnus club. To prove this statement read the letters of Daniels chapter of the Buffalo Law School and of the Washington Alumnus Club in this issue.

Last fall Mr. Anderson was the only member of Daniels chapter who returned to college. Instead of being discouraged, he set resolutely to work with the result that the chapter, after a most active year, has practically regained its normal strength. In 1901, Fritz v. Briesen, Field, '99, one of the active members of the New York Alumnus Club went to Washington, D. C., to conduct an office in that city for Briesen and Knauth, the New York patent lawyers. Within six months thereafter, with the assistance of two or three Marshall alumni, he organized the Washington Alumnus Club,