![]() ![]() Ultimately, that occasion made the schism irreparable. And that, sir, is my answer!” He stalked out of the room, followed resolutely by his five colleagues, leaving Reid and Millikin to ponder their failed scheme to intimidate the defiant brothers. Looking Millikin in the eye, Runkle fumed, “I didn’t join this fraternity to be anyone’s tool. In response to Millikin’s harsh and undemocratic stance, Ben Runkle dramatically pulled off his Deke badge and tossed it on the table where the conciliatory meal was to have taken place. This proved to be a turning point for the Deke chapter at Miami of Ohio and a defining moment in the history of Sigma Chi. I am a man of few words. True to that statement, he assumed an air of authority and, based solely on a one-sided account of the controversy from Reid, he declared that the six hosts of the evening were wrong on every point, and that the only suitable solution was for the instigators of the rebellion to be expelled from the Deke chapter, with the others allowed to remain following appropriate chastisement. He was accompanied by a Deke alumnus who immediately altered the planned tone of the gathering by announcing sternly, My name is Minor Millikin. Instead of being joined for the meal by all six of their brothers, only one of them, Whitelaw Reid, appeared. They waited expectantly for the arrival of their estranged Deke brothers, believing that an evening of good food and good company would help restore fraternal bonds. James Caldwell, Isaac Jordan, Ben Runkle, Frank Scobey, Tom Bell and Dan Cooper were the six who believed reward should be based on merit. Wishing to find compromise and reconciliation after months of division, the six brothers who favored reward based on merit proposed a friendly meeting over dinner with the six who believed loyalty should come first. The feelings on both sides of the argument were so strong that friendships grew apart and the chapter’s meetings and activities were strained and were increasingly rancorous. ![]() ![]() The four dissenters won the moral support of the two remaining Dekes who, though they were not members of the society, admired the dissenters for their courage of conviction. This perceived lack of allegiance caused a deep rift among the Dekes, half of whom (including the member in question) felt the candidate deserved their votes on merit or loyalty to a brother, or both. But four of his brothers declined to cast votes for him in the literary society’s election, instead supporting another Miami student whom they believed possessed superior poetic talents. He might have assumed a promising result, given that the majority of men in his DKE chapter were also members of the Erodelphian. One of the 12 members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon chapter on the campus looked for the support of his brothers in his quest to be elected to the office of poet in the school’s literary society, the Erodelphian. It was the autumn of 1854 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Fittingly, Sigma Chi was born out of a matter of principle. ![]()
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