Cross & Crescent

The badge was silent. Nevertheless, as we searched for its history, we could begin to imagine the sounds of college debating contests, of a professor speaking in a lecture hall, perhaps even the sound of bands playing patriotic music and voices delivering heartfelt speeches, or the firm rap of an oak gavel calling a meeting to order.

We had found a badge of Phi Sigma, a local fraternity established at Gettysburg College in 1916, which later became one of the 11 founding fraternities of Theta Kappa Nu, and that is now Theta-Pi Zeta of Lambda Chi Alpha. Its ancestry, by itself, gave this artifact special status but the history of fraternities is also the story of the individuals who helped shape them. We hoped to determine the original owner to see what could be learned from it; and we were not disappointed.

The back is engraved with the initials “M. L. F.” and with what appears to be a stylized numeral 7. This sharpened our interest. If this were an initiation number it would designate the owner as an early member; perhaps even a founder. Since Phi Sigma was active for only the brief eight years, from 1916 to 1924, there was a good chance of finding a matching name.

We referred to the Gettysburg section of the 2003 Lambda Chi Alpha Directory, and, out of 45 last names beginning with the letter “F,” found only two with a first name beginning with the letter “M”; Dr. Martin Faust 1919 and Max Floto 1918, although neither listing included a middle initial.

Internet name-searches to determine middle initials for Faust and Floto produced immediate information on both men and their distinctive accomplishments after graduating from Gettysburg College (known as Pennsylvania College until 1921), and revealed much more about their relationships to each other, and also to Donald Lybarger (Gettysburg 1919).

Lybarger was one of the 12 founders of Phi Sigma, a signer of the original League & Covenant of Theta Kappa Nu, its first Grand Treasurer as well as a Grand Archon, and then Grand High Omega of Lambda Chi Alpha following the 1939 union. Now our curiosity was at a peak.

At this point we contacted the Musselman Library at Gettysburg College. Director Karen Drickamer took an immediate interest in our quest and assigned a student assistant to help us. This is what their records disclosed.

Faust and Lybarger entered college in the fall of 1915, when there were only six national fraternities and two locals. “It was quite natural therefore that a group of boys who were good friends should come together and talk over the possibility of establishing another fraternity,” Lybarger later recounted. He also joked that he took it upon himself to take notes at their first meeting, whereupon someone else nominated him for secretary. That marked the beginning of his lifelong association with fraternal offices. A second meeting was held within a week.

Lybarger’s notes show 12 names, including his own and that of Martin Faust, as signers of the new constitution for the establishment of Phi Sigma. Lybarger goes on to mention the names of “a number of brothers who came in shortly after the founding and had just as much to do with the establishment of the chapter as did the dozen original members.

They were deeply interested in the fraternity and gave so much of themselves to its establishment.” Among those he so credits is Max Floto. Although Floto’s initials did not match those on the badge, what we stumbled upon was totally unexpected.

The Father of Veterans Day

Max C. Floto (Gettysburg 1918) grew up in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, and was the oldest of these three men. Floto and Lybarger were elected officers of the Chess Club in 1916 and also faced each other on the inter-class debating team as sophomore and freshman, respectively. Floto was on the 1917-18 championship debating team. Later, in 1927, and after the chapter became Pennsylvania-Alpha of Theta Kappa Nu, they continued their close association and their support by serving on the chapter’s Alumni Association Board.

Floto graduated in 1918 with a degree in accounting; a year before the other two. He’d also been active in ROTC and was immediately drafted into the U.S. Army in June 1918. “I was a member of the largest band of draftees that ever left Connellsville,” Floto once said. He also remembered that he was one of only three draftees wearing a uniform that day because it had been required by ROTC. The war ended with an armistice, signed on November 11, 1918.

In 1919, Floto made a motion before the Milton L. Bishop Post 301 of the American Legion in Connellsville to make November 11 a holiday and to be known as Armistice Day. The motion passed on September 11, 1919, but Floto wasn’t satisfied to stop with convincing just his hometown. He and another veteran successfully petitioned the first-ever American Legion state convention in Harrisburg, and lobbied the State of Pennsylvania to declare it a legal holiday. It was approved by the legislature on March 31, 1921.

They then moved their petition to the national level. “We had a dozen or so Congressmen working on it,” Floto said in an interview with the (Connellsville) Daily Courier in 1978. A resolution was presented in practically every session of Congress until it was finally passed, and then signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 13, 1938.

The name was changed to Veterans Day in 1954. Then Congress voted in 1971 to shift the observance to the fourth Monday in October and Floto immediately became part of a committee that battled to have the holiday returned to its original date of significance, Nov. 11. In 1975 they were successful. A Certificate of Appreciation signed by Congressional Rep. Hamilton Fish, Jr., was presented in 1978 to Max Floto and designated him “Father of Armistice Day.”

Max Floto died January 13, 1985.

Martin Luther Faust

Martin Luther Faust was from Ambler, in eastern Pennsylvania, and was the youngest of the three men in our story. With the initials “M.L.F.”, we now knew the badge belonged to him. Faust and Lybarger became roommates, eventually traveling together to Washington D.C. in March of 1917 for the second inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson.

By May 1917 both men were active in the Phrena Literary Society, with Lybarger elected vice president and Faust as secretary. Faust’s undergraduate activities also included athletics, debate, student government, and editing the campus newspaper, The Gettysburgian. After graduation he completed work on a Master’s Degree at Gettysburg, instructed at the University of Pennsylvania and Western Reserve University, and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1924.

He then became an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh before moving on to the University of Missouri where he became chairman of the political science department and spent the rest of his career teaching and writing books on economics. “I think a political scientist should have some concern in improving state and local government, and as much as I’ve had time, I’ve tried to help,” he said.

Dr. Faust did not limit himself to just the theory of government but found opportunities to work on local and state government committees. Reflecting on his most significant accomplishments he said, “The biggest and most important…was the revision of our (Missouri) State Constitution in 1943-45.” For this project he prepared materials for the delegates including eight informational manuals plus one more to organize the convention itself.

Dr. Martin L. Faust died on August 13, 1996.

Donald F. Lybarger

Donald F. Lybarger is a prominent figure in the history of our fraternity. Since his involvement has been well documented in many other sources we will only touch the highlights here. He founded Phi Sigma, was one of the four founders of Theta Kappa Nu, presided over many sessions of that fraternity including its very last, and went on to serve with distinction in the new, combined organization.

He entered Gettysburg College in 1915, earned varsity letters in track and debating, was a president of student government, an officer in the military training corps, and graduated valedictorian in 1919.

In 1923 he earned his law degree from Western Reserve University and was admitted to the bar. He was in private law practice, served Cuyahoga County as Recorder, and was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1967 he was chosen Chief Justice of the Court.

In 1958 the Gettysburg chapter held a mortgage-burning celebration and invited Judge Lybarger to be the keynote speaker. His reminiscences that day are worth repeating. Consider that this was a man who had founded two different fraternities and then watched as their name and, seemingly, their identity had been eclipsed. His words are especially resonant today as we approach our Centennial Celebration.

“I sometimes ask myself whether Phi Sigma died when it helped found Theta Kappa Nu. I ask again whether Theta Kappa Nu no longer lives since, by its union with Lambda Chi Alpha, it lost its identity. I ask myself what is a fraternity? Is it a name? Is it a house, a national organization? Is it a group of alumni? Is it the active chapter of undergraduates? Of course, it is no one of these; but by the same token it is the sum total of them plus that unending spirit of brotherhood which binds us together.”

Donald Lybarger died November 6, 1970.

Summary

This Phi Sigma badge, that was so silent at first, eventually told us a story of three men who met in college and founded a fraternity at sunrise on May 30, 1916, then known as Decoration Day. It speaks of a brother who cemented Veterans Day, and of service by all three men to their community, to our country, and to our fraternity.

Judge Lybarger concluded his 1958 speech by quoting an ancient Greek philosopher: “Reach ever with thy right hand toward those who climb before thee and with thy left steady those who follow in your path.”