A Figure Leaning on a Cane

A Figure Leaning on a Cane
– excerpts from James G. Lewis’ Convention Remarks
From the October 1928 issue of The Rattle

And then there was a thing that happened about a year that always will be graven on my heart, a scene the memory of which will stay with me to the very tomb. And, although it so very definitely is Theta Chi, still it typifies fraternity ideals and fraternity manhood, and the personality about which it revolves just as well might have been a personality from some other college fraternity. Only it wasn’t. It was of Theta Chi, and I am glad of it.

Let me take you back one year. It was a gloriously beautiful day, the sort of day that makes everything seem just a bit better and life a bit more worth living. Not a spot flecked the sky.

A figure slight in stature, fragile almost, stood on a tall summit and faced out over the capital of the nation whose cause it had suffered so terribly. I figured clad in her heroic khaki, and yet a figure bespeaking pathos rather than the blare and din and rush and impetuosity the mind by habit associates with military deeds of valor. A figure typifying the thousands of America’s best who laid their lives at the feet of their nation and who returned from that most stupendous of all moral conflicts, the World War, broken and battered and maimed, but nevertheless, undaunted, striding gloriously in the van even though it be with halting piece. A figure bearing mute evidence of the moral suffering, the pain-racked hours spent on the hospital bed, The agony of uncertainty between life and death, the agony perhaps a choice of a life that carries with it forever and ever the cross of a broken, limping body-the choice between death and a life stretching ahead for years and years with pain at every other step. A figure leaning on a cane. A figure, pathetic but noble, so noble that those of us who had served through that same terrible maelstrom and who had returned with life overflowing, “sound in limb and wind,” need but wink back the tears.

The summit on which stood this heroic figure was Arlington, national cemetery of our great America. Within arm’s reach lay the slumbering dead, our nation’s defenders, thousands upon thousands of them, the victims of the Maine, in their own little plot, the man who defended the North and the men who fought for the South, glorious both in victory and defeat, the man who fired the shot that rang ‘round the world, the men who gave their all that America might be, and the men who gave their all that America might live. There they all are, lying in peaceful bivouac under that smiling sun.

And across the Potomac reared up that famous finger into the sky the Washington Monument, and further into the foreground imposed itself upon the view [of] that glorious monument to a gloriously great man-the Lincoln Memorial. Spread out before us in imposing panorama Les the city of Washington, most beautiful city of the world and America’s pride. Far down the Potomac a birdman rose and snorted and stormed at the water, turning it into milky froth with the rush of his propeller. Then he broke from the surface, and the river smooth out it’s wrinkles and placidly flowed on. And the plane mounted in word in a graceful curve up and up and away, taking part with the picture as might a gigantic And the plane mounted and whirred in a graceful curve up and up and away, taking part with the picture as might a gigantic bird.

Behind us there stood the great Amphitheatre, beautiful in its majestic simplicity, cool and restful, with its sweeping tiers of marble. Before us lay a single slab of marble, reared slightly from the level of the ground-the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And many a one of us winked back a tear, and many of us knew that queer stoppage of breath, that certain pull at the heart’s beat that comes with true emotion. That khaki figure demand it. That figure so dear to all of us, so typical of True manly heroism, never complaining, never bemoaning but carrying on, always carrying on, giving beyond the real capacity of its frailness all that is asked of it and more, of love and friendship and brotherhood.

A figure who is very uniform bespoke the whole story of his heroism. The wound stripe on the right sleeve, the five gold chevrons on the left sleeve telling mutely of two and a half years of active service in France, the Liberty Medal worn with such modesty on the left breast, setting aside thought of display or parade of other decorations-the wearing of that one medal which was given to all of us who served, except that this medal carried three battle bars. The battered old cap, the knees of the breeches not snugging too well into the puttees, the shoe laces just peeping a bit beneath the puttees. So typical. He had just put on his uniform and that was all there was to it. What did it matter if I shoe lace or so needed policing? Here was a man who had lived up and over and beyond all of that business of “fuss.” He had just put on his uniform, because we had asked him to do it, just as simply and just as willingly as he would tomorrow lay down his life for anyone of us. Good old, dear old Van Natter. He was of the khaki.

And he stood there and told our story in simple, straight-forward, soldierly fashion, a story of Theta Chi and her part in her nation’s defense. And we were proud of Theta Chi. And we loved Van, if possible, even more than we ever loved him. Perhaps it was the simplicity of his one little lone medal when he might have worn a dozen. Perhaps it was that straggling shoe lace. Anyhow, we love him. And we did wink back a tear or two as, when he had finished what he had to tell about their Anyhow, we loved him. And we did ink back a tear or two as, when he had finished what he had to tell us about Theta Chi, he turned and faced the sepulchre of our Unknown Soldier and laid on it a beautiful wreath and then snapped to a painful salute. Theta Chi had come to bend the knee at the grave of her symbolic dead.

One hundred fifty of us there were, grouped in a semi-circle before that tomb and not a one of us but turned and came away from that simple ceremony feeling that we had seen and taken part in a really inspiring incident. It will be long before any one of the Theta Chis who were there in Arlington that Saturday afternoon forgets or fails to respond to the memory of that moment. Dear old Van. He was great in simplicity. His modesty has kept too many of us from knowing just what he really did for America during the war. And his very nature has prevented many of us from knowing of the havoc that is worked with that frail body when his spirit puts too great a drain on it, of the days in bed spent recuperating after the excitement and stress of a convention, of the periods of rest that must follow any too great piece of activity. How many of our active chapters have known or have realized the personal sacrifice that has followed on the heels of a mere visit to their house? How many of us, even those who have been blessed with a real sort of intimacy with him, have known of the fragments of shrapnel lying directly against the jugular vein, the fragments he has carried there since the war and probably always will, the fragments that constantly threaten. How many of us know of the visits to Walter Reed Hospital, the X-rays and examinations and treatments? None ever will know it from Van.

A few of us in Theta Chi have had the privilege of rolling back the curtain and seeing the thing that happened to Van ten years ago. My time grows short, and I shall have to give in two or three minutes a picture on which I could spend an hour or more. Van took his final brutal battering at Soissons. He was with General Pershing’s famous First Division, that First Division that was always called upon when a real job had to be done in a real way, that First Division of which General Pershing was so very proud. And there at Soissons the Allies anticipated the Germans by one day and held them for downs. The Germans were planning to come over on the 19th. The Americans took the offensive on the morning of the 18th, and there the tide of battled turned. Three days later General Pershing visiting his officers in a hospital ward, Van among them, congratulated them and said, “Gentleman, you have turned the whole tide of the War.” And they had.

But what of Van and his part in this bloody butchery? We see a brand-new captain with a brand-new outfit, that is, brand new to him. But an outfit that like himself had been hacked and battered and well seasoned in that grizzly thing, war. Many of the men in that outfit, like their leader, already had been wounded. Van had been wounded twice before, but each time steadfastly refused to “go back.” And now came still another zero hour, that terrible dark hour just before the dawn. 

And now, we have lost Van from our Grand Chapter. No longer will we know the fire and enthusiasm and inspiration of his presence at our Grand Chapter meetings. But I, who know Van and who love him, know that he will be there with us in spirit. He will be there at my shoulder. And, knowing that, I always will feel a greater degree of confidence. Van’s presence very definitely will be there with us always. He has created for us an ideal. He has made for us a tradition to go on and on and on always. As long as I have breath in my body I pledge that it will go on. Give us out of each year’s class only one Van Natter, and in a shorter time than it takes to tell, Theta Chi will lead all the rest.

And now---

Much as you have given Theta Chi, Van, much as you have sacrificed for her, there is just one thing more we must ask, in fact, demand. It is that you leave with us this dear, old cane of yours, the cane upon which you leaned back there at Arlington a year ago. And we will make of it a symbol, a tradition, a hallowed something that will become one of the most priceless relics of Theta Chi. For this old cane of yours we have prepared a shrine in the office of our fraternity. It will have a place in our traditions along with the memories of Freeman and Chase. You must let us have it. Without awaiting your answer, I shall present it here and now to Theta Chi.

And now, we want you to take with you this new cane. Fine as it is, in all its shiny newness, we know that it is a very small step toward a real substitution for the thing we have required from you. But Van, just remember this. You are to use this new cane of yours. And each time as you wrap your finders around it, you are to remember that you are wrapping those same fingers just as definitely around the heart of each man in Theta Chi. And the hand of every Theta Chi at the same instant and by the same gesture will be locked in yours --- always.

Excerpt from “A Figure Leaning on a Cane”
By James G. Lewis (Alpha Xi/Delaware 1912)

Appeared in the October 1927 issue of The Rattle

Capt. Francis Van Natter’s remarks given to Convention attendees assembled at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:

“Brothers:

“Seventy-one years ago Theta Chi Fraternity had its inception at Norwich University where military training is an integral part of the curriculum, where is engendered the ideal that to defend one’s country is of first importance.

“A decade has passed since the vanguard of the great American Army crossed the seas to defend our nation’s just rights that our government should not bend the knee to tyranny. So now the ashes of one who gave his life for the upholding of those worthy principles here rests beneath this cold marble.

“In that world conflict Theta Chi Fraternity sent sixty-three percent of its membership, two out of three of our brothers. That is a record of which we are proud, a record which entitled us to the privilege of standing humbly before this tomb and saluting this unknown dead as Comrade.

“When our Comrade came home the guns from Fortress Monroe to the Washington Navy Yard boomed forth salutes which only the most exalted ever are accorded. It was a dreary autumn day when the historic battle cruiser Olympia sailed up the Potomac with his remains aboard in a flag-draped coffin and a boatswain piped them over the side to a war-experienced nation. On a gun-carriage our Comrade was reverently borne to the rotunda of the Capitol, where only martyrs had lain in state.

Forty-eight hours elapsed, and then were heard the strains of Chopin’s “Funeral March” and the muffled sound of slow steps of marching men. A moment later the unknown dead rested within the Amphitheatre. Thrice a trumpet called attention. A deep silence–broken by the muted chords of our national hymn. Then the decorations for most distinguished valor were fixed to the Stars and Stripes, his mantle. An Indian chief placed a war bonnet and coup stick on the coffin. And the President of the United States, surrounded by representatives of the Allied Powers, tenderly committed this comrade’s body to the earth. Three salvos of artillery rent the hushed air. The quivering, peaceful notes of taps bade him sleep. Standing vigilant before the open grave, General Pershing, Marsal Foch, Admiral Beatty, General Diaz saluted this Unknown Soldier as he entered his eternal bivouac with America’s heroic dead.

“Across that river is a monument erected to the great leader, Abraham Lincoln. Yonder on these heights of Arlington rises the stately mansion of still another great leader, Robert E. Lee. Once there was a North and a South. But in the War with Spain Americans all, volunteers all, leaped into the struggle. And the first Vermonter to give his life alongside his southern comrades was Brother William Clarence Spafford, Alpha, ’97– a Theta Chi. In the mangled trenches of France during the World War, Theta Chis from both sides of the Mason and Dixon Line stood shoulder to shoulder. And there the hand of the Great Artist, wielding the brush of everlasting brotherhood, blended the colors, the blue and the gray, into the uniform of the common cause, which this gallant soldier wore.

“We have here before us an example of one who gave everything that the world might know but one spirit, one ideal: that there might be respect and tolerance for all creeds and geographical sections of the earth. In those stirring days of 1917 and ’18 no one asked a man’s religion: no one asked from what part of the country he came.”

“Today patriotic Americans still expect a man to do his duty by the government which has given him freedom to live not as an illiterate bound to the narrow confines of his vicious world, not as a despoiler endeavoring to hurl aside the principles of the great Washington, but freedom to live his life in the fullest possible way, freedom to worship his God after the dictates of his own heart. Those were the principles for which our Unknown Comrade fought and died.

“We Theta Chis from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic seaboard, from the vast Northern frontier to the Old Southland, pledge anew to your immortal ashes resting within this sepulcher that loyalty to the ideals of our republic’s Revolutionary Fathers forever shall be pre-eminent. And in token of that pledge we, as free men, as Theta Chis, and as Americans, lay this wreath on your honored tomb and salute you, Our Comrade.”