A PHI PSI CHRISTMAS STORY

By Michael H. McCoy
Historian of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity

If you're a reader of a local daily newspaper, it's possible your newspaper is one of
hundreds around the U.S. which raise funds for the underprivileged at this time of year.
Although I recall no year when the need was not great, 2010 must rank among those where the
need is even greater.

For most newspapers, the effort is on behalf of families or children or both. Many use the name
"Goodfellows" (or "Good Fellows") to identify their efforts.

If you are a Phi Psi -- a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity, as I am -- what you may be
interested in knowing is that a Phi Psi is credited as being the first Goodfellow, as the one with
the original idea 101 years ago this month although he successfully kept his identity a secret
until his death. It's something I've written about for our Phi Psi 150 Yahoo Group as the
Fraternity's national historian.

Just one of the newspapers conducting a Goodfellows drive is the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, now
doing it for the 98th consecutive year.

As the newspaper tells it in a Nov. 28, 2009, announcement of that year's drive:

"The first time the Star-Telegram asked readers to donate to the Goodfellow Fund was 1912.
That was the year that the Dixie Cup was invented, New Mexico was admitted to the union and,
most famously, the Titanic sank.

"On the day after Thanksgiving, Editor James M. North called for donations for needy children.
Readers responded with $1,240, enough to give 350 families baskets that included a turkey,
bread, fruit, canned vegetables and toys. Each family also got a load of wood or coal.

"How times change. This year, the goal is $900,000 to provide $50 gift cards - which didn't exist
in 1912 - to 18,000 schoolchildren in the Tarrant County area."

The Star-Telegram explained where it got the idea:

"As best we can tell, the Chicago Tribune had the first U.S. newspaper charity drive, on Dec. 10,
1909. An attorney wrote a letter to the newspaper challenging his friends to donate the money
they would otherwise have spent on holiday partying.

"Two years later, the Advertising Club of Fort Worth staged the first local Goodfellow campaign.
And the next year, on the day after Thanksgiving 1912, the Star-Telegram picked up the baton.

"Over the years, the type of gift provided to children changed. Instead of toys or food, fund
directors decided to focus on clothing and shoes. The type of family seeking assistance has
changed with the times, too.
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"'It's no longer just lower-income families needing help', said Richard Greene, the fund's
executive director. 'We're getting applications from professionals and white-collar families'."

Here's how the Chicago Tribune explained its role, in its self-published "History of The Chicago
Tribune" compiled in commemoration of its 75th birthday on June 10, 1922.

"In December, 1909, The Tribune received a letter from one of its readers, who asked that his
letter be printed in The Tribune without disclosing his identity. The original Good Fellow is still
anonymous, but his letter initiated a movement which makes many thousands of children of the
poor happy each Christmas. The famous Good Fellow letter as it appeared in The Tribune of
December 10, 1909, follows:

'To the Good Fellows of Chicago:

'Last Christmas and New Years' eve you and I went out for a good time and spent from $10 to
$200. Last Christmas morning over 5,000 children awoke to an empty stocking - the bitter pain
of disappointment that Santa Claus had forgotten them.

'Perhaps it wasn't our fault. We had provided for our own; we had also reflected in a passing
way on those less fortunate than our own, but they seemed far off and we didn't know where to
find them. Perhaps in the hundred and one things we had to do some of us didn't think of that
heart sorrow of the child over the empty stocking.

'Now, old man, here's a chance. I have tried it for the last five years and ask you to consider it.

'Just send your name and address to The Tribune - address Santa Claus - state about how
many children you are willing to protect against grief over that empty stocking, enclose a two-
cent stamp and you will be furnished with the names, addresses, sex, and age of that many
children.

'It is then up to you, you do the rest. Select your own present, spend 50 cents or $50, and send
or take your gifts to those children on Christmas eve. You pay not a cent more than you want to
pay - every cent goes just where you want it to go.

'You gain neither notoriety nor advertising; you deal with no organization; no record will be kept;
your letter will be returned to you with its answer. The whole plan is just as anonymous as old
Santa Claus himself.

'This is not a newspaper scheme. The Tribune was asked to aid in reaching the good fellows by
publishing this suggestion and to receive your communication in order that you may be assured
of good faith and to preserve the anonymous character of this work. The identity of the writer of
this appeal will not be disclosed. He assumes the responsibility of finding the children and
sending you their names and guarantees that whatever you bestow will be deserved.

''Neither you nor I get anything out of this, except the feeling that you have saved some child
from sorrow on Christmas morning. If that is not enough for you then you have wasted time in
reading this - it is not intended for you, but for the good fellows of Chicago.
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"Perhaps a twenty-five cent doll or a ten cent tin toy wouldn't mean much to the children you
know, but to the child who would find them in the otherwise empty stocking they mean much -
the difference between utter disappointment and the joy that Santa Claus did not forget them.

'Here is where you and I get in. The charitable organizations attend to the bread and meat; the
clothes; the necessaries; you and the rest of the good fellows furnish the toys, the nuts, the
candies; the child's real Christmas.

'GOOD FELLOW'

"A corps of clerks are kept busy during the six weeks preceding Christmas each year
distributing to Chicago Good Fellows the names of poor children whose cases have been
checked by Chicago charitable organizations. If any names remain untaken on Christmas Eve,
their owners are supplied with toys and Christmas cheer by The Tribune.

"Newspapers in other cities have taken up the Good Fellow idea until it is quite impossible to
estimate the amount of happiness generated as a result of the publication of the above letter in
The Tribune."

Today, the Chicago Tribune no longer collects donations under the "Good Fellow" banner; since
1990 it has raised funds through a separate Chicago Tribune Charities, a fund of the McCormick
Foundation, "to benefit area children and families in need." But the original idea is still bearing
fruit there.

So who was this mystery man?

Here's the report written by Harry S. Gorgas in Volume 2 of The Centennial History of the Phi
Kappa Psi Fraternity which supplies some additional details than contained in the Chicago
Tribune account.

"For many years the 'Good Fellows' organization in Chicago has supplied Christmas cheer
annually to thousands of forgotten children there.

"Not all Phi Psis know that the original 'Good Fellow' was Edward C. Fitch, Indiana Beta '81.

"Just before Christmas in (apparently 1909, not 1908 as printed in the

Centennial History), Brother Fitch sat down with the managing editor of the
Chicago Tribune, and explained how for the past five years he had been
distributing toys and candies to poor children who he knew would be forgotten
by Santa Claus.

"The next morning after a three-hour talk, a two-column spread on the first
page of the newspaper inaugurated the Good Fellow movement. It was a
tremendous success, and spread to other metropolitan centers: The New York
Times has had its 'Hundred Neediest Cases'; the Cleveland Plain Dealer has
Edward Fitch had 'Give A Christmas' fund; and there have been others.

"As described in The Shield article, each year about the middle of December, Brother Fitch, the
original 'Good Fellow', whose limited means compelled him to ride the elevated and street cars
to deliver his gifts, would enter the Tribune office. 'How's it going?' he would ask. 'Bigger than
ever?' 'That's fine. Remember now, keep my name out of it.'
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"For nineteen years his modest request was observed. In a brief obituary after his death in
Springfield, Illinois, Brother Fitch's founding of the movement was revealed."
Brother Fitch died March 1, 1928, at age 65. You can read his obituary in the New York Times
by scrolling to the bottom of this message post at the Phi Psi 150 Yahoo Group for those
interested in Phi Psi history and Phi Psis making history:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phipsi150/message/1336

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Fine more about Edward C. Fitch from the Chicago History Journal on Dec. 21, 2010:
http://www.chicagohistoryjournal.com/2010/12/good-fellows.html

December 24, 2010