From The Phi Gamma Delta Magazine, 1941

HORACE I. BRIGHTMAN (COLUMBIA 1892)
BrightmanHorace I. Brightman was born in New York City on January 29, 1872. He was prepared for college at the Columbia Grammar School, and entered Columbia College with the class of 1892 where he was initiated into Omega Chapter of the Fraternity in 1888. During his junior year, he served as president of the chapter, and in 1892, received his bachelor of arts degree from Columbia. He then went on to New York Law School where he won the LLB degree in 1893, and the next year he was admitted to the bar. Specializing in corporate law, he practiced in New York City and Westchester County.

Shortly after his graduation from college, he was elected Historian of the Grand Chapter, then the executive of the Fraternity functioning in New York City. In 1898, he was elected as Lay Archon and shortly thereafter, was active in the formation of The Phi Gamma Delta Club of New York City, serving from 1913-1914 as its president. In 1917, he was drafted as the National Secretary for the Fraternity, serving in this capacity until 1921.

The Diamond Jubilee Ekklesia, held in Pittsburgh in the fall of 1923, elected Horace Brightman as President of the Fraternity, a position that he was re-elected to in 1929. His length of service as President (eleven years) is the longest in the history of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta. He served as Ritualist from 1937 until his death in 1941.

The PHI GAMMA DELTA magazine
Volume 86, Number 1, OCTOBER 1933
* * *
Fraternity Mourns Luther Brewer (Gettysburg 1883)
Treasurer of Phi Gamma Delta Since 1923, "Daddy" Had Won Wide Fame in Politics, Art and Literature
By Cecil J. Wilkinson (Ohio Wesleyan 1917)

SABLE-DRAPED droops the royal banner. Luther A. Brewer -"Daddy" to countless Fijis from Atlanta to
Vancouver, from Orono to Los Angeles - has joined the Chapter Eternal.
The beloved Treasurer of Phi Gamma Delta, who would have been 75 years old in December, passed ad astra in a hospital in Cedar Rapids, lowa, on May 6. He had been ill for several weeks, the end coming as a result of cerebral apoplexy.
The last sad rites were said two days later at his home in the Iowa city where so much of his life had been spent, with Dr. Harry M. Gage (Wooster 1900), president of Coe College, officiating. Present were President Brightman, Secretary Wallbank, Councilor Leverone, Executive Secretary-Editor Wilkinson and the entire Mu Deuteron Chapter at the University of Iowa.
Around the bier were scores of floral tributes sent by undergraduate and graduate chapters and by other Fiji friends. The body was laid to rest in Oak Hill Cemetery, where only two months before the sorrowing Luther had stood by the open grave of his wife, Elinore. Among the pall-bearers was Fiji Fred Lazell, head of the department of journalism at the state university.

BORN IN PENNSYLVANIA
The life of Luther Albertus Brewer was the story of a country boy who by forthrightness of purpose and industry had won a place in Who's Who in America. Born at Welsh Run, in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on December 17, 1858, when the fraternity he loved so dearly was only ten years old, young Luther was early stirred by ambition. When he had finished his secondary school education, he looked over a list of colleges and decided to enter nearby Gettysburg. He packed his trunk and, enrolled in the classic old institution whose campus had echoed to the roar of cannon in the internecine strife of the '60s. His class was 1883.
He was a prominent figure in campus life, was early made a member of Phi Gamma Delta, edited the college publication and emerged an honor graduate, as did so many Xi men of his generation.
After college, what? Two years of school teaching in Pennsylvania. Then, hearkening to the advice of Horace Greeley, the young man went West.
A place in a bank in Spencer, Iowa, was open and he took it. In March of 1887 the editor of the Cedar Rapids Republican came to him with an offer of the city editorship of the paper at a salary of $12 a week. The offer was accepted. From that date until he sold the newspaper on October 1, 1922, Brother Brewer was identified with the Republican, having advanced from the news department to assistant business manager, part owner and finally sole owner on August 1, 1913. He was also president of The Torch Press, one of the best-equipped printing plants in the Middle West, until several years ago.

HIS FRATERNITY INTEREST FIRST
Many were the facets of the diamond of Luther Brewer's interests, but none gleamed in purer ray than his devotion to Phi Gamma Delta. Baptized into the faith at old Gettysburg, he was president of Xi Chapter in his senior year.
His mystic badge gleamed upon his breast as the young man made his way to Iowa to seek fame and fortune. The first honor that came to him from the general fraternity was his election as vice-president of the 1887 Ekklesia which was held at Bloomington, Illinois.
In 1896 he was the alumnus delegate from Xi Chapter to the convention held in Chicago. From then until the 1919 Victory Ekklesia in Chicago, there was a hiatus in his convention-going, due largely to the demands of his profession. But in 1919 he again swung into participation in the affairs of the general fraternity. His appearance in Chicago was noteworthy for two reasons: First, he successfully sponsored the petition of a local group at Iowa University for the revival of the Mu Deuteron Chapter; second, he brought into the convention hall his dear friend, Psi Upsilon's William Howard Taft, former President of the United States, who made a pleasant speech to his Greek cousins.
When, in 1920, Historian William F. Chamberlin completed the manuscript of Tomos Alpha of the History of Phi Gamma Delta, the Archons sought a publishing house possessed of equipment adequate enough to handle the work. Brother Brewer's Torch Press was a natural choice. To the 1920 Ekklesia in Kansas City the Iowa printer brought the proof-sheets. The book issued from the press a few months later and was hailed as a delightful example of the highest achievement of the art preservative.
The following fall The Torch Press began its long and distinguished service as printer of The Phi Gamma Delta magazine and for twelve years the alert eye and the fraternal hand of Luther Brewer watched over the mechanical operations involved in producing this magazine.

ELECTED TREASURER AT PITTSBURGH
The election of Xi's distinguished son as Treasurer of the fraternity at the Diamond Jubilee Ekklesia in Pittsburgh in 1923 was a spontaneous manifestation of unanimity of opinion.
The books of the order were transferred to Cedar Rapids and there began a service that has seldom been matched for fidelity to duty and for painstaking devotion to details. Luther's first term expired at the West Baden Ekklesia in 1927; his reelection was by a unanimous shout that resounded through the atrium of the gigantic hotel at the Indiana spa. He would have completed his service at the next Ekklesia and would not have been eligible under our laws to another term.
One of the incidents in the career of Luther Brewer as Treasurer that his associates in the Archonate love to recall with a chuckle was a visit he made to the Oklahoma Chapter. To a meeting of the Archons shortly after he had been installed as Treasurer came a sad tale from Norman. The boys of the chapter there had run up bills payable to local tradesmen in an astounding amount. The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker pressing the chapter for payment and the exchequer was empty. The Archons, thinking perhaps to haze the new Treasurer, passed a motion referring the problem to him. At his own expense he proceeded from Cedar Rapids to Norman. Check-book in hand, he visited each of the long list of creditors. "Would you discount your bill 25 per cent if I pay it immediately?" he approached the tradesmen. They all would, save one, and he had to wait for his money! (It should be said to the eternal credit of the Oklahoma alumni that they paid back promptly and pleasantly all of the money advanced by the Treasurer.)

FATHERED IOWA CHAPTER-HOUSE
BrewerLuther was the first and only Purple Legionnaire of Mu Deuteron Chapter from its reestablishment in 1919 to the time of his death. The excitement incident to the ceremony of re-installation had scarcely subsided when the Legionnaire began to rub his chin with his pipe and to lay some plans. By the fall of 1925 these plans had been translated into a $50,000 Tudor-style home ona commanding site in Iowa City. No one will ever know how much of his own personal funds Luther Brewer put into the lodge. Mrs. Brewer and he donated furniture with a prodigal hand; he endorsed notes that brought funds for additional equipment; he cajoled alumni into paying their pledges; he carried the burden of financing to his death-bed; and his last will provided a bequest of $2,500 to ease the remaining debt.
The dedication of the house in February, 1926, was an event long to be remembered by those who attended it. Clad in formal clothes, the distinguished Iowan stood in the hall of the home and read a classic dedicatory address which he had written and which was later published in Tomos Beta of our history. It ended: "Let us dedicate and consecrate this pleasant home of ours to the spirit of abiding and eternal friendship. And may no unworthy act of ours or of our successors ever mar its beauty, or tarnish its symbols."

AND THEN AT GETTYSBURG
The Iowa lodge problem solved, "Daddy" next turned to the housing need of his old chapter at Gettysburg, the college of which he was a trustee.
One cold December day in 1926 Luther and Harry Stahler (Gettysburg 1882) got together in a hotel room in Harrisburg. There were facts to be faced: To erect a home on the battlefield campus $25,000 would be required. The most that they could figure out as being in hand or in sight from contributions was $10,000. Postponment of the project seemed by all odds to be the only course open. Then it happened:
"Harry," said Luther, slowly filling his pipe, "I guess it's up to Stahler and Brewer to underwrite that $15,000." "Luther," replied Harry, looking over his spectacles, "I was thinking of that very thing."
"All right," came back Luther, "let's go!"
And go they did, for the handsome home of Xi was dedicated the next commencement. Above its fireplace there is a plaque proclaiming that the home is "'dedicated to the spirit of abiding and eternal friendship." A few years ago Brother Stahler died and left one-fourth of his estate to the chapter-house association, the gift being more than sufficient to pay all indebtedness on the home and justifying the faith that was in them both.
As year followed year Luther's great delight was to attend the Ekklesiai - at Richmond, at Colorado Springs, at West Baden, at Swampscott, at San Antonio, at Detroit. Frequently he would motor to the convention city from Cedar Rapids, taking with him Mrs. Brewer, one or more undergraduates, the Iowa house-mother, often paying all of the transportation and hotel bills!

INSTALLED TWO CHAPTERS
Twice "Daddy" had served as the Legate of the fraternity at the installation of new chapters. He took a keen delight, in the spring of 1931, in handing the coveted charter to Upsilon Alpha Chapter at the University of Arizona, in the furtherance of whose interests he had frankly and gleefully gone beyond the boundaries of the neutrality that Archons are traditionally expected to observe.
His gray beard presenting a striking contrast to the scarlet robe he wore as chief of the embassy which established Lambda Alpha Chapter at the University of California at Los Angeles. In the fall of the same year, he delivered a charge to the initiates that was an inspiring apex of the solemn service of installation. In the California city he was greeted again by countless friends he had made in the fall of 1929 when he was one of the group of fraternity officers who - at their own expense - made the installation at British Columbia the signal for a trip around the Western rim of the fraternity.
Almost without number are the incidents where the generosity of Luther Brewer resulted in the surreptitious passing of a $10 bill to a needy undergraduate or the endorsement of a student's note that meant the difference between abandonment of college or continuing toward a baccaluareate degree.
Luther almost resented any effort to focus the spotlight on him. The idea was conceived of a 70th birthday party for him in Chicago in December, 1928. Most of the officers of the fraternity were present and more than 100 Chicago Fijis. The task of paying tribute to the septuagenarian fell to the Editor. He could scarcely complete his remarks because of the grumbling of protest from the honor guest.
The Grand Old Man of Phi Gamma Delta, indeed!

WIDELY KNOWN AS BIBLIOPHILE
Beyond the walls of Phi Gamma Delta the name of Luther Brewer was honored. An ardent bibliophile - his book-plate quoted: "I am a glutton of books" - he was internationally known for his collection of memorabilia of Leigh Hunt. His Huntiana, housed in his office and valued at at least $50,000, drew English scholars from America and from abroad. He made occasional trips to London, where he would frequent the rare book shops of the many dealers who had him on their catalogue lists.
Each year at Christmas Mrs. Brewer and he would have privately printed for distribution among their friends small volumes written by the book-loving head of the house. The titles included Contentment, The Fascination of Prints, Beside Our Reading Lamp, The Love of Books, Wanderings in London, Marginalia, Golden Days in France (an account of a motoring trip he and George Snyder and their wives had taken in 1927), More Marginalia and others.
The magnum opus of Luther Brewer was My Leigh Hunt Library, privately printed in 1932. This large volume of 392 pages, with 100 illustrations, was hailed as a distinct contribution to the shelf of English literature cataloguing.
Upon his desk after his death was found the uncompleted manuscript of another book on the subject of his favorite author which was to contain Hunt holograph letters. With Maccaulay, he had "a kindness for Mr. Leigh Hunt."
Along with literature, art was a hobby of Luther's. He personally appeared before the Carnegie Foundation in New York and obtained an appropriation for a Little Gallery in Cedar Rapids, where appreciation of painting and sculpturing were taught in an experimental school that won wide interest. He was president of the Cedar Rapids Art Association and head of the board of the public library.

REPUBLICAN OF OLD SCHOOL
Luther was a Republican of the old school. He early entered politics and from 1893 to 1897 was state oil inspector. From year to year he would participate in the councils of the party in Iowa. Twice - in 1912 and in 1916 - he was a delegate to the Republican national conventions. The late, great President Taft and he were warm friends.
The tendency of radicalism to creep into his party always annoyed Luther. He was a particular foe of Senator Smith W. Brookhart and In the early autumn of 19_4 was an independent candidate against Brookhart in the senatorial primaries, but withdrew and urged all Republicans to support Daniel F. Steck, the Democrat.
At one time a Rotarian district governor, Luther's name was also enrolled upon the rosters of the Grolier Club and Phi Gamma Delta Club of New York, the Bibliophile Club of Boston, the University Club of Washington and the Union League Club of Chicago.
And now he lies in a grave in Iowa, his memory remaining eternally green and an inspiration to the thousands of college men who hailed him by the name of brother.

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