might eventually reverse the Bedford Resolution, but while they awaited a legislative solution, Richard Scobie, class of 1956, reports that some were dismayed by examples of "racist attitudes of certain leaders." Several national organization leaders and their wives visited Dartmouth for a party celebrating the Tau chapter's 50th anniversary in May, 1955. National President A.L. Atcheson, District Director Bob Abbe, and District Deputy Sam Sargent all attended. Scobie relays, "Abbe was reported to have commented to several brothers, including Dick Taft, class of 1956 and then vice-president of the chapter, Well, it's this way. We've got to watch out for all minority groups; not just the Negroes. In different areas you've got to watch out for different things, sometimes it's Italians, sometimes it's Jews, sometimes it's Negroes." Unbeknownst to Abbe, Dick Taft was Jewish. However, this anecdotal report has no corroboration in other sources; Abbe himself was Jewish, and Phi Sigma Kappa had already had a number of Jewish members. However, Scobie made the claim that this was the cause for "many in the chapter [to be] outraged and [offer] proposals to "go local" or to affiliate with a different national fraternity at the house meeting immediately following the visit. [However] no consensus was reached at the time, with the end of the academic year rapidly approaching." Nationally, "Bedford" had proven to be harmful, and had been repealed by the National fraternity at the 1954 convention only two years after it had passed. It was replaced by a much weaker, unwritten "Gentlemen's Agreement," with similar provisions but no real legislative teeth, which more progressive leaders thought they could use to soothe the process of change for trailing chapters. For some chapters, this was enough, but for others, like Tau, the demand for change would allow no mitigating steps. Tau did not attend the 1954 convention in Roanoke, Virginia. The movement for Tau to secede from the Phi Sigma Kappa national was rejuvenated in the early winter of 1956. Scobie, then outgoing chapter president, personally resigned his affiliation with the national fraternity in a letter in which he accused Phi Sigma Kappa of "black reactionary ideals." A week later debate continued, and the first vote to disaffiliate failed to gain the two-thirds majority called for in the motion with a result of 41 local, 20 national, and 3 abstaining. A week later on March 7, 1956, the Tau chapter voted again