Franklin Roosevelt is deeply indebted to one great big Elk, James Aloysius Farley, for engineering his election to the Presidency. Last week he warmly welcomed to the White House a whole troupe of great big Elks headed by their Grand Exalted Ruler. But the Elks in the President's office were not of Elk Farley's herd.
Just as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America has its Negro counterpart in the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of North and South America and its Jurisdictions, so the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks has its black copy in the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World.* Guffaws of bass laughter rocked the President's office as he cracked jokes with the chieftains of IBPOEW and received from Grand Exalted Ruler James Finley Wilson, the "Little Napoleon of Negro Elkdom," an invitation to review a parade in Washington on Aug. 27, during the IBPOEW convention. Joining with Grand Exalted Ruler Wilson in pressing the invitation were Grand Commissioner of Athletics John Thomas Rhine, Washington's leading Negro undertaker; Grand Esteemed Loyal Knight Roy Solomon Bond, Maryland's most famed Negro lawyer, who claims to have won more divorce cases than any lawyer of any color in his State; Brigadier General of the Antlered Guards of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Delaware Arthur Newman, onetime A. E. F. infantry captain, now a major in the Military Education Department of Washington's Negro schools.
Instantly the President accepted the IBPOEW's invitation, provided he was still in Washington on Aug. 27. Ruler Wilson expected nothing less, for all his life prominent men have been his familiars. At 13 he was a bellhop in Chicago's Palmer House. For four years he was a Pullman porter on the Missouri Pacific. "Buffalo Bill" Cody set him up driving a stagecoach in Nebraska. He was a member of the distinguished horde of gold hunters in the Klondike. Tex Rickard, who used to call him "Little Britches," took him on as a business partner in a dance hall at Goldfield. Nev. Now aged 53, he owns real estate in half a dozen cities, is publisher of the Washington Eagle, goes to all the best races and prizefights, has been Grand Exalted Ruler for 13 years. For the President, however, he had time to deliver a personal invitation. For Elk J. Finley Wilson the President had a most cordial reception.