The middle of the decade of the 1950's was a time of great optimism for the United States. West Germany was admitted to NATO, the first McDonald's restaurant opened in Des Plains, IL, Juan Peron was ousted as leader of Argentina. "Rock Around the Clock" topped the music charts and "Cinerama Holiday" was the highest grossing motion picture, though "Marty" swept the Oscar awards. Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" won a Pulitzer Prize and the Emmy for the best new show on television went to "The Ed Sullivan Show."

The second half of the first hundred years of The Symposium, however, began with financial problems. The Treasurer's report of January 4, 1956 showed a balance of $75.35 with unpaid bills of $108.70. At that meeting, after discussion, on motion duly made, the monthly dinner charge was raised to $3.00 for members and $4.00 for visiting guests, up from $1.50 previously.

It is interesting to note that even with this business, the appointment of new committee members for the year and a presentation by Dr. Robert C. Meyers of the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies on the topic of "The Role of the Family in American Life," the meeting, which began at 6:30 PM, adjourned at 8:45, the earliest adjournment on record to date.

At the meeting of March 9, 1955, designated as "Symposium Night," three long-time members reviewed the operation of The Symposium during the past fifty years. Howard L. Hughes, Director of the Trenton Free Public Library who joined the club in 1917 as a Permanent Guest, served as Secretary-Treasurer from 1917 to 1932, was elected to the Presidency in 1932 and to honorary membership in 1953, led off the discussion. He was joined by Alfred P. S. Bellis (who became a member in 1930) and Sackett Dickinson (who joined in 1932).

In preparation for the meeting, Mr. Hughes had written to Henry McBride, the only surviving Founding Member of The Symposium asking for his recollections of the early days of the organization. McBride, who was 94 at the time, wrote back as follows:

February 25, 1955, 17 West 54 Street, New York City

Dear Mr. Hughes:

It is always dangerous to consult an elderly person's memory and I know you will have a low opinion of me when I tell you that all I recall with vividness from The Symposium meetings of years ago relates to the fabulously good supper parties that occurred after them. No doubt we were wise and witty but what I remember most clearly are the marvelous roast stuffed squabs that came over one midnight from the kitchen of Mrs. May Bell, Mr. Freddie Clark's mother-in-law, who lived on State Street just across the way. I have met nothing like them since and it's for that reason I always think of Trenton as rivaling Dijon France in matters gustatory.

With my best wishes, sincerely yours,
Henry McBride

The chronic problem of attendance at meetings continued to plague the organization. At the March, 1959 meeting, President J. Lewis Unsworth asked for a report from Dr. Roscoe West, chairman of the Membership Committee, of the members of The Symposium who do not attend meetings regularly. Dr. West's committee recommended that some of these members be made Honorary Members and suggested an addition to the Constitution of The Symposium under Article II - Name and Membership, to be designated Section 3:

Section 3. Membership in The Symposium shall cease upon failure of a member to attend eight consecutive meetings, except when the Membership Committee, upon prompt review, recommends that an exception be made, due to unusual circumstances

Section 4. In addition to the fifty members specified in Section 1, Honorary Members may be elected. To be eligible for Honorary Membership, a person shall be sixty years of age and shall have been a member of The Symposium for ten years. Honorary Members shall be recommended by the Membership Committee and approved by the Society. Honorary Members shall be relieved from payment of dues.

On November 24th of that year a letter was sent by Leon Slack, the Secretary/Treasurer to George Arnett, John Brooks, Edward. Carter, Lloyd McCorkle, Samuel Mountford, Arthur Stryker and Zephaniah West stating: "I have been instructed to bring this [non-attendance] to your attention and, if you cannot or do not want to attend the meetings in the future, ask that you resign from the Club so that some new members may be admitted to reactivate it before it is too late."

This rather drastic move had some effect. Messrs. Carter, Stryker and West resigned immediately, but Arnett and Brooks ignored the warning and were dropped from membership in 1961 and 1960 respectfully. Both McCorkle and Mountford resumed attending meetings and remained in good standing.

Finances, too, were a continuing concern. At the October, 1962 meeting, it was announced that the Trenton Country Club had raised the price of the dinners served prior to the meetings from $3.50 to $4.00. The Symposium had been subsidizing the dinners to the extent of $.50 per member per month for some time. A motion was introduced and passed "to continue the price to members of $3.00, the club to absorb the difference of $1.00 per dinner." The annual dues remained at $10.

It is not clear when the practice of paying an honorarium to speakers began, but the minutes of December, 1963 contain the last mention of such payments. The 1964 Financial Report contains a line item labeled "Expenses and Gifts for Speakers" which apparently took the place of honoraria payments.

In May of 1964, as The Symposium approached its 60th anniversary, Charles E. Lucey, editor of the Trenton Times, wrote an article about the organization in his "Editor's Notebook" column:

A group called The Symposium was founded in Trenton 60 years ago this year and if there is a more interesting organization in this Delaware Valley, I am unaware of it.

There are, of course, many kinds of clubs. There are luncheon clubs where men of good heart sponsor worthy civic projects and listen to speakers who carry a message. There are the clubs of the rich and well-born (exclusive, well-stocked are the usual adjectives) where men of local empire foregather. There are fraternal clubs where one must know grip and password to get to the bar.

But The Symposium is none of these. It is a club of scholarship and intellectual inquiry, of men who have traveled and studied, of men sensitive to literature and the arts and science and culture. It might be compared with Washington's famed Cosmos Club, or with the Explorers in New York. Its affairs cannot be measured in the marketplace. You never read of it in the papers.

In fact, this may be the only time, and almost certainly is only the second or third time, that the organization has been mentioned at all publicly in decades. One distinguished member, Howard L. Hughes, the former librarian, doubts The Symposium has had public attention since it was addressed by Major General George W. Goethals, chief engineer of the Panama Canal. That was on January 8, 1917. There is no telling what havoc may be wrought by the instant modest dispatch.

When The Symposium was brought together in 1904, its aim was "to provide an opportunity for social intercourse to its own members, and incidentally, and as a by-product, to promote their edification by an exchange of views on the topic under discussion."

Talking with Mr. Hughes and the current president, Raymond A. Schroth, I learned of the truly astonishing range and scope of subjects which have had scholarly dissection before the group over the years. Most members present a learned paper to The Symposium, and in the earlier days many members presented more than one. James Kerney, editor and publisher of The Times for many years, made at least two talks - one in 1919 on his wartime experiences in France; one in 1923 on "the Liberal Press - A Constructive Force in America."

But whether members or guests were speakers, The Symposium was not a group to raise loud huzzah or raucous cheer. Librarian Hughes recalls an earlier day:

"When I was making the first minutes, I learned that we never praised members when they gave a paper - we merely reported a member had spoken. Later an outside speaker might get a mild commendation - the organization seemed to be getting a little bit radical - throwing words of praise around."

The first two Symposium subjects dealt with matters which, 60 years later, still have a certain currency - "Divorce" and "The Negro Problem." Dr. Hamilton Schuyler of Trinity Church dealt with "Romanism and American Institutions." Dr. Henry Colin Minton of First Presbyterian Church spoke on Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In 1906 Frederick H. Clark was speaking on "the Indifference of Americans to Art," and President Hugh H. Hamill of Trenton Trust and Safe Deposit on seismic disturbances. William Cloke of the New York Herald dealt with journalistic ethics; Lawson Purdon on the single tax. Dr. William Libby of Princeton, a frequent Symposium speaker, spoke on the Panama Canal, on astronomical climate, on "A Glimpse of Spain" and "Modern Archaeolgy and the Hexateuch." John J. Cleary of The Times spoke in 1913 on "New Journalism" and Dr. Henry A. Cotton on "Criminal Responsibility of the Insane."

There was history in Col. John Schoonover's "Some Untold Happenings in the Campaign at Appomattox." There were recurring discussions of aspects of the peace movement, of education, art, religion, psychology, government, politics, science, America's interest in the Irish Question - the last by The Times' John Cleary - all of these occupied Symposium members.

And so it goes, in a grand tradition, these 60 years later. The same catholicity of subject marks the recent papers. Dr. Richard T. Beck spoke on Trenton's schools; George T. Borton on Brazil; Virgil Kauffman on world exploration; Dr. Rose P. Kandle on the Soviet Union and the health of its people; Dr. Kenneth W. Prescott on the new state museum and cultural center; George Rentoumis on "Down the Colorado in a Canoe."

There have been many great nights at The Symposium. Year-end dinners once were all black-tie. There were early meetings in members' home - the homes of Col. Washington A. Roebling and Dr. James M. Green among them. Mr. Hughes remembers a time when Ralph Isham came with some of Boswell's papers, including a letter Boswell wrote from Paris after spending an evening with Voltaire.

The tide veers as the winds change, But The Symposium stands firm after three-score proud years.

A break in routine occurred when the attendees at the meeting of December 6, 1966 were invited to be guests of the Helene Fuld Institute in Pennington for cocktails and dinner and to hear a talk by William B. Meytrott titled "Green Medicine." Another break in tradition occurred just 6 meetings later on October 4, 1967 when "After some discussion, the club decided that the names of those present at previous meetings need not be read from the minutes although they should be recorded in the minutes. In the reading of the minutes, in the future, the secretary should merely say how many were present." This practice continued until the meeting of November 4, 1970, the minutes of which were the first not to include the names of the members present. The minutes are silent on the reason for these changes.

At the meeting of the group in November, 1967, Dr. Paul Reisinger, speaking for the Program Committee, proposed that the meeting on January 3, 1968 be a black-tie party and that a commemorative photograph be taken. The motion was seconded by Edward Robinson. "After some discussion, the motion was carried with one dissenting voice." At the January meeting, this picture was taken:

Front Row: Neil G. Greensides, John A. Williams, Herbert B. Butcher (Secretary/Treasurer), J. Stuart Hill, Ernst C. Winther, Rauland P. Smith, Edward D. Parsons, Leon W. Slack, Raymond L. Steen, Sr., John Belli

Back Row: Dr. Fred B. Rogers, Francis Overton, James H. Rendall, Jr., Meredith E. Johnson, Leonard Lynch, Joseph Volk, J. Douglas Ekings, Edmund L. Robinson, William H. Hill, Adolph Harvitt, W.J.B. Stokes II (President), Paul Plough (Vice President), Carlton W. Tillinghast, Uno Malmstrom, Dr. George N. J. Sommer, Jr., William S. Borden, Sr., Donald B. Rice, Dr. Paul B. Reisinger, Dr. John Morgan

Photographer: Donald White

At the April meeting in 1968, President Stokes presented the opportunity of changing the meeting place to the Trenton Club as a possibility. The reasons given dealt with the rapidly rising cost of the pre-meeting dinner (which had risen to $6.00 of which the members paid $4.50 and the club subsidized $1.50) and the added facilities that would be available. Several members gave their views on the subject and it was decided not to change the place of meeting for now, but to further consider the matter in the Fall. At the May meeting, further discussion of this matter took place and it was decided to poll the members on the subject.

After still more discussion at subsequent meetings, the meeting place was changed, in March 1969, from the Trenton Country Club, where the group had been meeting for nearly 37 years (since November, 1932), to the Trenton Club at 479 West State Street. The announcement of the March meeting, dated 2/24/1969, read as follows:

"Please note the new meeting place which is a change made by your officers to meet a financial emergency. It will, nevertheless, be necessary for us to collect $5.50 for this dinner meeting, which is less than would be required otherwise. Moreover, at the Trenton Club, we are assured of an open bar and unbeclouded hospitality."

In November of the same year, a tradition of a member sponsoring a "cheese table" available to the members as they assembled prior to dinner was introduced. At each meeting, the name of the member sponsoring the table was announced. This practice continued for nearly a year, until October, 1970. In the minutes of that meeting, after crediting the name of the member sponsoring the "cheese table," it was announced that hereafter the club would foot the bill. Also at that meeting, "President Enos Wetzel announced that we would have to pay $6 hereafter for the dinner which would come closer to meeting our costs."

Meanwhile, at the January, 1969 meeting, Enos Wetzel, reporting for the Nominating Committee, proposed that the President and other officers of the club should be elected in May to take office in the Fall and then recommended that the present officers serve until May of this year. The reason for this was to bring the terms of office into conjunction with the meeting schedule - with this change, newly elected officers would take office in October (on the occasion of the first meeting following the Summer recess, and serve until May (the last meeting of the season). The change required an amendment to the Constitution of the club and Edmund Robinson and the Secretary were appointed to formulate an amendment for presentation at the next meeting.

Another constitutional change proposed at the meeting was a modification of the requirements for Honorary membership status. The current requirements were that a member had to be at least sixty years old and have been a member of The Symposium for at least ten years. Honorary members were relieved from payment of dues, but no mention was made of the power to vote and attend meetings. The proposed change read as follows:

A member of more than 10 years, whose health or age makes attendance at meetings infrequent, upon recommendation of the Membership Committee, may be elected an HONORARY MEMBER by a two-thirds majority of the members attending a regular meeting. Honorary members will pay no dues, will not vote, but are urged to attend meetings. The vacancy created when a member is made an Honorary Member is then available to a newly elected member.

Article II, Section 4. A member of more than 10 years, whose health or age makes attendance at meetings infrequent, upon recommendation of the Membership Committee, may be elected an HONORARY MEMBER by a two-thirds majority of the members attending a regular meeting. Honorary members will pay no dues, will not vote, but are urged to attend meetings. The vacancy created when a member is made an Honorary Member is then available to a newly elected member.

Article III. Section 1. The officers of the club shall be a President, Vice President and a Secretary/Treasurer, each to be chosen by ballot at the May meeting from among the candidates nominated at the April meeting. The officers shall serve for one year beginning with the October meeting or until a successor is elected.

Now, in arranging the programs, we have got down to fundamentals in this one, to the real foundation of enlightened self-interest, to the management of the future and to a search for the superlatively happy combination of fortuitous circumstances. Our heads are teeming with scheming. I know you believe you understand what you think I mean, but I am not sure you realize that what you suppose to be the meaning may not be what I intended to convey.

"Write me your thought on this subject,
or
Just send me the enclosed card registering your honorable intentions for dinner on April 2. This is intended to be an all-member plebiscite.

Gentlemen of The Symposium:

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sails shaking,
A gray mist on the sea's face and a gray dawn breaking.

This verse introduces the subject of our next meeting on Wednesday, April 6, at the Trenton Club at 6:30 p.m. Mr. Tony Vega will tell us about his three days with and amongst the tall ships in New York harbor last July. His narrative will be illustrated.

Come along from Sandy Hook up the Hudson to this colorful voyage along the gull's way and the wind's way under the white clouds, then you can go home to a quiet sleep when the deck watch is over. I hope the words of the poet John Masefield will inspire you to attend. Please sign on for the picturesque voyage, refreshments included, on the enclosed card and mail it before your shore leave expires. Glad to have you aboard.

The deliberations of this group resulted in an historic decision: at the meeting of February, 1970, an amendment to the constitution was adopted that raised the dues from $10 a year to $20 a year. The attentive reader will recall that the dues had been previously raised from $10 to $15 in January, 1942 (at that time the cost of dinner was included in the dues). Then, a year later, they were reduced to $10 again as a policy of having members pay separately for dinner was adopted. Thus, it wasn't until the 65th year of The Symposium that the dues permanently reached $20 a year.

Two other events of significance in the history of The Symposium occurred during the early 1970's. In May of 1972, attendance at a meeting reached 40 for the first time. The attraction was club member Virgil Kauffman's presentation entitled "Film of The Discovery of Captain Cook's Cannon." And, in March of 1975, quoting from the minutes, "The question of whether or not to have ladies invited to our meeting was again presented. After pondering the suggestion, it was carried in the negative - quite positively."

The 20-year period covered by this section of the history saw a very large turnover in membership. Sixteen members died - including Howard L. Hughes in 1966 after 51 years as a member and Henry M. Hartman in 1974 after 53 years of membership - and 47 resigned their membership, while 65 new members were admitted.

Among the new members were Carlton Tillinghast, Executive Director of the NJ Taxpayers Association, Edmund Goodrich, Editor of the Trentonian, Virgil Kauffman, President of Aero Services Corporation, Raymond Steen, President of the Broad Street National Bank, Clayton Brower, President of Trenton State College, Sidney Goldman, Librarian of the State of New Jersey and Vincent Hoyer, President of New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company along with current members John Belli, Charles Stokes, III and John Wood.

Total membership during the period ranged from 51 to 55 (including honorary members) and attendance at meetings ranged from 37% to 62% with an average attendance of 47% for the entire period.

Only 28% percent of the papers presented during the two decades covered here were by members. The most popular subject areas for programs were World Affairs (19), Travel (17), Technology (15), Education (14) and Local Affairs (13). Topics discussed ranged from "Violin Construction," "Glass Paperweights" and "Coins" to "Desegregation," "Nuclear Energy and Its Peacetime Applications in New Jersey" and "The Role of the Private School in American Education."