Memorial to Nixon Unveiled at Whittier College
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A granite memorial to former President Richard M. Nixon was unveiled Thursday by the fraternity he helped form at Whittier College nearly 70 years ago.
Nixon’s longtime friend, Clinton O. Harris, a fellow member of the campus Orthogonian Society, joined school officials and other fraternity members to honor the late president during Thursday’s ceremony.
The tombstone-like monument, set in concrete next to the East Lawn on campus, bears the motto Nixon wrote for the Orthogonian Society: “Brothers together, we’ll travel on and on, worth the name of Orthogonians.”
According to college communications director Kristin Tranquada, Nixon co-founded the group in 1930 as an alternative to a rival campus fraternity named the Franklin Society, which he considered elitist.
Nixon wrote that he considered the Orthogonians--meaning straight-shooters--to be “mostly athletes and men who were working their way through school.”
“The Franklins posed for their yearbook pictures wearing tuxedos,” Nixon wrote. “We posed for ours wearing open-necked shirts.”
Nixon graduated from Whittier College in 1934 after serving as student body president. In 1940, he became a member of the college Board of Trustees, a post he held until 1968.
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