Gideon Planish by Sinclair Lewis

In any national organization, the persons whose names are listed down the lefthand side of the stationery, the persons who are supposed to love the organization and guarantee it and work daily for it--these old friends are sometimes labeled the Directors, sometimes the Trustees, the Sponsors, the Advisory Board, the State Chairmen, the Honorary Vice-Chairmen, the National Committee, the General Committee or the Central Committee.

In the T.A.F.A.R.P., these apostles were called the Trustees, and in January, 1930, Dr. Planish was elected a trustee of that association--the True American Federation to Attack Racial Prejudice. With the suspiciousness of one who has now lost his philanthropic innocence, he skimmed over the names of his fellow trustees and even that of the treasurer--the president of an insurance company--knowing that they would all be the familiar bunch of Signers, and he looked sharply at the name of the executive secretary (or, technically, the Works). He approved. The Works was Professor Goetz Buchwald, of the psychology department of Erasmus College, on leave of absence--a leave that had now lasted for seven years.