The Club included members such as former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt,[1] newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and financier J.P. Morgan Jr.
[2] The history of The Dickey Club stretches back to 1844 when Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity was founded at Yale University.
According to an article published in The Cambridge Tribune, the public phase of the initiation lasted a full week and seemed to constitute fairly standard hazing-type practices.
Hence the terms “running for the Dickie.”[12] Once the public phase of the initiation was complete, the neophytes were officially inducted into The Dickey Club in a private ritual.
The neophyte is effectively blindfolded during the proceedings, and at last, still sightless, I was led down flights of steps into a silent crypt, and helped into a coffin, where I was to stay until the Resurrection.After lying in the coffin for a while, Julian states that he was visited by an older classmate dressed as a “friendly demon”, with whom he had a conversation, and that “After a while, he went away and I lay in peace: until a bevy of roistering friends arrived, hoisted me out, hurried me up the steps, snatched off bandages, and lo!
I was in a brightly lighted room filled with jolly fellows who were shaking hands with me, giving me the ‘grip,’ and leading me to a large bowl brimming with claret punch.”[13] It is interesting to note that the ritual of being led into a crypt and then lying in a coffin mirrors the initiation ritual of the Yale secret society Skull and Bones.