Reply #17: I will let Robbins address that point: (from the above link)

[seventhson]

Question: Tell me – how is Skull & Bones any different from any typical fraternity that would seek to make its practices secret to non-members?

Alexandra Robbins:


Skull & Bones isn’t your typical fraternity. Within the Tomb, for example, there is a very strong death motif and a very strong war motif… There are dozens of skulls in the Tomb both human and animal, there is supposedly a mummy, there is the gravestone of Elihu Yale that was stolen from Rexom, Wales, sometime in the 20th century probably. I was told by a Bonesman that the idea of the death motif is to remind you that life is short and that there is an unspoken pressure to achieve, and to follow in the footsteps of all of the prominent alumni before you before you die. And that’s really what Skull & Bones is about. It’s about power. Your typical fraternity – I would think there is more of an element of fun. There is no alcohol in Skull & Bones, which is also another big difference between Skull & Bones and fraternities. You won’t see a kegger in the Tomb.


Skull & Bones has always had a distinguished roster of alumni, but we really see them coming into power in the early 20th century, first with William Howard Taft – the only man ever to be President of the United States and Supreme Court Chief Justice. At least two of the men he appointed to his eleven-man cabinet were members of the Skull & Bones. Then you see the Harrimans come in the early 1900s. The Harrimans had the largest private bank in the country, filled it with Bonesmen, and when W.A. Harriman merged with Brown Brothers, it was because of the Skull & Bones partners at each bank and then by 1972, more than 1/3 of the partners at Brown Brothers Harriman were members of Skull & Bones. Moving on you see members of Skull & Bones operating as directors on the boards of banks that did stowe money for Hitler. During WW II, Henry Stimson, a prominent Bonesman who believed that men weren’t really of quality unless they went to Andover, Yale and then through Skull & Bones, hired many members of Skull & Bones to work with him in the war department and ended up assigning the deployment of the atomic bomb to these members of Skull & Bones…


Really the classic cases of how power works in America as exemplified by Skull & Bones are the Bushes. You have George Bush and George W. Bush who both turned to Skull & Bones at various points throughout their lives, even though George W. Bush says very strongly that he doesn’t rely on his northeast connections. There have been 9 Bushes in Skull & Bones, and at the end of 2003, there will probably be 10 Bushes in Skull & Bones with George W. Bush’s daughter, Barbara.