Owen and Rupert wrote a humorous letter to friends, stating:
"In this age of dictators and government control of everything, about the only privilege guaranteed by the Bill of Rights not in some way supervised or directed is the art of barbershop quartet singing. Without a doubt, we still have the right of peaceable assembly which, we are advised by competent legal authority, includes quartet singing.
"The writers have, for a long time, thought that something should be done to encourage the enjoyment of this last remaining vestige of human liberty. Therefore, we have decided to hold a songfest on the roof garden of the Tulsa Club on Monday, April 11, 1938, at 6:30 p.m."
"The writers have, for a long time, thought that something should be done to encourage the enjoyment of this last remaining vestige of human liberty. Therefore, we have decided to hold a songfest on the roof garden of the Tulsa Club on Monday, April 11, 1938, at 6:30 p.m."
Twenty-six men attended the first SPEBSQSA meeting and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, SPEBSQSA has over 30,000 members in North America. Another 4,000 men enjoy the hobby in eight affiliated organizations worldwide. Thanks in part to the outreach efforts of SPEBSQSA and other barbershop organizations, more than 70,000 people around the world are active in the barbershop movement today. Currently, there are 825 chapters ranging in size from 20 to 200 members. There are approximately 2,000 quartets registered at the international headquarters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with an estimated 1000 more that are active but not registered.
Wikipedia has an excellent history of barbershop.