About 2,000 shouting, politicking and even gun toting Jaycees and their wives had taken over the Schroeder Hotel and other nearby establishments for the National Junior Chamber convention held in Milwaukee in June of 1946. Spirits were booming, for this was the first full scale Jaycee gathering since 1942, due to the war.

Up and down the main stem and clear out in the suburbs, at all hours of the night and day, the fun went on. Cabbies, waitresses, elevator operators and the Milwaukee natives were asking; the same question. How much longer can it last?

All this excitement amazed and bewildered Bill Brownfield, a neophyte Jaycee from Columbus, Ohio. Here was large-scale politics with two great men, Seldon Waldo and Gram Theme, running for national president.

Morning and afternoon forum sessions were made lively by the same young men who had been on the loose all night, now eager and determined in planing of governmental affairs, youth welfare, moneymaking activities, and all the other interests that make a local Junior Chamber of Commerce a success.

There were guests from many lands: magnificent speeches by famous men like Harold Stassen and a music pageant depicting the spread of the Jaycee movement. There were the tears of joy of the Oklahoma Jaycees who won the Marks Award - more tears in the eyes of Grant Theme and his wonderful wife who were magnificent in defeat.

All this was something Jaycee Brownfield had never seen before and he loved it.

Returning home, he wanted to tell everybody what the Jaycees were and what they stood for. It was more than any one thing - more than the hometown club, more than one election or one convention. It was even more than all the Jaycee activities that were carried on across America and around the world - it was a way of life.

Pondering the subject one day while making an auto trip, Brownfield put together within an hour the basic phrases of the Jaycee Creed, a document which was officially adopted by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1947, In 1951, Brownfield added the line which affirms the Jaycees belief in God. and this now precedes ail other parts of the Creed.

Following his writing of the Creed, Brownfield went on to a fine Junior Chamber career, serving as president of the Ohio Jaycees and as a national vice president. It was for his authorship of the Creed, however, that Brownfield was named an honorary member of the USJCC in 1955. His creed is the perfect expression of the spirit which lives in the hearts' of young men (and women) who want to better the world in which they live.