In the late 1930s and 1940s the society became increasingly separate from the university despite having on-campus accommodations. Numbers in the organization dwindled in the 1940s as a result of World War II. Another cause for Eucleian’s lower profile seems to have been the perception of elitism by other NYU students. A quip in a yearbook of the era describes Eucleian as having membership that includes “John Quincy Adams, The Rockefellers, and that crowd”. (The organization did consist largely of the social "elite" of the time.) This alleged snobbery also became a theme of self-effacing humor in the diminishing external publications of the society in this era; the society refers to itself, and presumably Andiron Club as "the reclusive old Establishment" in a 1930s NYU yearbook. This tongue-in-cheek reference had to do with the club not taking part as a unit in spirited student games, competitions and hazing of freshmen that occurred in the early fall at NYU.