YALE ALUMNI WEEKLY
THE HARVARD SPEAKERS
Personnel of the Team which Meets
Yale in Debate.
Cambridge, Mass., March 12.—The ap-
proaching annual debate hetween Har-
vard and Yale promises to attract more
attention than any previous intercol-
legiate contest of this nature in Cam-
bridge. The debate will be held in San-
ders’ Theatre, as usual, but the pros-
‘pect is that the audience will over-tax
the limited capacity of the hall, and
the time will soon come, if the interest
in these annual forensic contests con-
tinues, when the University theatre will
have to be abandoned for a more com-
modious auditorium. The arrangements
for the debate are not yet completed,
but an effort will be made this year to
secure a section of seats for Yale sym-
pathizers, so that they can bunch their
enthusiasm and give more united sup-
port to the visiting debaters.
The debate will be held on the evening
of March 26. The fact that Yale was
successful last year has awakened the
Harvard men to the fact that success
will not be easily gained, and they are
working indefatigably to reverse the
outcome in the present instance. They
realize, too, that Yale has the popular
side of the guestion, and the one which
lends itself more readily to specious and
attractive argument. They are accord-
ingly preparing themselves to expose
any sophistries in the Yale presenta-
tion of the question, and it is not un-
likely that they will follow the plan
which worked so successfully against
Princeton last year, and present an
elaborate scheme of finance. construct-
ed to avoid as far as possible the ob-
jections raised against monometallism,
which scheme the negative will be in-
vited to demolish.
The competitive debate held last
month to determine the Harvard repre-
sentatives proved a lively preliminary
skirmish and called out the best speak-
ers in the University. T’wo of the men
who represented Harvard at New Ha-
ven last year were among the candi-
dates, Parker and Stewart. The latter
made an effective speech, and his fail-
ure t0 secure a place on the team
caused much surprise. The men chosen
were ©. Dobyns. G. H. Dorr and S. R.
Wrightington, with W. H. Conroy. Jr.,
as alternate. Dobyns is regarded as
the best dehater in the Tniversitv, and
his selection was conceded, although
his effort at the trial was much inferior
to his customary showing. Dorr was
anew aspirant for intercollegiate hon-
ors, hut his brief speech on the evening
of the trial was clear and _ Isgical.
Wrightineton was fresh from the re-
cent victory of Harvard over Princeton
and made a strong plea for monometal-
lism. The team as a whole is thought
to be as strong as any which has rep-
resented Harvard for three years nast,
and sivnerior to manv of its nredeces-
sers. The men excel] rather in argument-
ative ahilitv than in ease of manner or.
grace of diction.
Sidney Russell Wrigchtineton of the
Senior class will orohahlyv onen the de-
hate for Harvard. His home is in Fall
River, where he prenared for collese
at the Durfee High Sehool. He had
small exnerience in dehatinge hefore en-
tering Harvard. hut has heen suecess-
ful in his work in the dehatine courses.
He was elected to membershin in the
Harvard Union, but had no experience
in inter-collegiate debating until last
Fall when he was chosen one’of the
trio to speak against Princeton. Not
content with one debate a year, he en-
tered the lists for the Yale dehate and
was again selected to represent the
University. He is a_ strong, earnest
speaker, with a tendency to be de-
clamatory.
Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr is also
a member of the Senior class. He is a
comparative novice at debate, his ex-
perience being limited to that gained
in the debating courses since entering
college. He is a clear thinker, however,
and well informed, as he has special-
ized in economics and history. He comes
from Orange, N. J., and prepared for
Harvard at Milton Academy. He was
recently elected a member of the Har-
vard Forum. He never competed for an
intercollegiate debate until last month.
The responsibility of closing the de-
bate for Harvard will, in all probabili-
ty, be given to Fletcher Dobyns of the
J unior class. He excels his associates in
his manner of presentation, having a
persuasive, forceful address, which has
won him deserved recognition. Added
to this, he has displayed in previous
debates a ready ability to shape his
argument to meet the salient points
in his opponents’ presentation, which
has made him a formidable foe in re-
buttal. His success is doubtless due
more than anything else to his long
experience in debating, which antedates
his college course by
Oberlin, where he pursued prepar r
studies, he was president of so ye
two debating clubs and represented the
College in the state oratorical contest,
winning second place in competition
with upper classmen from many of the
rival colleges. In 1892 he was elected
Vice-President of the National Inter-
collegiate Prohibition Association, and
later he spoke in the interests of prohi-
bition in a tour which included the col-
leges of twenty-five states.
On entering Harvard in the Fall of
1894 he won immediate recognition in
debating by being chosen alternate in
the debate with Yale. Later in the same
year he was chosen a member of the
team which met Princeton in the first
intercollegiate debating contest with
that University. Harvard was success-
ful. Last year he again participated in
the Princeton debate and succeeded
with his colleagues in placing another
victory to Harvard’s credit. Professor
Hadley was one of the judges on this
occasion.
Dobyns has pursued the English
courses at the University which give
opportunity for debating practice, but
his special lines of study have been
economics and philosophy. He is a
member of the Harvard Forum, of
which organization he has served as
president, and he now represents it in
the Advisory Committee on Debating.
In the last campaign he spoke in the
interests of sound money, stumping in
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and other states,
William Henry Conroy, Jr., alternate
in the debate, is a Sophomore and was
a member of the Freshman debating
team which defeated the Yale Fresh-
men last year. He lives in Philadelphia
and entered Harvard from the Central
High School of that city, where he re-
ceived the degree of A. B. He was
valedictorian of his class at graduation.
He is studying government and his-
tory and intends to pursue a course in
the Law School. His prowess in debat-
ing secured him an election to the For-
um.
_~<th, >
ee
The Virtue of Saving.
(E. S. Martin in Harper’s Weekly.)
Mr. Lampson is reported to have
owned, at the time of his death, most
of the business part of the village in
where he lived and large tracts of land
in the Genesee Valley. The recent dis-
cussion as to the proper way to use
money suggests some reflections on the
usefulness of such a life as his seems
to. have been. No. details about his
habits or character are at hand; but
Suppose that he was, as he seems to
have been, a country banker, who lived
rather simply, without display or any
considerable expenditure for luxuries,
loaned his money on mortgages, added
interest to principal, accumulated real
estate by the slow process of foreclos-
ure, and finally turned over the results
of his thrift to promote the higher edu-
cation. That would appear to be a life
that should square fairly with the
ideals of critics who disapprove of lav-
ishing funds in high living and gor-
geous entertainments.
Is there anything, on. the whole,
which a@ man who has more income
than he need may better do with his
surplus than to save it? It has been
the custom of the world these many
ages to look upon men who save up a
very. large proportion of their incomes
as useless people, whose money did no
one any good. But nobody hoards
nowadays. No one,-in his senses, who
is really thrifty, hides his treasure in a
stocking or buries it. The contempo-
rary accumulator lends his funds on
mortgage at a moderate rate of inter-
est, and what he cannot Keep in sight
in that way he invests as safely as he
can in some sort of business. He tries
to keep his money in constant use, pay-
ing wages and developing industries.
Yet if he goes on accumulating, and
spends very little on himself, and gives
away little during his lifetime, he is
apt to be regarded with qualified favor
by his neighbors, and to be spoken of
as “close;’ whereas the man who
spends freely is looked upon as liberal,
and is popular with his associates. It
seems possible that the contemporary
political economists will direct us to
revise our opinion of accumulators (we
used to ‘call them misers) and to bid
us look upon them with special respect
as self-denying persons whose instincts
are of great value to the community,
and whose wealth,onceitis gatheredand
turned into capital, stands practically
* ready to promote any enterprise which
appears to an astute investor to offer
prospects of success. Can it be, then,
that the conditions of life have so
changed that avarice, which used to
be a good old-gentlemanly vice, has
come to be (vide Fayerweather, and
now perhaps Mr. Lampson) a praise-
worthy old-gentlemanly virtue?
<->
a
A. J. Baker, 1900, has been elected
President of the Freshman Glee Club..
W. G. Cooke, ’97, has been elected Cap-
tain of the Yale whist team,
HARVARD DEBATING TEAM.
S. R. Wrightington.
Fletcher Dobyns.
W. H. Conroy, Jr. (Alternate).
G. H. Dorr.
THE CORBETT LETTER,
Action Taken—Sentiment of the Uni-
versity and Outside Press.
The excitement over the “Corbett
Club” letter has considerably abated
among the students who have been in-
clined generally to accept the state-
ment printed in the News of March 12,
ag the last chapter of a very disagree-
able incident, which they would like to
forget aS soon as possible, and like
to have others stop talking about as
soon as possible.
The signed statement was not, how-
ever, generally acceptable to those who
had given the matter any serious
thought, and was very unsparingly crit-
icised by many as far removed from
the frank and straightforward apology
that had been hoped for ever since the
letter appeared. This was the more
Surprising and the more disappointing
to men because it was known that near-
ly all the signers had early recovered
from their idea of the humor of the
situation, and had felt very badly over
the matter, and had expressed their
willingness to make any statement in
the matter that seemed best. The gen- .
eral inference has been that the form
ofe th statement was a compromise be-
tween the feelings of a very large ma-
jority and a very small minority. The
statement was as follows:
Appreciating that a wrong may have
been done to Yale University by the
outcome of our act in sending a Yale
flag and a letter to James J. Corbett,
we make the following statement:
First—We had no authority to com-
mit the college or any member of the
college, other than ourselves, nor did
we intend to do so.
Second—No one of us had consider-
ed for a moment the inference which,
it now appears, has been drawn from
the misconstruction of our letter.
Third—Regretting, especially, that
we have thus unwillingly and unwit-
tingly cast any slur on the University,
and with the assurance that we will
do all in our power to undo what harm
we may have done, we are,
Respectfully,
J. W. Wadsworth, Jr.,
Bruce Clark,
J. C. McLauchlan,
Forsyth Wickes,
Frederic Kernochan,
Robert J; Turnbull; Jes
Payne Whitney,
John 8. Rogers,
Dallas C. Byers,
EF. H. Simmons,
Moreau Delano,
Gouverneur Morris,
EF. W. Sheehan.
Earnest efforts have been made on
the part of the Corbett club to regain
possession of the Yale flag, and it is to
be reasonably expected that they will
be successful. The matter has been
put in the hands of a New York grad-
uate, who is thought to have influence
in the desired direction, and who can
oar y on this work quietly and effect-
ively.
The News editorially acepts the state-
ment, but implied in doing so its dis-
appointment at its lateness and insuffi-
ciency and its desire to have done with
the matter. :
A. number of men in the University
have from the first strongly advocated
a University meeting, or some form of
open and public repudiation of the
whole business. By the majority, how-
ever,the vigorous editorial in the News,
reprinted last week, was taken as suffi-
cient public condemnation of the act.
The local papers overlooked the letter
at first, perhaps doubting its authen-
rticity. Awaking late to the news pos-
Sibilities of the situation, they found
the freshest material at hand in the
attitude of the College press. This fact
was taken by some as showing that if
the College press had suppressed the
incident, it might have circulated very
little. .
The Faculty has not taken any action
in the matter and it is not expected
that there will be any official treatment
of che case.
The graduates in New Haven and
others who have been heard from have
generally taken the matter very se-
siously. By all of thm ,the quick re-
pudiation of the act by the News was
most comfortably received.
Some Press Comments,
The New Haven Daily Palladium com-
mented editorially upon ‘‘ A Little In-
cident at Yale,” as follows: ‘‘ Both the
undergraduate body of Yale and the
Faculty have refused to accept the re-
cent episode of the Corbett-Fitzsimmons
fight in the humorous spirit in which it
was inspired A prize fight has always
been regarded in the staid old Purtan
institution asa very brutal and uncul-
tured affair, not at all to be encouraged
by young gentlemen of education and
refinement. Had any individual stu-
dent therefore manifested the slightest
indication of favoring the event, it
would have been a matter of deep re-
gret and shame to all Yalemen. He
would have acted within his right, how-
ever, and in an entirely unofficial ca-
pacity. It is because a few members of
the Junior class presumed to speak for
the College itself that the indignation
of all respectable men has found such a
liberal and expressive vent. To send
the note as voicing the sentiment of the
college, and still worse, to request the
burly brute to wear the sacred insignia
of Yale during the critical hour, are
unquestionably the most flagrant exam-
ples of effrontery within the memory
of the college man. We say nothing »
about the morality of the transaction,
which is obvious; but simply refer to it
as an unparalleled example of under-
graduate gall.
‘“Yale men understand the spirit of
frivolity which is responsible for the
whole affair. But the young men can-
not be excused on that score; nor be-
Cause they are men of enviable prom-
inence, both in the undergraduate and
in the outside world. The matter is too
important not to call for condign pun-
ishment ; and we trust that the student
eo will find a means of bringing this
about.”