Votume VI. No. 25.
NEW HAVEN, CONN., THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1897,
A VICTORY AT CAMBRIDGE.
Yale Wins a Second Time From Har-
vard=—A Great Contest at
Sanders? Theater.
Cambridge, Mass., March 27.—The
annual debate between Yale and Har-
vard was held in Sanders’ Theater last
evening and Yale was awarded the de-
cision. Not content with the vietory in
New Haven a year ago, Yale carried
the campaign into “the enemy’s coun-
try,’’ and defeated her rival, heretofore
invincible on the home platform. If
there existed any doubt of the genuine-
ness of the debating rennaisance in
New Haven, that doubt must have
been dissipated by last evening’s con-
test. The former success might have
been explained, as indeed it was ex-
plained by many here, as a chance vic-
tory. An unusually strong Yale team
met a team not up to the previous
Harvard standard, and, under the
stimulus of a sympathetic home audi-
ence, succeeded in interrupting the
chain of Harvard victories. But the
outcome of last evening’s contest can-
not be thus easily explained away.
Harvard was awake to the situation
and the favorable conditions were hers.
Both universities had picked their
teams carefully, the one bent on re-
establishing its former prestige, the
other on vindicating the verdict of a
year ago.
A propitious evening rewarded those
who had conducted the arrangements,
and a crowded auditorium awaited the
rival teams. At previous debates in
Sanders’ Theater the audience has
never more than comfortably filled the
lower part of the house. On this occa-
sion every seat in the theater was dis-
posed of, and one hundred and fifty ad-
mission tickets were sold at the en-
trance. If, as seems probable, the. in-
terest in these debates is to continue,
a serious problem must be met on the
alternate years, when the contest is
held in Harvard territory. Memorial
Hall was erected before intercollegiate
debates were contemplated, and the >
college theater, which is adequate for
most purposes, will no longer contain
the numbers who wish to listen to
these intellectual battles. Hither the
attendance will have to be restricted
by an undesirable selection, or a Bos-
ton auditorium will have to be secured
at a sacrifice to the distinctively uni-
versity character which has been. the
charm of these meetings.
Last evening, for the first time in a
Cambridge debate, the Yale men occu-
pied seats together. Many of the Bos-
ton graduates who had hoped to be
present were unable to do so, but the
Yale colony in the Law School, the un-
dergraduates who came from New Ha-
ven and the friends of the visiting de-
baters formed an enthusiastic minor-
ity, animated by the common senti-
ment of unalterable opposition to the
adoption by the United States of a pol-
icy of gold monometallism.
In front of the Yale seats was a del-
egation from Radcliffe College. Seats
had also been reserved near the stage
for the members of the University
crew, who entered toegther, and were
given an ovation.
The question to be debated was:
“Resolved, That the United States
should adopt definitively the single gold
standard and should decline to enter a
bimetailic league even if Great Britain,
France and Germany should be willing
to enter such a league.’’ -
The judges were Judge Edgar A.
Aldrich of..the United States Circuit
Court, Prot. Davis ih. Dewey: ef the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and Prof. Franklin H. Giddings of Co-
lumbia.
The entrance of the Speakers ac-
companied by Governor Wolcott, who
was to preside, was the signal for a
hearty round of applause, and through-
out the evening the good points made
by the rival contestants were received
with impartial courtesy. ,
In opening the exercises, Governor
Wolcott referred to the friendly rela-
tions which made such contests be-
tween the universities possible and
gave his warm endorsement to this
avenue. of intercollegiate rivalry. In
this connection he said:
“We are so organized that there is
intense enjoyment in the full and free
exercise of any faculty, physical or
mental. And this enjoyment takes on
a keener zest when there enters into
the exercises of these faculties the ele-
ement of emulation, of the strong desire
to excel. The two most famous univer-
sities of the Western Hemisphere stand
for the same things—they stand, and
shall always stand, for education, for
enlightenment, ayo for wanhood-
And it is proper and fitting that the
students of these two great universl-
ties should be knit together by some-
thing like the bond that forms two reg-
iments enlisted in the same cause and
fighting beneath the same flag.
“This tie of comradeship should not—
and I need not say that it does not—
preclude an intense rivalry and emula-
tion. There is something fine on the
field, on the track, or on the water, in
feeling that a man not only represents
himself, but that he bears the colors of
his college to victory if may be, but if
not, to honorable defeat.
“Surely there is also something fine
when men meet in generous emulation,
in which the fine instrument is the
human brain, that embodies arguments
and thoughts which are to find fitting
expression in language that may take
on the color and the wings of imagery
or poetry. And so, gentlemen and la~
dies, it is a pleasure to me, represent-
ing the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts, to welcome to this debate the
men who have done us the honor to
come here from our sister University of
Yale. Whatever rivalry, whatever em-
ulation exists between these two uni-
versities, it should always be a gener-
ous, a knightly, a chivalric emulation
and rivalry.”’
The Debate Analyzed.
The debate which followed, measured
by the standard of an ideal debate,
was unsatisfactory, for the two teams
failed to meet squarely on the issue.
But it would be a mistake to call it an
uninteresting contest, for the high
quality of the competition, particularly
in argument, the dogged refusal of each
side to be drawn into accepting the
other’s interpretation of the question,
and the ingenuity displayed in devis-
ing pitfalls for an unwary. opponent
made the debate fully as exciting as
any in which the two universities have
engaged. The suspense, during the
half-hour interval which elapsed while
the judges were reaching a decision,
was keen among the debaters and lis-
teners. The greater part of. the audi-
ence undoubtedly thought the home
team had won. Fletcher Dobyns, the
last speaker for Harvard, had thrown
discredit on Yale’s interpretation of the
question, and his superiority 1n address
and his tact in presenting his theme 10
a popular way had drawn most of the
listeners into his way of thinking.
-voeated the expediency of a
Price Tren Cents.
But the question was deeper than he
represented it. Yale had maintained
that the question was not a theoretical,
academic one of the merits of mono-
' metallism and bimetallism, but a prac-
tical question of whether it was expedi-
ent to definitively adopt the single gold
standard at the present time. Harvard
had refused to recognize this inter-
pretation. If it was tenable, the elab-
orately constructed argument of the
affirmative was futile, for it failed
wholly to meet the issue. The Yale
contingent were confident that the logic
of Yale’s position would be recognized
by the judges.
If, however, the Harvard interpreta- |
tion obtained, the decision was not cer-
tain to be in Harvard’s favor. Yale,
while declining to elaborate any definite
bimetallic policy, had shown the ad-
vantages which would accrue from a
use of the two metals, and emphasized
the faults and dangers of a single
standard. Moreover, the Harvard de-
baters had at one time discussed the
evils of the present attitude of the gov-
ernment, which would be corrected by
definitively adopting the gold standard,
and, subsequently, under the stress of
the Yale attack had minimized these
evils, asserting that the United States
was already pursuing a policy to gold
monometallism and that the proposed
step would merely operate to confirm
this attitude—an apparent inconsisten-
cy of which the negative took full ad-
vantage. It is probable, however, that
the judges decided the debate on Yale’s
interpretation cf the question, and that,
had they allowed Harvard’s contention,
they would have considered the ab-
sence of a constructive argument for
pimetallism a fatal defect in Yale’s
presentation.
WRIGHTINGTON OPENS FOR HARVARD.
The debate was opened by Sidney R.
Wrightington, of Massachusetts, on
whom the task devolved of outlining
the affirmative argument.
He won the attention of the audience
by his finished and convincing delivery,
showing a marked improvement over
his work in the trial competition. At
the outset he stated the question to be
“Shall we strengthen our existing gold
standard by adopting it definitively, or
shall we attempt to establish a double
standard by a national agreement?” He
then presented a historic argument to
show that old basic principle of mone-
tary evolution is movement away from
the cheaper and bulkier standards to
those containing greater value in small-
er bulk. The present gold standard he
held to be the survival of the fittest
in the long process of selection. He ad-
single
standard as simple and automatic and
“decried any attempt to establish an
artificial system by legislation.
The bimetallic theory he character-
ized as experimental and called on the
negative to state at its earliest oppor-
tunity what ratio of exchange it would
suggest for the two metals.
The existing gold standard he thought
was good enough. Production, exports
and wages had risen. The fall in price
was not a menace but a stimulus to
American enterprise. The past twenty-
five years had been in the main a peri-
od of prosperity. Business troubles had
been due rather to special causes than
to the currency and the existing finan-
cial system had worked badly only
when there had been talk of changing
it. The adoption of the gold standard
definitely would restore confidence in
the business world. ;
YALE ‘‘LAY LOW.”
By this opening argument it was ap-
parent that Harvard expected Yale to
champion bimetallism. Had the visitors
taken up the gauntlet thrown down by
Wrightington and suggested a rate on
which the two metals were to be main-
tained at a parity, there is no telling
what pitfalls were in store for them.
But this was no part of the Yale pro-
gram. Neither was it a part of the pro-
gram of the Yale team to show its
hand too quickly. Charles §. Macfar-
land of Massachusetts, in opening the
negative side, played the part of ‘‘Br’er
Fox’”’ on a celebrated occasion and “‘lay
low’”’ to allow Harvard to make a few
more, punches: at. the. tar: baby. = He
stated the position of the negative to
be merely that the United States should
not take action which would preclude
union with other nations for relief from
existing financial evils,—but he left it
for his colleagues to elaborate this
idea. He pointed out clearly the evils
of the existing monetary system and
the most apparent benefits which the
establishment of international bimetal-
lism would confer. He showed the
continual unrest of the business world
since gold bécame the monetary unit
in 1873, and how it had destroyed the
par of exchange between gold and sil-
ver using countries and the resulting
damage to trade. He emphasized the
effect of the marked fall in prices under
the gold regime in discouraging busi-
ness enterprise and forcing every mah
to seek immediate personal advantage
and hasty profits with the inevitable
result of idle money and idle men. In
contrast he showed the conditions in
France under bimetallism during 70
years.
His manner throughout was distinct-
ly argumentative and his gestures were
mainly those of emphasis.
HARVARD KEEPS ON THE SAME TACK.
G. Hamilton Dorr of New Jersey,
took up the thread of the Harvard ar-
gument and in turn disposed of the
leading arguments urged by bimetal-
lism and silver advocates against the
single standard. His address showed
most thorough preparation, and, if the
issue had been the relative merits of
the single and double standard, ee
would have been most difficult to re-
fute. In spite of a slight impediment
of speech, Dorr could .be heard easily
in all parts of the theater. He hegan
by answering the claim of the preced-
ing speaker that falling prices had dis-
couraged business enterprise and gave
the familiar arguments to account for
the decline by natural causes. Turn-
ing his attention to the argument of
appreciated debts, he asserted that the
debtor need work fewer hours to pay
his debt now than when it was con-
tracted for wages and incomes had
risen and prices fallen. :
~’ Among the dangers of bimetallism he
counted the rising prices which induced
over speculation, and showed how the
increase of money could be a hardship
for the laborer owing to the rise in
wages failing to keep pace with the
rise in prices.
YALE ON THE OFFENSIVE.
With the principal argument for Har-
vard, two-thirds finished. Charles U.
Clark of Brooklyn, N. Y., took up the
Yale argument and defined the position
of the negative with telling clearness. He
spoke so low that his words could not
pe heard with distinctness in the rear.
of the theater, but this very fault in
his delivery drew closer attention to
him and he held the closest attention
of the audience.
In answer to the previous speaker,
he -saia that Yale men were not there
to discuss the wages question. The
question was whether the immediate
adoption of the gold standard definitive-
ly was advisable. The only re asonable
presumption was that the question ap-
plied to the present time, not to the
indefinite future. ‘The important ques-
tion was not highest prices but steady
prices. Prices had not been steady un-
der the gold standard. Such a radical
step as the adoption definitively of the
single standard would further unsettle
prices. It would be direct opposition
to the established policy of this coun-
try which has always been the avow-
ed friend of bimetallism. Instead of
restoring confidence it would leave the
opposite result. To maintain the single
gold standard would require an im-
mediate gold reserve of vast propor-
tions or a provision for future gold.
The former would require large issues
of bonds and the doubling of the na-
tional debt. The latter would be a post-
ponement merely of the evil and the .