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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (April 4, 1900)
Vou. IX. No. 27... NEW HAVEN, CONN., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 1900. Copyright, 1990, by Yale Alumni Weekly. PRICE 10 Cents. - HARVARD WON DEBATE. Yale Excelled in Subject Matter, but was Inferior in Form. The annual debate between Yale and Harvard, held in College Street Hall, Friday evening, March 30, went to Har- vard after one of the most interesting contests in the history of debating be- tween the two colleges. The question chosen was one of the hour: “Resolved, That Puerto Rico be included within the customs boundaries of the United States,” of which Harvard had the popu- lar affirmative side. were: Elias Mayer, 1900, of Chicago; Harry A. Yeomans, 1900, of Chicago, and Wilbur Morse, 1900, of Philadelphia. Yale was represented by Mason Trow- bridge, 1902, of Chicago; Ashley D. Leavitt, 1900, of Melrose, Mass., and Ferdinand Q. Blanchard, Amherst, 98, a Senior in the Theolgical School, whose home is in West Newton, Mass. The judges were: Chief Justice Parker or: Albany, “N--"Y-< Prot, George W. Pepper of the University of Pennsyl- vania and Prof. F. F. Goodnow of Co- lumbia University. ; Harvard’s speakers had a decided ad- vantage with the affirmative side of question, having only to follow the lines of argument already presented by the advocates of inclusion in Congress. Yale, on the other hand, with less to base convincing arguments upon, had covered all points she could possibly use, with great thoroughness and pre- sented them, in.the main, well. In re- buttals, which played an important and unusual part through the whole debate, Yale was very strong, with one excep- tion. Considered in general, the debate showed, on Yale’s part, a slight superior- ity in subject matter, and in force and closeness of reasoning; on Harvard’s part, a considerable superiority in gen- eral form, not merely in oratory but in effective presentation. of points. Yale lacked in power to show the bearing of her points, her position not being clearly outlined at.the beginning. This made her speeches seem invertebrate and scat- tering and it was not until the first rebuttal that she made her position clear and the relevancy of her arguments ap- parent, thus throwing back over her speeches a light which should have shone through them from the start. Considered individually, Mr. Trow- bridge showed himself to be a debater of great force, especially in rebuttal. He made the mistake, however, in his first speech of failing to outline clearly, the position of the negative. Mr. Leavitt spoke clearly and in good form. He was justified in giving his consitutional argument, but should have sacrificed a part of it to show its relevancy, which Harvard did not admit. Mr. Blanchard, although showing a great deal of adapt- ibility, failed to take advantage of Har- vard’s superficial standpoint when all her speakers had avoided, entirely, the constitutional aspect of the case. Either he or Mr. Leavitt should have met more effectively Harvard’s points on moral obligation and Americanizing the island. These faults, however, were due largely to a failure in the training of the team, owing to a lack of strong opposing teams in preliminary debate. It left the attack weak, a vital defect in the train- ing for negative arguments. MR. MAYERS OPENING SPEECH. Every seat in the Hall was taken, when, at a few minutes past 8 o'clock, President Hadley, the presiding officer, introduced the first speaker of the even- Harvard’s speakers. ing, Mr. Mayer. of Harvard. At the outset, Mr. Mayer showed the position Harvard meant to take—that of moral responsibility, coupled with humanitar- ianism. He eloquently pictured the horrors of the hurricane last year in the island of Puerto Rico and the present condition of the natives, whose crops, buildings and small manufactories had been swept away. ‘Any policy,” said he, “which the United States adopts for the island must carry these three things: Immediate economic relief by supplying cheap food, cheap,clothing and employ- ment; assurance 6f steady employment and permanent industrial development, and finally, the discharge of our moral obligations.” He argued that the plan of inclusion would give immediate relief because, the United States, the natural market for this people, could furnish the articles they needed, food, wearing ap- parel, and building and manufacturing materials more cheaply than any country in the world; that the markets of the United States, if opened to the articles grown and manufactured in Puerto Rico, would give a tremendous impetus to the industries in the island, and more than make up the loss of the Spanish and Cuban markets caused by American ac- quisition. The stability, he said, caused by inclusion would bring about a great rush of American capital for the de- velopment and exploitation of the place. Mr. Mayer’s arguments followed closely the familiar ones of the congressional inclusionists. . Mr. Trowbridge, in opening for Yale said that bringing Puerto Rico within the customs boundaries, while it would accomplish certain good ends, meant the infliction, on the inhabitants, of tariff laws which were entirely unsuited to their needs and which would raise one- third more revenue than was necessary for the government of the island, prin- cipally from the pockets of the poorer classes. In support of his contention he showed that the Dingley tariff imposed ‘on rice, the great staple of food for the poorer classes and one-fourteenth of all imports, two cents per pound, which was an increase of rates, paid under Spain, of 100 per cent. Cotton, wood and fish, also prime necessities, would come to the islanders at a very “ugh high rate and would mean an unbear- able burden. : In closing his arguments, which had been sound and lucid throughout, Mr. Trowbridge stated that the proposition of the negative was to let Congress make a tariff adapted to the peculiar needs and conditions of Puerto Rico, later on, letting the Puerto Ricans’ themselves have a hand in the framing of such a tariff, giving them the privilege of buy- ing from outside nations what they need the most cheaply, and offering the mar- kets of the United States for the three great products of the island, sugar, cof- fee and rum. When Mr. Yeomans, Harvard’s second speaker arose, he took exception to Mr. Trowbridge’s statement that the Dingley tariff would throw a heavy burden on the poor people in the matter of. rice, because he claimed, and offered author- ity for it, that rice of an inferior quality, known as broken rice, was eaten by the natives and on that there was but one- quarter of a.cent per pound, a reduction of 75 per cent. of what they had been paying. He stated, moreover, that broken rice was a drug on the Louisiana market, which seemed to clinch a telling point for his side. In his portion of the presentation of Harvard’s argument, Mr. Yeomans laid great stress on the per- manency of policy gained by inclusion, without .which the island could never become Americanized or. developed by American money. The speech was one of the best ever heard on such occa- sions, being clear in exposition and de- livered with a fluency and elegance very unustial in intercollegiate debating. Mr. Leavitt showed the influence of Mr. Symth’s coaching to take advantage of weak points in an opponent’s armor, when he, on rising to deliver Yale’s second speech, quoted from Commis- sioner Carroll to show that the Puerto Ricans did use rice on which a duty of two cents a pound was laid. He went rather deeply, and as it happened, un- necessarily into the constitutional side of the case, to show that Congress was not limited by constitutional provisions for uniformity of duties and that it could, according to precedent, legislate for the island in its present political status. His argument was well rounded, exhaustive and delivered with fine force though rather too tapidly. Mr. Morse closed Harvard’s side of the set speeches in an able, finished speech, which summed up the arguments of his colleagues and added a forceful appeal for the redemption of the promise of General Miles to the Puerto Ricans, that “they should enjoy the same privi- leges and immunities as the people of the United States.” He waived entirely the constitutional question, thus weakén- ing his case. Mr. Blanchard closed for Yale, argu- ing the right of Congress to deal with the island as its needs demanded. His introduction of the question of precedent for the Philippines should the boundaries be extended to Puerto Rico, was the least convincing of the arguments used by the negative because it was weakly put. INTERESTING ARGUMENTS IN REBUTTAL. The six set speeches had occupied about an hour and a quarter, and rebuttals be- gan at half past nine, each speaker be- ing allowed a limit of five minutes. Mr. Trowbridge, for Yale, returning to the rice question, showed by the report of Commissioner Carroll, that if it were true that “broken rice was a drug on the Louisiana markets,’ the growers there had no one to blame but them- selves, because “not a pound had been shipped to Puerto Rico in the year the report was made.” The point was heartily applauded. Mr. Morse, too, be- came involved in the rice question, but his argument that the broken rice was. not shipped across the Gulf because it was a wiser method to feed it to stock, did not carry conviction with it and raised a little laugh in. different parts of the Hall. In his rebuttal, Mr. Leavitt reiterated the danger of forcing a tariff on a people citing the instances in South Carolina and Western Pennsylvania, both of which threatened disruptions of the government and had to be abated. He let his case rest by putting it on the high moral plane of the best thing for the Puerto Ricans and not the best thing for the American capitalist. Mr. Yeomans disposed of the excess revenue difficulty by saying the money might be turned into the building of roads and school-houses and in the education and general improvement of the lower classes. His rebuttal, as well as _ his first speech, was a model of fluency, soundness and grace. Mr. Blanchard’s closing five minutes for Yale added nothing to the weight of what had gone before the negative, con- tenting himself with summing up and advancing the plea that legislation would give the people of the island what they wanted without the disadvantages of the system proposed by the affirma- tive. A policy to cure the suffering, give permanence and stability were the points for inclusion emphasized by Mr. Mayer, the last Harvard speaker. He said it would: be-utterly impossible to legislate fairly for Puerto Rico as long as the people of thé island had no voice in that legislation, and closed the debate with an appeal for adherence to the in- clusion precedents followed for more than a hundred. years of the nation’s history. ee | 3 The decision of the judges, twenty- three minutes afterwards. that Harvard had won, was not unexpected, although there was the hope expressed by some, that the excellent subject-matter and thorough knowledge of the unpopular side. of the question might throw the decision to Yale. During the period of waiting President Hadley, who said that “it was the unfortunate duty of a pre- siding officer to keep the audience amused while the judges were at work,” told a number of good stories and at the close, becoming serious, he compli- mented the debaters for their work in rebuttal, which he said was unrivalled in the history of intercolegiate debating between Yale and Harvard. The interest taken in the debating this year is largely due to the good work in the Yale Union, which has had the most successful year in its history. The at- tendance has averaged over sixty at each meeting, and the debates held were more carefully worked up than ever before. The Wale Post Office. The post office at the University, which will be established for the mail of the Yale Campus and the occupants of the University buildings in the im- mediate vicinity of the Campus,: will be opened next September in temporary quarters which have not yet been set- tled. The architects of Fayerweather have already arranged for a large room at the south end of that hall,—that is, on Elm Street, which will have an en- trance on either side of the building and give ample facilities for the handling of the mail. The office, according to pres- ent arrangements, will have no carrier attached to it. It will, however, have a box for each room of the Campus - buildings and those immediately ad- joining the Campus. The official mail of the University will also go through this office. There will be, of course, the usual stamp, money-order and registered letter facilities. It has not been decided by the postal authorities who will have charge of the office. It is estimated that the mail to go through such an office will run from two to three thou- sand letters a day. This is based on the experience of the New Haven Post Office. y we = in Se alin att Personal Mention. Mr. Morris F. Tyler, Treasurer of the University will leave on Thursday of this week for a trip through the West, on business. in connection with the Treasurer’s office. His principal work will be to look over property in different parts of the country in which the Uni- versity is interested. This trip has no connection with the Bi-centennial funds. Prof. A. Guyot Cameron, who was = assistant professor in French in the Sheffield Scientific School, and left there in 1897 to accept a professorship at Princeton, has just been made by the trustees of that University, Academic Professor of French. At the same time, the French Academic elective is opened to Scientific students of Princeton, so a University French course is established with Professor Cameron at the head. Henry A. Rowland, Yale ’95 Hon., Professor of Physics at Johns Hopkins University, was elected a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences at the bi-centenary meeting held March 19, at Berlin, Germany.
