Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Spike or Victoria University College Review 1931

Oregon Debating Team's Visit

page 59

Oregon Debating Team's Visit

The large crowd which filled the Training College Hall on the occasion of the first debate with the Oregon University debaters was treated to a delightful and interesting discussion on the subject "That this house disapproves of the rising generation." After a short speech of welcome by the Chairman, Mr. W. J. Mountjoy, Jr., Mr. W. P. Rollings opened V.U.C.'s attack on the rising generation by comparing the outstanding young men of to-day (such as Beverley Nicholls, Noel Coward and Epstein) with the outstanding men of the past. He attacked the immorality of modern youth, as revealed by Mr. Butcher's book, and modern dress.

Mr. Pfaff (Oregon), who had a racy style, a very pleasing personality, and an ingratiating smi!e, maintained that the rising generation was taking the best from every past generation. Modern youth was travelling more, seeing more, and becoming more internationally minded.

Mr. G. Crossley, in a clear and well- arranged speech, maintained tthat this was the age of discontent, disrespect and unmanliness. Mr. Crossley was the only V.U.C. speaker in this debate in whom we were not rather disappointed.

Mr. Miller (Oregon), in an excellent debating speech, interspersed flashes of humour with vigorous criticism of the V.U.C. case. His main thesis was that the drudgery suffered by the older people had made them narrow in their judgments.

Mr. A. E. Hurley maintained that youth was mistaking its calling in the world and that the finer sides of life were being overlooked.

Mr. Wilson (Oregon) gave a literary rather than a debating speech, in which he claimed that the condemnation of the rising generation was so old that the teeth of the argument had fallen out.

Mr. Pfaff made a pleasing rebuttal speech, making his points with an admirable ease of manner. Mr. Rollings made an able summing up, and was much more effective than in his opening speech.

Prof. von Zedlitz awarded the debate to the Oregon debaters, and placed Mr. Miller first speaker. Mr. Crossley was the best of the V.U.C. Speakers.

In the second debate, held in the Town Hall, the motion "That Prohibition in America is a failure," was moved by Mr. Robert Miller (Oregon), Miss Zenocrae Henderson (V.U.C.) and Mr. H. R. Bannister (V.U.C.), and opposed by Mr. pfaff (Oregon), Mr. D. Wilson, Jr. (Oregon) and Mr. W. J. Mountjoy, Jr. (V.U.C.). The Mayer (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop) presided.

Mr. Miller, in opening, asserted that America, though dry in theory was wet in practice, and that the place of the saloon had been taken by the "speak easy." He was heard to much greater advantage in his reply.

Mr. Pfaff, speaking very vigorously and rapidly, covered a great deal of ground.He maintained that the two great aims of Prohibition—the cessation of the manufacture of liquor by commercial interests and the eradication of the saloon—had been realised, and that 80 per cent. less liquor was now consumed.

In a constructive, well-reasoned speech, Miss Henderson attacked Mr. Pfaff's contentions, and then submitted that it was a fallacy that people could be made moral by Act of Parliament, and that Prohibition, a war measure, had not the sanction of public approval. Prohibition had produced, for the first time in history, a body of criminals who were well financed and well armed. Temperance could be attained only by education not by law.

Mr. Wilson declared that Prohibition was becoming more and more effective. The election of President Hoover showed that America still supported Prohibition. The death rate in U.S. had fallen since Prohibition. Mr. Wilson again impressed us as a thinker rather than a debater.

Mr. Bannister, in a speech well seasoned with humour and epigram, contended that Prohibition was a Mohammedan and not a Christian principle. He asserted that the 18th Amendment was unconstitutional. He very cleverly ridiculed the idea of Prohibition and the hypocrisy of its exponents, and advised his opponents to take life a little less seriously, for they would not get out of it alive.

Mr. Mountjoy, after delivering a spirited and effective criticism of his opponent's arguments, showed that arrests for drunkenness in U.S.A. were less than one-tenth of those in New Zealand, and submitted the argument that social and economic conditions in America had improved since prohibition.

Mr. Pfaff and Mr. Miller than replied, and a vote of the audience was taken. This vote, owing to plural voting, was, however, of little value in determining either the issue or the relative merits of the teams.