More on the Debate

(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:--

The best that can be said for Mr. Palmer's letter is that it is evidently the letter of an unthinking and unreasonable man written impulsively. Let me remind Mr. Palmer of a few points which he has doubtless forgotten:

1. Judges are selected by both teams and only when the judges are satisfactory to both parties are they chosen.

2. He blames the judges on the ground that they were New Englanders and hence dominated by "Harvard ideals" and in accord with the ideas and the institution for which the Harvard team stood." Why not blame the judges for being Americans? The American feeling, if I am not mistaken, is strongly opposed to the curtailment of free speech. Surely the judges must have been influenced by the American feeling.

3. He has satisfied himself that the judges were in no position to judge the debate. Then he, a former student of the University of Washington, takes it upon himself to express his infallible judgment that "Washington got a raw deal." Is Mr. Palmer consistent?

4. Why does Mr. Palmer impute the blame of the decision to Harvard? Truly he cannot have attended many debates, else he would not have blamed either side for the vagaries of judges.

5. Merely because popular opinion sided with Washington, as he says, a fact which I have some reason to doubt, it does not result that Washington should have won. Popular opinion may be a capable judge at an oratorical contest, but hardly at a debate. At a debate, it is not so much how it is said, but what is said. This too often escapes the notice of the audience, which frequently renders its judgment upon impression rather than on the respective merits.

I feel sure that Mr. Palmer, when he has thought over the matter a little more carefully will swerve from his unreasonable attitude. MAURICE STERN UNC.