Swigert Discusses Character, Progress of Debating in Oxford Union Society

The following article on the brilliant development of Oxford debating in connection with the Oxford Union was written for the Crimson by J. M. Swigert '30 who is coaching this years Harvard Debating Council. The debate stresses the unique nature of tomorrows forensic contest.

Tomorrow evening at 6 o'clock a team of the Harvard Debating Council meets three members of the Oxford Union Society in the first trans-oceanic radio debate in history. The Harvard speakers will talk from New York and the Oxonians from London. The debate will be broadcast from coast to coast over a network of the National Broadcasting Company, which is co-operating with the British Broadcasting Company in this pioneering venture.

Nothing comparable to the Oxford Union Society exists at Harvard today. This organization, now a real power at Oxford, was founded in 1823. In its origins it was purely a debating society, and now, after a hundred years, debating remains its raison d'etre. The first inter-collegiate contest in which it engaged was in 1829, when the representatives of the Cambridge Union were met at Oxford. William Edward Gladstone, then President of the Union, arranged this meeting. The motion on this occasion read, 'that Shelley as a poet was superior to Byron." The Oxford men defended creditably their late undergraduate.

From this beginning grew the Oxford Union of today. The Society fills the Debating Hall, located in one of its two splendid buildings, every week with from 350 to 500 undergraduate members. Here Britain's embryonic Parliamentarians and business leaders undergo their first forensic bombardments. The "maiden speech" at the Union is an event recalled fondly in later life by many a British statesman. Overlooking the scene of the weekly debates stand the busts of a King and three Prime Ministers--all once leaders of the Union. The speakers who meet Harvard tomorrow evening have received their training in this historic environment. Mr. O'Brien, the fourth speaker of the evening, occupies the Presidential Chair today which was formerly the prized possession of such men as Gladstone, Cecil, Asquith, Guedalla and Cardinal Manning.

The limited resources of the Harvard Debating Council are in striking contrast to the plentiful means of the Oxford equivalent. The physical equipment of the Oxford Union has no counterpart here. The Library of the English society is considerably larger than that in Eliot House. The walls are covered with murals by Rossetti, and other rooms in the spacious buildings are decorated on the same scale.

The coming debate will be the first between the two colleges since 1925.