Brown and White Vol. 7 no. 34

              at the oratorical contest 00 thursday dr drown made the fir»t public announcement of a new endowment of prizes for the en couragement of oratory and general literary studies in the university a generous and cultured friend of the university who for the pres ent wishes to be unknown has given a fund sufficient to provide annually the sum of 350 to be distributed in prizes as follows : 1st four prizes of a total value of 60 to members of the sopho more class for excellence in eng lish composition 2d a gold medal or its value of 100 for the best dissertation on subjects selected from english literature and economics from members of the senior ciass to gether with this prize five prizes of 10 each are awarded for tne dissertations next in order of merit 3d a graduate prize of 125 for the best thesis of not less than 5000 words on a subject selected from english literature econom ics or philosophy open to seniors graduates of one year's standing and resident graduate students of the university it is provided that should none of these disserta tions and thesis attain to the stand ard of excellence established by the faculty the money value of the prizes shall be used by the presi dent to further public speaking in the university in any manner he may see fit the.-e prizes representing a per manent endowment of 9,000 is the largest gift of this kind ever offered to the university and the trustees and faculty appreciate most highly this valuable aid and stimu lus in promoting the cause of eng lish writing and speaking in the university the annual indoor winter meet with lafayette was held in the university gymnasium on thurs day afternoon and resulted in the overwhelming score of 60 to 20 in lehigh's favor the attendance was good but not what it should have been the undergraduates scarcely being as well represented as the friends of the university the first four events of the contests were very one sided lehigh winning first and second in each in the rope climbing high jumping and kicking and the rings the contestants were more evenly matched and although we won . the greater number of points the work done by our opponents was very creditable in the hi^h jump after a close a d and exciting contest lehigh succeeded in taking first second and third although chid sey of lafayette was close upon ful ler's heels for third place some excellent work was done by both sides on the rings and this event was doubtless the prettiest of the meet eeamer and laubenstein did some very clever work on the horizontal bar and the work of grubbe harrar and brice on the horse was of its usual high order drake won first easily in the fence vault with maeder a close second ross excelled on the parallel b rs and symington won first in both the high kick and high jump in the rope climb maeder and becker were tied for first place maeder winning on the toss up the win ners in each event were as follows ; horizontal bar reamer l u first ; lauben stein l u second peters l c third horse grubbe l u first harrar l u second sieder l 0 third fence vault 6ft 4in drake l u first maeder l u second andr ss l c third parallel bars ross l u first reamer l u second sieder l c third high kick symington l u first bigelow } l u second weaver l 0 third indian clubs reamer l u first crossley l c second schmidt l c third the brown and white lehigh university south bethlehem pa friday february 23 1900 dual winter meet no 34 oratorical contest vol vii lehigh wins by a score of 60 to 20 the juniors make an excellent showing rope climb maeder l u first becker l u second seem l c m third high jump symington l u first drake l u second fuller l u third rings bacon l c first mendoza l u second chidsey l c third tumbling hodson l c first reamer l u second brice l u third the judges were mr j a rodger physical director mauct chunk y m c a mr william j cromie mauch chunk y m c a and mr g d marshall of bethlehem new prizes despite the inclement weather of thursday mornirg the chapel was well filled with undergradu ates faculty and friends of the university attendant upon the annual junior oratorical contest for the first time in many years the required number of men con tested and the men are to be congratulated up">n their fine showing the exercises began with the chorus hail bright abode tannhaueser by wagner after which dr drown announced several new prizes enumerated in another column after the hymn u o god our help in ages past francis donaldson the first speaker was introduced he spoke upon ' the need of an increased navy as follows : " a variety of views are held on ihe subject of the increase of the american navy the three most important are : 1 that it is superfluous to in crease our navy 2 that all the money appropri ated for our national protection should be spent on fortifications along the coast 8 that the united states should maintain an efficient navy for de fence only " the plan of leaving the navy alone would seem very satisfactory if the persons who hold that view eould prove conclusively that we shall have no more war shore fortifications should by all means be built and in fact the government is at present construct ing such it is utterly impossible however to fortify all our coast line it is true that in our position we should not begin war but public sentiment is powerful and changes by events did spain force us un avoidably into the recent conflict or did not american pride aroused by the maine disaster have some thing to do with it ? nor does everything look calm in the future hawaii and the philipines con sidering the not over friendly atti tude of japan and germany seem douds on the horizon besides this it is always possible for one nation to become involved in a dis pute between two others these ihings demand that america should continued on second page have a squadron capable of defence in the broadest sense of the word capable of del-ending our interests at home and abroad as murat halsted says : ' we should have a squadron for the at lantic and one for the pacific each able to confront all enemies that might be moved to command our waters and threaten our cities it is false ec nomy not to prepare such a fleet lewis alfred freudenberger the second speaker chose " the eight hour day he said : the industrial revolution which started with ihe introduction of the steam engine in the eighteenth century has been as far-reaching in its effects on the social and political structure of society as the renaiss ance in the fifteenth centurv altered the point of view in art literature and science this industrial revo lution has been characterized by first the concentration of capital — the corporation has swallowed the small business man and the corpor ation is itself being absorbed by the trusts ; second by the extreme limit to which the division of irb r has been carried ; third by the wide and ever-widening gap between employer and employee fourth by the periodic hard times due to over development of the credit system ; and finally by the fierce competition that weakens the laborer and eventually resu-lts in the sweat-shop " the argument that is pointed to with most pride by the laborer is that the eight-hour day would give employment to the large army of unemployed if eight hours work produces as much as ten hours why should an employer put on more men ? there is evi dently a fallacy somewhere at the present time the strangest argument against the eight hour day is that the supreme court itself has declared the law unconstitutional in that it inter feres with the equal right of contract " man to-man states cannot pass equally satisfactory industrial regulations on account of the varying conditions of industry one trade may demand a hard physical strain upon the laborer who must work just as long as the well-paid clerk in his easy chair " there are forces at work in our economic society which will bring about a reduction in the hours of