Brown and White Vol. 6 no. 13

              after a criticism of the previous meeting by fletcher starkey gave a resume of the national and poli tical events of the past two weeks on motion the meeting adjourned 1 the future of american shipbuilding 2 the eastward advance of russia 3 the monroe doctrine 4 arbitration 5 anglo saxon civilization 6 our future in the pacific ocean 7 the money question 8 the railroad problem in the united states 9 the future of american commerce 10 national and municipal politics 11 the new american imper ialism 12 moral forces 13 the iron industry 14 triumph of engineering skill 15 sea power thayek ) klein > committee stewart ) tau beta pi initiation into the tau beta k society was held on wednesday night after the initiation cere monies a banquet was held at ( f hc wyandotte hotel the following men were received into member ship : littell bailey home riles mac knight ,' kimball and carman of the class of 99 au bayard of 1900 professor stewart's lecture in his lecture yesterday morning professor stewart confined himself to discussing the situation in the west indies briefly noticing however lord salisbury's speech at a recent english function in which he said that american extension into the east would be a considerable factor in the deyelop ment of the eastern question cuba has for a long time been looked on by the united states as a desirable possession but now we are placed in a peculiar position by the declaration of congress that our interference in cuba was based solely upon humanity and that we would not annex the island now annexation to the united states seems the only possible solution of the cuban problem and it is de sired by all of the better class of cubans the question of an inde pendent government for cuba is much the same as home rule for ireland the better and govern ing party is small in numbers and if the island were given absolute independence the masses of ignor ant people would get possession of everything which would probably be followed by a reign of terror again the bondholders of the cuban debt in france germany and england are determined to be paid and if cuba should set up an independent government it would most likely repudiate that debt it is probable that the united states will be compelled to assume at least a part of this debt if she annexes cuba continued on second page the future of the west indies will be settled by trade considera tions and the only hope for this entire archipelago is to come into relations of some nature with the united states not long ago jamaica petitioned to be annexed by the united states all these islands are practically ruined and this is the only hope for them the great industry of the west indies is sugar cane raising and in the beginning of this century vast fortunes were amassed in england from this source however two things combined to ruin this in dustry these things being the abolition of slavery in great bri tain in the early 30's and a resolve of napoleon to make france economically independent of eng land then all of france's sugar had to come through england and to obviate this napolean started the growing of beet root for mak ing sugar and gave bounties on this kind of sugar the result was that in a short time the cultivation of beet root spread until france and germany were able to supply the entire continental demand for sugar and even to drive the cane sugar from the english markets england being a free trade country could place no tariff on the beet sugar and hence was helpless meeting of the forum the forum held its regular meeting in saucon hall on thurs day evening the attendance was very gratifying several visitors being present as well as a large number of the members president birch called the meeting to order and after roll call the minutes of the previous meeting avere read and approved in order to per mit one of the debaters to leave early the regular order of busi ness was laid aside to give place to the debate a letter was read from the secretary of the pennsyl vania intercollegiate oratorical union stating that a meeting of the delegates from the several colleges in the union would be held in philadelphia on nov 24 to make arrangements for the annual contest to be held at le high university next spring president birch was selected by the society to represent lehigh the membership committee pro posed an amendment to the consti tution by which members who take no interest in the society and do not attend the meetings may be dropped from the roll accord ing to the rules of the society the amendment was laid on the table to be taken up and discussed at the next meeting smith and barry were elected to the society and beck 1900 cassin and mans 01 were proposed for membership shultz was ap pointed to serve on the program committee the literary program follows : the debate was of special inter est the subject being kesolved that a political alliance with great britain would be an advan tage to the united states the question was discussed for the affirmative by messrs meaker 99 and huggins 1900 and for the negative by messrs ortner 1900 and fuller 1900 the first speaker was mr meaker lie discussed a few of the many things which the two nations have in common a common language being a strong basis there being no two otner important nations speak ing the same language practically the same social conditions prevail in the two countries their his tories the same up to the time of the revolution have differed but little since that time the politi cal conditions of the two countries are similar mr ortner claimed that the political conditions were different in the two nations their forms of government being dif ferent he claimed that a political alliance implied an alliance of government and that one or the other government would prevail that an alliance would be opposed to american principles mr higgins showed how com mercially one country could supply what the other required ; that an the massachusetts institute of technology has recently received two gifts one of 20,000 from george a gardner and one of 40,000 from the estate of mrs ann white dickinson the brown and white lehigh university south bethlehem pa friday november 11 1898 vol vi calendar notices friday nov 11 — meeting of tire mechanical section of the engineering society in the physical laboratory at 7.15 p m saturday nov 12 — football lehigh vs annapolis at annapolis sunday nov 13 — meeting of tire y m c a in christmas hall at 6.15 p m tuesday nov 15 meeting of the mathematical club is packer hall wednesday nov 16 — senior ex amination in locomotives and hoisting machinery at t o'clock the first regular meeting of th mathematical club will be held m packer hall on tuesday nigh t,nov 15 instead of wednesday nov.ll as was at first decided professor lambert will read a paper lh<s subject of which will be announced later and it is hoped that all mem bers old and new will be present professor langdon c steward son chaplain of the university will conduct the christian associa tion meeting next sunday evening nov 13 the meeting will be held in the association room in christ mas hall at 6.15 a cordial invitation to be present is extended to all a meeting of ihe mechanical section of the engineering society will be held friday nov 11 at 7.15 p m in the physical labora tory a very interesting paper will be read by frank e braderi baugh of parkersburg w va.,oa the method of making tubes front solid bars 11 r palmer pres b t converse sec spring teams the vote of the undei graduates with reference to the dropping of one of the spring teams resulted im the decision to support both sub ject to the consent of the athletic committee sixty-nine of the eligible men voted fifty-eight to retain both teams and eleven to drop one of them of these eleven ten were in favor of dropping lacrosse and one baseball e teen men voted to drop lacrosse iff one must be dropped and nobod to drop baseball alliance would allow a reduction of the military and naval forces and consequently of taxation the common literature customs insti tutions and religion were discussed mr fuller claimed that the present european alliances are not political but simply compacts for aggression or defence lie quoted from washington's farewell address the warning against foreign al liances the antipathy of amer ica for england is still evident he said and forbids such an agreement which would naturally result in the subjugation of the united states by vote of the society messrs meaker and fuller were selected as the two best speakers the society voted on the merits of the question in favor of the negative while the judges awarded the debate to the affirmative subjects for orations in junior oratorical contest the extemporaneous speech was given by mr garman on the ques tion in the event of cuban an nexation should the united states assume the cuban debt he stated that the spanish demand for the united states to assume the cuban debt was preposterous as a conquered country always retained the debt in support of this state ment he gave a number of ex amples notably that of france in the franco-prussian war is t o m