The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-11-18
THE COLLEGE LEAGUE
AN Annual GATHERING OF EARNEST
YOUNG REPUBLICANS.
They Listen TO Several Able Speeches
college Men in PoIitics-Re-
ceptfOn to Delegates.

| colleges in many States. At 3 o 'cock in the
afternoon the delegates gathered in the Cen
fury Club room. Albert ]. Beverage deliv-
cred an address welcoming them to this
city, He said:
| THE Republicans Of Indiana are proud
| to welcome you-the representatives of one
| Of the bravest regiments in all that invinc-
| Die army of conservatism and progress
| called the Republican party. When the stu
| dents engage In politics colleges are brought
| close to the people, and in republic any
! influence which is not ultimately Of and for
| the people ought to be destroyed An in
tellectual aristocracy is as bad in a sense
as an ariStocracy of rank or aristocracy
| of wealth. The people viii not listen to an
| educated class which breaches at them from
| pulpit of intellectual exclusiveness. The
! educated man must be of the people-one of
/ tons, as we are all of the people in blood.
/ The college which takes the virte young
| store and office and factory and mill and
! converts it into intellectual snobbery, into
a separate class of educated exclusiveness,
| ought to be leveled to the earth. Glasses
| in a republic are the dragons teeth whose
| harvest of ruin is sure as time.
| THE gravest danger which colleges con-
| tanned was the tendency to create an edu-
! Gated class whose intellectual exclusiveness
estranged it from the people. Your move
achievement, corrects this tendency. You
are doing the real work of citizenship. You
| are bringing education into practical poll
tics. You are engaged in getting voters to
the polls-ballots in the box. This league
saved one Republican congressman in 1ndi-
ana from defeat. This league actually res
| cued the situation in one district in the last
election. That is the real thing. That is
/ the getting of things done. God save US
| from the blue-lpped bookman who thinks
of nothing but his own intellectual gluttony.
God give, US vital, masculine combatlXe
minds, who become harder fighters in poll
| tics in proportion as they become harder
| students in college and life. If our best
cincts and States and the Nation, it is be-
cause they do not deserve to do so. A re-
public is state Of political nature where
| This is a government of the people, and if
| the hairy lbreasted men of sin prevail,
| whose fault is 1t, and who shall say them
| nay? In the great scheme of self-govern-
ment we must stand the rigor of the game.
! And if your tempered Damascus blades do
| not win over the clumsy bludgeons, the fault
| is your own and never whimper should
come from college hall, or student den. or
| gilded clubroom.
LIFE THE GREAT TEXT FOR ALL.
mot long ago professors of political econ
| omy in colleges made it point to teach
| pure theory and sneer at the conclusions of
practice. Not long ago it was the fashion
in our institutions of learning to distrust
the people, denounce manhood suffrage and
anathematize the politicians. Wendell Phil
| lips was the first to rebuke all this. His
immortal Phi Beta Kappa address proved
| that the masses are ultimately the only Sc
curity of liberty, that manhood suffrage is
the worlds great hope and that the scholar
| who holds himself superior to the people is
| traitor to free institutions. And
| to-day Wendell Phillips's spirit has
prevailed. To-day college students re-
they sprang-living, thinking, hoping,
| striving with and for them. The only way
to study civil government Is to operate II.
| All the lessons are not IN the books. Life
| is the great text after all-literature is only
| a transcript Of the realities. He who lives
| among the echoes where he may smite IN
! the battle is no good citizen nor true man.
| THE answer TO this demand for real
| tangible results in college life is this re-
| markable organization, the National Repub-
| lican College League. You have proved that
| education does not emasculate citizenship.
| You have proved that books do not neutral
| ize the fighting qualities of the blood. You
| have proved that learning does not make
men intellectual snobs. You nave proved
| that the college does not divorce the student
| from the people. You have proved that
science and Greek and Latin have not in
| capacitated you for practical work, all the
| more valuable because based in wider
| knowledge, steadier nerve and mind more
| disciplined. No man will be poorer citi-
| zen from knowing the ideals Of the great
| citizens of the world from Cato to WASH
| ington. No man will be a poorer practical
politician from knowing the lives or me
| great practical politicians from Cesar the
| prince of them all, to Lewis their greatest
| American type.
| "Blessed are they who use their intellects
| for the welfare of the state, and therefore,
| gentlemen, blessed are you and your organ
ization. And doubly blessed are you in the
| ciplined powers-the cause of the great Re
| publican party the party OF constructor,
of growth Of PROCESS OF e2pansO1 Oh me ae
| ly the constructive principle manifested IN
| human society. The Democratic party is
| merely the destructive principle manifested
| in human society. The Republican party is
| the party that hopes, plans builds, creates,
| achieves, preserves. therefore II Is the
| hood of the Republic to belong to. You be-
long to it. Yo1l are proud of it. It is proud
Of you And the fighting Repuoii bic h,d parry
| political battlefelds with the joy with
| which one soldier in q common cause meets
| and greets his comrade of the fight"
| SUCCESS OF THE LEAGUE.
After Mr.. Beveridge had concluded Arnold
L. Davis. president of the league, talked
| of the successes of the league and
| of its prospects. He said that in the
last campaign several Republican cam
| didates were saved from defeat by the
| league. F. B. Whitney, of Chicago, in
an address. said: For several years previ-
Gus to the organization of the league the
opponents of the Republican party freely
| claimed that they were securing the greater
| part of college men. While this was not adj
| mitted by Republican leaders, they did real
| ize that the party was not getting fair
| share of the educated and naturally pro-
| gressive young men OF the colleges. The
| principal reason for this condition of affairs
| was that while students were engaged in
| their studies, through lack of acquaintance
with the worlds business and reality, they
were more willing to accept as true the
| free-trade sophistrieS cherished by a few
| theoretical and impractical professors. In
| order to make an emphatic denial of the
| imputed lack of Republican sentiment and
| enter vigorous protest against the teach
| ing of doctrines so illogical and un-Ameri-
| can, college men, unsolicited, formed
| league. Cruel experience sealed the fate of
| Democratic free trade in favor of Repub-
| lican protection and reciprocity, and new
| issues were presented to be combated by
| educated practical men. In no campaign
since the civil war there so grave re-
| sponsibility resting upon the Republican
| party as in the last presidential election.
| Under the banner of the Democratic party
| demagogues sought the highest offices. A
| chaotic mass of falsehood, deceit dishonor,
| f1atism reputation and anarchy was en-
Enthusiastically called a declaration of prin-
| ciples.
Let us follow the advice of President
| Mckinley when he addressed the college
| celebration in Canton Study the Constitu-
| ton of the United States thoroughly. Con-
/ trast its teachings with the political parties
| of the day, and vote for the you then
J believe will do most for your country
/ Delmar r. Hawkins. of Syracuse. spoke
| on the Past and Future of Republicanism."
! The movements of history and the institu-
| tons of men are not created he said They
| spring from the remotest periods of the
past with roots deep down in the feelings
| and thoughts of mankind. So it was with
| this league. While 1t was in that splendid
| institution to which all Americans look with
| pride the University of Michigan, that the