The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-03-05
MR. LAMBETH THg WINNER,
An Able Young Townsville Nan Wins Honors
at Vanderbilt

Mr.. w A. Lambeth, son of Mr.. #. s.
Lambeth, of Thomasville, N. c.. a stu
dent at Vanderbilt University, has been
hcnored by the Dialectic Society to rep
resent Vanderbilt in the Southern Inter
collegiate Oratorical contest to be held
at Sewannee on the 18th day of May Mr..
Lambeth won this honor in the contest
with the brightest minds at Vanderbilt,
in a contest that elected the deepest in
terest.
The Nashville American, writing of Mr..
Lambeths speech, says:
''Thc second speaker was w. A. Lam
beth, of The Dialectic Society, who spoke
on 1.-THE Crisis. His speech was so
builded that the judges had no difficulty
in grasping the-connected line of thought.
He has an earnest delivery and his plead
ing tone held the ear of his audience
from the start. He is from Thomasville
n. c., and a member of the Theological
Department. He should stand a splendid
chance to win at the final trial in May.
''Mr. Lambeth began by declaring that
Tolstoi's contention that international
brotherhood makes sentiment of father
land superfuous like a lamp in the day
only in theory. never in practice. Each
nation had problems that must be solved
by that nation. Yet the devotion of ones
self to the locality in which one lives
does not imply the sacrifice of interna-
tional fraternity. The best way to touch
the world was to touch the locality in
which one lived. The ultimate result of
such work was world wide in its influ-
ence.
$50 patriotism, said the speaker, mot
provinciaTism, is the promoter of one
great idea today sweeping over the
Southern States, conservation of South
ern talents to the solving of Southern
problems"
These problems, Mr. Lambeth said,
were presented by industry, politics and
religion. With its immense resources and
rapidly increasing capital, the South was
destined to become a manufacturing as
well as an agricultural center There
was in progress in the South an indus
trial evolution, which was similar to
that experienced by the North thirty
years ago, and which demanded skillful
direction to prevent a continuation Of the
war waged between labor and capital in
the North
RACE VS.. RACE.
'While this conflict was of the future,
political conditions had already arrayed
one race against another. Through mis-
use, the negro ballot had lost its sacred
ness in the eyes of the white man. The
spirit which prompted America to fit
the Filipino for government and not
to give him something he could neither
appreciate nor manage was the same
which prompts the Southern white men to
eliminate the incompetent negro vote.
Fitness, ability. not aristocracy, not col
or, was to be the test of citizenship.
These Industrial and political move
ments had led to the question: "Will the
church continue to hold its own in the
South" The preachers of the South, the
speaker said, had a great opportunity.
The South needed preachers who could
keep the business men in the church,
preachers who could implant the highest
principles Of conduct into those who were
now giving shape to the industrial and
civic life.
Mr.. Lambeth closed by paying a tri-
butte to the work of the South in up
building its lost fortunes, and appealing
to the generation of the present day to
continue the great work of the past"