The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-24

| University, May 23.-(Special )--Al- 1 umni day at the university. when the old grads come back to burnish up "auld aequaintance' and 10 pay tribute to alma mater is always one of the biggest days of the commencement sea son, sharing honors with, if not ac- tually eclipsing, commencement day. The feature of the day is almost al ways the oration before the society of the alumni, delivered generally hy-l some man of nation wide .reprt;siion. In recent yeefss., this oration has been lde,iyerea py such men as Champ Clark. jthe present speaker of the House of Representatives. Bourke cochrane of New York, the lamented John A. John son, at the time of his speech here the governor of Minnesota and a prominent candidate for the democratic nomina- tion for the presidency, and Thomas R.
 Marshall. now Vice President of the
 United States.
 Alumni day this year will be fully up to the best traditions of the past. in every respect. The orator this year : is A. Mitchell Palmer congressman from the Twenty sixth Pennsylvania Z district and candidate for the United
 States Senate, one of the right t-hani
 men of President Wilson in the House 5 of Represen tatives, and one of the ablest young democrats in the country. Having achieved his prominence in pub i, lie life through sheer strength of in
 tellect and character, Congressman Pal mer is a man typical of his day and , generation He was born May 4, 1872, in a little cabin in Luzerne county, Pa, where his parents were tempo , rarily located. He is the son of Sam
 uel B. Palmer, a contractor, who has been for years, with his parents be- 9 fore him, resident of Monroe county, e Stroudsburg being the present home of the family.
 Congressman Palmer Is of sturdy Quaker stock and is descended directly from one of the first families of friends who settled in Stroudsburg
 when that was mere revolutionary fort and village. MT. Palmer graduated from the Stroudsburg High school in i1SS6 with the highest honors; prepared for college at the Moravian Parochial
 school in Bethlehem; in the fall of 1887 tentered Swarthmore college, from : which he graduated in 1891 again with highest honors, having heen elected to the honorary fraternity of Phi Beta Kappa.
 While acting as official stenographeI of the Forty-third judicial district oi Pennsylvania, he studied law, and upon
 admission to the bar in 1893, formed a partnership with Hon. John B
 Storm, former judge and congressman
 which continued until the latter's deatf . in 1901, when MT. Palmer succeeded tc the business of the firm. He rose rap lidly at the bar becoming soon the lead ing attorney in his county and acquir- ing practice which extended Tar be lyond the county lines.
 He Is interested in many bpsiness concerns inside and outside of his county
 He was married in 1898 to Roberts Bartlett Dixon, daughter of former Senator Robert R. Dixon of Easton
 Md, and has one daughter, Mary Dixor Palmer.
 III In politics Congressman Palmer is an ardent democrat and has for three Iterms represented the strongly demo
 cratic Twenty-sixth district, composed of Pike, Monroe, Carbon and North. one of the counties in his district. in cluding the industrial centers of Beth T lehem and Easton. His political ca lreer in his district is peculiarly typica
 of the contest now being wage( | ulthroughout the state of Pennsylvania
 Arrayed against him in every contes lhas been the combined force of cor lrupt political machine and privilege ! seeking big business. large funds il | opposition to his candidacy having beei II furnished by Charles M Schwab, pro ni iprietor of the Bethlehem Steel mills while the political organization op posed to him was dominated by thu | Northampton county ex-boss Howar' Mutchler. By a straightforward appea | over the heads of those two powertu Il influences direct to the people. and b.
 la consistent course of loyalty to tn
 principles of his party and to his owl
 pledges. he has earned the satisfac
 ton of increasing majorities at each o
 his elections.
 Ill Congressman Palmer became a con II spicuous factor in statewide polite Il almost immediately following his cleo Il ton to Congress the first time in 19Os Flowing to the splendid record h
 .achieved at Washington and the sigma r. ability as leader and debator. Whic
 won him instant recognition rom tn
 congressional leaders
 His activity in state politics sine that time has been devoted to an CT fort to strengthen the party by tn
 elimination of a leadership which wa justly distrusted by sincere democrat
 and independent voters for its close al
 liance with the republican machine
 which it was protesting to fight. '. Il the reorganization movement whicl
 came to a head after the disastrou
 lcampaign of 1910. Congressman Palmer
 as the leader of the democratic con
 lsreesional delegation from Pennsylva A< n E