Evening star., 1925-03-18
EASTERN STUDENTS
BUSY ON ORAT0Ry
Anxious to Win Place in Con-
teSt--EIihU Root Praises
Study of Constitution.

Students at Eastern High School
already are working on the Anal de-
tails OF their orations for the national
oratorical contest. The young ora
tors are engaged upon the serious
business of organizing the results of
their research work and are rewriting
their orations. Miss Kate Buckman,
history teacher in charge of the work,
reports that the contestants are max
ing good progress
A meeting is held each Friday
morning for consultation and in
struction on the subjects of the con-
test, and on the technique OF oratory.
Some mention of the contest and a
report Of its progress is made at
every general assembly.
The first winnowing will take place
April to 10. BY that time the con-
test Will be narrowed down to IL or
IA students. and Will be picked from
this group. From this group of 8,
l Will be selected to represent East
ern High School in the finals of the
District Of Columbia.
Committees mt Work.
The faculty committee which is in
charge of the contest consists of
Miss Kate ID. Bucknam. chairman;
Miss +. d. Egbert and Miss Olivia
Taylor.
A committee of students has been
appointed to cooperate with this
committee and has as its members
the following: Kingsland Prender
Margaret Hoover and Olin Everett.
Elihu Root, member Of the Ameri-
can Bar Associations committee CO.
operating with the National Oratori-
cal Contest, writes Randolph Leigh, ma
tional director. as follows:
II am glad to see that you are get
ting along so splendidly with the second
National Oratorical Contest on the Con-
stitution."
Mr., Root outlines the Importance
of the Constitution and of a wide
spread understanding of it in the
following:
Constitution Settles Things
The Constitution settles things. it
settles certain rules, and so long as
they are settled, good people can at
tend their own business earn their
own living, go to their own church
bring up their own children and go
on with their lives, accomplishing
the object for which all government
is intended; but if you wipe out the
rules so that nothing is settled and
everybody is disputing about every
question as to how everything shall
security for anybody in living his
life
Another thing 20 be said about a
written constitution is that it lays
down the fundamental rules of right
conduct for the enforcement of the
great general principle declared by
the Declaration of Independence or
whatever declaration in any country
may have set forth the principles in
which the people believe. A consti-
tuition lays down the rules of con-
duct for the enforcement of those
principles, and those rules are es-
tablished impersonally, abstractly
They are established, as in the case
of the Constitution of the United
States, by convention sitting apart,
concerning themselves in no concrete
or temporary question. So in our
States constitutions are prepared by
and are submitted to the people.
Declares General Rules.
Ordinary laws answer to the i'm
pulse of the moment Ordinary laws
deal with the concrete difficulties
that arise from year to year. But a
constitution made calmly, imperson
ally, for all the future, without ref
erence to specific needs or specific
impulses. declares the general rules
of right conduct, and that is in ac-
cordance with the teaching of all re-
ligion and all human experience.
I'VE have, all of us. learned from
childho ood up that we cannot trust
the impulses of the human heart I'm
der temptation. The passions sway
us; temptation draws us; the worst
elements of our natures are brought
to the fore by strong desire, by ha-
tired, by the heat of conflict, and If we
leave ourselves in the affairs of our
Government to do what we want to
do at the moment we forget the
teachings OF that religion which says
to US that life must be guided, not by
impulse, but by principle-eternal
principle The Constitution of the
United States for more than a cen
tury has held up before the eyes of
the people of the United States and
the whole world the imperishable
rules of justice in the exercise of
government, in the exercise of that
mighty power by which the whole
people constrain the action of each
individual"