Duke University - Chanticleer Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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H 9 V C. H A N. T. I C L E E R. (1(; SamrS Jjeptooorj S outJjgate W i iE. removal of Trinity from a village in Randolph County lo the city of v M Durham, in 1892, was indeed a crisis in its history. Old associations were j! severed, and new duties and opportunities opened before it. Among thoss whose sympathy and advice have done much for the adjustment of the college to its larger field of work is James H. Southgate, trustee since 1895, and President of the Board of Trustees since 1897. Mr. Southgate is a Virginian by birth, born at Norfolk in 1859. During the War, his family removed to North Carolina, first to Louisburg, then to Hillsboro, and finally to Durham, in 1876. Thus the mature life and work of Mr. Southgate have been confined to that new North Carolina which has arisen since Reconstruction. His early inclinations were to enter one of the professions, but in 1878, after two years at the University of North Carolina, he entered business with his father. Today the firm of Southgate Son is one of the oldest insurance agencies in North Carolina; it also has a reputation for success and integrity throughout the South. Business has been only one of the activities of Mr. Southgate. He is one of those pioneer independent thinkers who broke away from traditionalism during the ' eighties of the last century, and one of the few who have lived to see their ideals generally accepted. Moral reform, a change on the part of the citizen of his sense of duty to his fellows, became the dominating impulse of his life. In 1885 he left the Democratic Party, and joined the forces of Prohibition, which had been disastrously defeated in the elections of 1881. Soon he acquired a prominence in the cause that was nation-wide, and in 1896 he was nominated for Vice-President of the United States on the National Prohibition Ticket. It was only natural for one of his character to be interested in the problem of the young man, under the stress of the industrial transformation going on in North Carolina; therefore he became a leader in the introduction of the Y. M. C. A. into the towns and colleges of the State. The amount of criticism and prejudice encountered by the pioneers of these two moral movements can hardly be realized today, because the issues eventually spread beyond party and religious lines, and so gained a decisive and lasting victory. In all civic causes relating to the City of Durham, Mr. Southgate has been a leader. Here he came into direct contact with the College. In the years just after the removal of the institution to Durham, he was virtually the interpreter of the City to the College and of the College to the City. Moreover, in those problems arising from the relation of an institution of learning to the public at large, his judgment and his catholic spirit have been of inestimable value. This phase of Mr. Southgate ' s public service is an unwritten chapter in the history of the College; it will probably ever remain un- recorded, for who can describe in words the transforming influence of sympathy, of love, of hope? But in the traditions of Trinity these things shall ever live, as in the memory of generations of students his words of welcome on public occasions, and in the lives of many, deeds of kindness not seen of men. Page