University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

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; woas i a 3 E2 E! 1' .,m A V W , ti vjl,di71t bl. i Cl? ' i1 LCQ Y in 77W, . AW t .H F: i . .l-x-iiii tir-KIXYIXI!-Ktl;lllrjl-1111111 T WWW 8 WW t w whit -me-x Senator Underwood delivered the address in chief. uJefferson promulgated to the American people the way to think the truth, and speak the truth, and live the truth. It is the only safeguard in any wall: of human existence, and particu- larly in our national life. uWe do not contend, of course, that Mr. Jefferson was the beginning and the end of the great principles he proclaimed, because principles grow up, rather than are found. They develop with the life, are necessities of the world in human existence, but Mr. Jefferson proclaimed live truths in government as no other man in all history has done; and the only regret I have is that often we find in our government merely the lip service to the truth of those great principles he taught and gave to us, and not the actualities in legislation and in government. nI know of no greater truth that he gave to you than that the men of your Society who have occupied commanding places in the national life have followed and buckled to themselves as an armor of successethat is, that the government that governs least, governs bestethe government that governs best governs least. And yet to you who are to follow this banner in the battlefields of life I fear that you enter upon the stage today when it may be proclaimed that government today as enacted has invaded more of the lives of the citizens, put more limitations to their op- portunity for freedom of life and freedom of business and freedom of existence than has ever occurred in the history of our government from Jefferson's time down to the present day; and why? Because we have drifted to an era and a time when class and clan are seeking special privileges, and no man stands in the vway to prevent the greed and desire of the inner circle who seek to absorb government and the fruits of government, for individual advantage. Yet, in the l end, as much as you may proclaim the ideals for some particular class or clan, when privilege is a a granted the great mass of the people of any government must always bear that privilege on their 7 shoulders as a burden to be paid for by themefar, far from the ideals of the great statesman when he proclaimed that that government which governs least governs best. Senator Underwood discussed the need of cloture in the United States Senate. . Go back, he said, to the patron of your Society, the man whose name you bear-Mr. Jefferson. One of the greatest books on parliamentary law that has ever been printed in the English language is Jefferson's Manual, written while he was Vice-President of the United States. It is still the law of the House of Representatives and the Senate, except where their rules con- flict; and under Jefferson's Manual the right to move the previous question or, in other words, for the majority to say when the main question should be put, is recognized as fundamental, sound, parliamentary law. For some unknown reason after Mr. Jefferson became President, and left the chair of Vice-President, the Senate dropped that portion of the rule and provided that there should be no clotune'r'rule in the Senate thereafter. . . .. You may call the roll of Adams, Madison, Monroe, and on down the list of great men that organized our government and no one, in all the heated debates and controversies from which the Constitution of the United States sprung, no man was so bold as to say that less than a majority should rule. . . . Why should it be necessary for a leader, charged with great governmental endeavor, to consult the wishes of a few as to their particular desires in order that he might accomplish the governmental result in which the people were interested. . . . I could name a few great issues that a filibuster has decided. I don't know whether you would agree with the proposition or not. Years ago there was what was known as the Blair Education Bill. A very heated argument was made as to whether the United States Government should contribute to the education of the people. ' That was long ago, but it was defeated by a filibuster that lasted over three months; and again we recognize that there was a day and time when partisan power endeavored to put the yoke of an ill-considered franchise on the necks of the southern people, and to our good it was de- feated by a filibuster. But I am not sure, if it had come, that the reaction of the American people would not have been more beneficial to us than the fact that we destroyed it by a filibuster. uAnd again, when the Treaty of Versailles making the peace of the world came before the Senate of the United States, I had the honor to move its unconditional ratification; and yet it l221 .ndzmim $b'Hl i'dh-h W s ab

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a 4'7'?T.3 w;;w-a4ag ...,--.. - H Kw l W535 ixy'euzu: f if t t i. reigning, In his address as the presiding officer on this notable occasion Mr. Quarles tolcl briefly the life-story of the Society-the purposes for which it was founded and some of the results of its career. Alderman who expressed appreciation of the services, and told of the value and meaning, of the Jefferson Society in the life of the University: The University of Virginia, I may say officially, as its President, owes -a debt of gratitude to the Jefferson Literary Society which I hereby formally acknowledge and express its gratitude for. In a way it has been a splendid department of political science and government for a century of time. This University for eighty-seven years managed to struggle along, sending out leaders in different parts of the nation, without this training of political science and government and forensics; and this Society stepped in and took that burden upon itself. And how well it carried it may be shown by that list of names that President Quarles read to you, and others that I have jotted down here in a hasty way, leaving out many that should be here-R. M. T. Hunter, and John W. Daniel, Charles Culverson, and Governor Manning of South Carolina; R. H. Dabney, and William M. Thornton, Virginius Dabney, Robert Taylor of New York, and a list that would take up all my time, that went out into the nation and did the work that highly trained men ought to do. HAnd I want to thank, and express my gratitude to this group, this group right here, and the several groups for the last twenty-two years since I have been here, who under many dis- advantages and difficulties, in a different age and with a different spirit and understanding of what honor and success and glory mean, have with courage and grim persistency kept alive the traditions and dignity of the Jefferson Literary Society and what it has stood for in a cen- tury of time, and deserve praise for it. During the great period between l825 and 1860, when there was a vast debate about this nation, as to the nature of this union, whether a state must stay in or go out of. that league, or nation, this Society trained the debaters who upheld their end of that argument with such power and distinction as has seldom been seen. And when war came, and a new republic had to be built, the men who had to be trained for such tasks as these, to renationalize its impulses and aspirations, to preach the gospel of national unity, to fight for the idea of common education for all menehigh and low, rich and poor, and bond and free-this Society, I say, had to train men to do that and send out into this nation and into the south, men of the type of your speaker today lSenator Underwoodl, who have with grim strength and power kept the true idealism and the true spirit of the south shining in its face, but have built it back into the union of the states as one of its strongest attributes. I think your Society can look to itself as one of the agents in this accomplishment. A business world came to scorn the talker and exalt the doer, and that is a good thing to do, . . . but I want to say to you that the time will never come in any democracy when a man who can stand Hat-footed before an audience and say forcefully and clearly, or read forcefully and clearly,ethe time will never come, I say, when that man will not be a power which men and nations must reckon. In April, l9l7, I sat in the gallery of Congress and heard President Wilson read his message to summon his country to the defense of the free spirit of men. It was a great hour. His audience was the world. His thought was compact of high sense and good feeling, and it was clothed in language of force and dignity and beauty. The message, therefore, was a two-edged sword, and cut to the heart of the question. uHave you ever thought of the way in which obscure Abraham Lincoln won his way to power? It was by being the greatest artist in words ever produced in the political history of mankind. How he did it with his background is just a mystery. I cannot fathom it. Whence came the training that flowered into the Gettysburg speechasimple, pellucid, almost childlike, or the solemn beauty of his letter to Mrs. Bixby, but it is there. IZII He introduced President

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could have been ratified, if we could have taken the vote in the early months. If there had been a cloture rule, and the votes could have come, the treaty of Versailles could have been ratified, and America would have taken her seat at the head of the international table, and directed the affairs of the world, and brought peace and reconstruction of fallen humanity. Yet the power of a few stood as a wall in the way, andithe treaty of Versailles failed, and European countries suffered. Small wars, difficult financial conditions, trade destroyed, and men unable to build themselves back to the peaceful walks of life; and it is only within the last few weeks, while we are resting in our tents at home, that the great powers of Europe have met and made the first real treaty of peace since the Great War. The last scene of all was a banquet in Madison Hall, at which good fellowship, which Mr. Quarles had listed as a ilJeff cardinal Virtue, was illustrated as of oldenot quite, perhaps, for the toasts were dry. The wit of Toastmaster Dobie left nothing to be desired, for-added to its intrinsic goodnesseit induced a How of genial oratory from Judge Duke, President Quarles, Professor Eager, Mr. O. A. Kirkman, Jr., of North Carolina, and Mr. R. C. Taylor, of New York;-and so the end, all participants sharing in this hope of President Alderman- I hope those in this great University of 2,000 will. see that you are carrying, and have carried forward for a century, a great constructive piece of teaching in the University, which has passed out into the nation and the w0rld, - and sending a greeting across the years to the sons of llJeff when they meet in 2025 to recount and banquet in celebration of another century of achievej ment. , JOHN S. PATTON. PRESIDENTS OF JEFFERSON SOCIETY