Crimson's Teams Lose to Yale in opening Debates

Intercollegiate debating commenced for the year last night with a large, though not entirely satisfactory impact as two teams of Crimson debaters went down to narrow defeat at the hands of the Yale Debating Council, which argued successfully on both sides of the proposition: "Resolved, that the best interests of the country will be served by a Republican Congressional victory this fall."

Almost 150 men and women jammed the Lowell House Junior Common Room to hear Ellis Kaplan '46 and Samuel E. Stuart '45 defend unsuccessfully the negative position in the contest at Cambridge. Bradford Westerfield and William J. Graham, both of the Class of 1947, won the two-to-one decision for the Blue. Simultaneously, Melvin Mulligan '45 and Philip Ruppenthal '45 were defeated on the affirmative side of the issue at New Haven by an Eli team of Leo Graydill and Daniel McElroy, also of '47.

Failure by the negative team to drive home sufficiently the positive progressive advantages of a Democratic victory at the polls was regarded by the audience as the deciding factor in the slim margin of victory of Yale. Judges for the home debate, which was broadcast over the Crimson Network, included Benjamin F. Wright, professor of Government, Charles R. Cherington '35, faculty instructor in Government, and Paul C. Reardon '32, of the Boston Bar.