Stetson Weekly Collegiate

Stetson Weekly Collegiate. Volume XVI. Official Students' Publication of Stetson University. DeLand, Florida, Saturday, March 5, 1904. Number 16 KENT CLUB BANQUET. The Banquet Given in Honor of the DeLand Bar. Prominent Guests Present.—The Menu and the Toasts.—One of the Happiest Functions of the Season.—They Spoke Till Morning. Unquestionably one of the most finished functions of the season was the Kent Club banquet last night at Hotel Putnam in honor of the DeLand bar. For the benefit of those not closely in touch with our institution the Collegiate would say that the Kent Club comprises1 in its membership the students of the Law Department of the University; it is the oratorical society or debat- iug society of the haw Department. The members of our local bar have always taken more than a fatherly interest in the students of the Law Department; they have extended them many courtesies and given them much assistance in their travels up the rocky road that the local lawyers themselves traveled. The banquet last night tendered these gentlemen was a slight token of appreciation for these many courtesies. - There were about fifty "covers" on the beautifully decorated taiblie, extending from end to end of the spacious dining hall of the Putnam. To the inspiring music of Dixie by the Bushnell orchestra the guests were escorted from the parlor where an informal reception was previously held) to their seats at the festive Iboard. N. G. Van Sant, of the senior law class, was the toast-master, and proposed the respective toasts, and introduced the respondents with well selected rhetoric. Besides the guests! of honor —members of the DeLand bar— the representatives of the local press and officers of the University Lwd members off the Kent Club, those present were: Governor W. S. Jennings. W. H. Ellis, attorney-general of Florida. Rufus MaGee, ex-minister to Sweden. Willis J. Palmer, Cecil J. Butt, John C. Jones, of the Orlando bar. Judge W. A. 'Moody, of Minnesota. W. A. Golden, df iMichigan. S. A. Wood, mayor of iDdLand. A letter of regret was read from Judge Hilburn, of Palatka,wiho was prevented from filling his engagement to respond to the toast, "The Lawyer in History," by important legal business. The Collegiate regrets exceedingly its inability to review at length some or all of the excellent speeches made. This is manifestly impossible on account of a lack of tent ourselves with the bane mention of subjects. "The Kent Club" was responded to by Mr. J. T. 'Butler, of the class of 1904. Mr. Butler told of the growth and aims of 'the club. Mr. Emmett Wilson spoke of the DeLand bar and the club's love for i'ts members, and their appreciation for the many courtesies extended. 'Bert Fish, of the local bar, spoke off the lawyer's first case, and suggested that the first as well as the last and all others be conducted in such a way as to reflect credit and honor on the practitioner. Jtidge Butt, of ' Orlando1, was called on for an impromptu, and his speech was the hit of the evening. As a finished after-dinner speaker he has few equals in the State. Governor Jennings responded to the toast, "The Lawyer in Politics,' The Governor maintained that politics was one of the niches in "society" peculiarly fitted to the lawyer. He spoke, of 'course, to a high ideal a lawyer of breadth and of conscientiousness; a man who had worked his way upward! despite opposition and stumbling blocks and had attained the fruition of his aims without the protecting and fostoring care that dwarfs the development of citizenship and weakens its power for good. To such a lawyer the county had many reasons to offer thanks, and his power for good in politics Was unquestioned and undoubted. Judge John C. Jones spoke to the sentiment, "The Woman Lawyer." The Judge said he didn't believe in 'em. The home and the fireside was the proper court for women, and the family her clients. Hon. Willis L. Palmer spoke on, "Our Clients." He claimed that it was not always the client with the biggest fee who was most desirable. He held up to the coming lawyers as represented by the Kent Club, the institutions of our government and the great republic in which we live as the most desirable clients. Dean Farrah spoke of the class of 1904, and said he had never worked with a more promising brood of embryo lawyers. Hon. Rufus McGee, an ex-minister to 'Sweden, spoke of the "Yankee Abroad" and at (home. In both places he claimed the yankee was the greatest thing on earth. Mr. McGee spoke earnestly and convincingly and held the close attention of the banqudtters. The last toast of the .evening was space. We must, therefore, con- to the "Absent Power, the Ladies," and was responded to by Dean Farriss, of the University. The banquet was served admirably. There were eight courses, and everything was in the best taste, and Mr. Gould has the congratulations of his friends and the thanks of the Kent Club for his careful attention' to the numerous details that added so much to the success of the affair. The Kent Club committees on the banquet were as follows: Arrangements—W. B. Crawford, N. G. Van Sant, A. S. Wingood. Reception—W. B. Crawford, Emmett Wilson, J. T. Butler, M. G. Van Sant, S. B. Wright, Jr. •+*+-+■ Our Faulty One-crop System. This is largely responsible for much laxity in morals and bloody excesses in crime. The black laborers, and some also of the whites, not owning land or homes, squander in a few weeks of improvidence or debauchery the earnings of the orange or the vegetable harvest; then intervenes a long period of enforced idleness or spasmodic "jobs." Between harvest and harvest stretch months of hungry and intermittent turbulence. The hands on the old-time plantation had the salutary rudder of unbroken, year-long labor to guide them through the empty life of a half-savage intellect. But the fruit-growing sections of Florida are blighted by the corrupting presence of "railroad niggers" and "phosphate niggers," today out of a job, tomorrow in. In some nightly brawl of their unregulated lives, human life is blown away as lightly a,s sand. Florida has urgent need of more good, white immigrants and fewer negroes; but she needs even more some steady, all-year-round paying work to keep men out of idleness and out of intermittent diabolism. Our fruit-growing communities rank as high as any in the world in intelligence and morality; but they are cursed with a riffraff which is about the most brutish and worthless on this continent. In the rush and scurry of picking, threatened with frost, our people are compelled to pay $1.50 and even $2.00 and up ' to $3.00 a day for scallion labor, while in the Cotton States a better set of men only cost half as much or even less. And why? Because the fruitgrower has the one harvest and job of the year and needs the men no more; while the laborer in steady-going old Georgia plods the whole year through solid working days linked together with tranquil sleeps. But our fruit-pickers' fitful labors are sandwiched with turmoil and bloodshed. It is a sight to make a wise man to see this garden of the gods polluted with the riotous deeds of men who might be passable citizens if they had the steadying and sobering discipline of regular work. Our rural laboring classes should be encouraged to become home-owners and be taught by precept and example to take up all-the- year-round cropping, or engage in steady labor which will secure an unbroken competence. ♦-•-• Not a Small Business. Those who think the egg business a petty one and beneath the dignity of a man, will be somewhat surprised at the following figures: Russia is the largest seller of eggs in the world. She sells to foreign countries 150,000,000 dozen eggs nearly every year. In 1896 she sent abroad 1«- 475,000,000 eggs; in 1897, 1,737,000,- 000, and in 1898, 1,831,000,000. Her sales are all the time increasing. China is supposed to be the largest producer of eggs in the world, says the New York "Sun." There is no such thing as statistics of poultry products in China, but there are over 400,000,000 persons in that empire that are very fond of eggs; it takes a good many eggs to supply them. The humblest farm hut has hens in plenty, and they do their best to supply the demand. There is little doubt that China takes the cake as an egg producer. Her entire supply is usually consumed at home, though she sometimes manages to spare a few for Japanese consumers. The figures in the following from Green's Fruit Grower do not tally exactly with the above, which ever is correct, the statistics show an immense quantity of eggs produced and consumed. More eggs are eaten fn the United States every year than in any other country in the world, Iowa is the banner state in the matter of production furnishing 99,000,000 dozens, worth over $10,000,000 in 1900. Ohio came second as to amount, with 91,000,000 dozens and although this quantity was smaller than the egg product of Iowa, it was worth more, having a total value of $10,299,000. Colorado does not produce a sufficient amount to supply the home demand. The majority of fowls of this country are found in small numbers on large farms where they gather subsistence and receive little care. A RECIPE FOR GOOD CHEER. Rev. William E. Gannett. There are differing manifestations of cheerfulness. Merriment, though a good thing, is not essential to it. One's smile is a deeper thing than one's laugh; it is not a half laugh, but a stilled whole laugh—laughter becomes organic, instinctive and part of one's nature. Emerson, the apostle of optimism, laughed aloud so seldom that when he did it made a rare anecdote; but Emerson's smile had a wide fame of its own. But apart from the face and what happens thereon, with some persons the cheer is bubbling joy, with some a breezy enthusiasm, with some it is courage with humor, with some a clear-shining quiet. The rippling spirits of a young child are the cheer of a thought-free heart; the quieter merriment of full manhood is the cheer of seeing, but unshrinking heart. What are the men and women to do who have not happy temperaments? Give up and say: "It is all very well for men born glad to be glad; we would have been born so, too, had we been consulted." There is better to do than that. We can at least watch the glad faced people and see if we can catch any secret from them—a secret, perhaps, unknown to themselves. I am sure there is something more than temperament in this business of good cheer. There are four secrets, at least, which seem to go to the making of cheer, when the cheer is habitual and can stand strain; four stable rules that train the ey,e and the heart to see the beauty of the roadside and make us go laughing along the life path. For easy remembrance, let us put the recipe into rhyme and make the rules jingle: A task to do, And a clear inside; A friend to help And the sunny side. —The Back-Log of New York Branch of the International Sunshine Society.