April 24, 1924
In a debate with Princeton on the question: “Resolved, That a Democratic Administration would be of benefit to the country,” seniors Harriet Kernan ‘24 and Maxine Goldmark ‘24, taking the affirmative, defeated William Webster Hall ’25 and Lawrence Hunt ’26, who, The New York Times noted, “struggled valiantly and went down fighting, but polite.”
Miss Kernan “wore a black gown and a corsage bouquet of orchids. Miss Goldmark was in blue with pink roses. The Princeton men did not attempt floral competition even to the extent of a boutonniere.” Miss Kernan “recalled that during the national campaign of 1920 speakers from Princeton had been sent to Vassar to argue the issues of the election before the students. ‘I am glad to see the world has progressed far enough since then,’ she said, ‘so that we may now come here and return the compliment.’”
As the debate proceeded, the Vassar debaters frequently consulted small card index boxes to “bring out one containing information calculated to knock hostile arguments into a cocked hat.” On the matter of tariffs, Vassar’s Goldmark declared that a “low tariff will, in addition to its other benefits, bring the solution of the farm problem. It will allow Europe to buy here and thus give the farmer a market where he may make his profit and at the same time it will reduce prices here and thus allow him to do his own buying to advantage.” On the same subject, Harriet Kernan drew a laugh from the audience when she observed, of the tariff bill enacted by the Republican Taft administration, that it failed to put on the free list “the ordinary commodities of life that every one wanted, like whisky, sugar and oil, while they did put on the list false teeth, Chinese joss sticks and things like that.”
In addition to winning two points to their opponents’ one, audience polls taken before and after the debate showed that the Vassar team had changed the opinions of a number of people in favor of the Democrats. The New York Times
Vassar debaters had contested against men from Oxford and The University of Pennsylvania, but this was the first coeducational debate for Princeton.