WHAT TO DEBATE
In the first place remember that you must debate something which is
debatable, something which can be proved. Too many times a question is
framed which could never in the reason of things be decided. For example,
to refer to the Indian again, a question might be stated, “Resolved: that
the treatment of the Indian by the white man has been unjust,” which
could be decided after a reasonable discussion. The arguments, though
general, would be of such a character that a more or less exact weighing
could be had and a verdict taken. But if with the same kindly feeling for
the oppressed and hatred of oppression, a question should be selected,
“Resolved: that the Indian has suffered greater wrongs from the American
government than has the negro,” you see, don’t you, how you could never
arrive at a verdict? One side could only cite instance after instance
where the Indian has suffered, and the other side could retaliate by
exactly the same number of cases of wrongs the negro has suffered, and
the scale would be even. Really a correct verdict could never be reached,
for to be sure and certain, every wrong done to each race would have to
be catalogued and weighed, and only omniscience could hope successfully
to accomplish that result.
Take another illustration: “Resolved: that the works of nature are more
beautiful than the works of art.” To the rainbow of the affirmative
could be contrasted the electric fountain of the negative; to the Rock
of Gibraltar would be offered Saint-Gaudens’ statue of Lincoln, and
so on indefinitely. On the other hand you may so state your question
that although the argument on both sides may consist largely of such a
cataloguing of facts, those facts may so differ in their relations to the
general question that one set will clearly outweigh the other. If you
should suggest as a question, for example, “Resolved: that Amundson is
a greater explorer than Peary,” I should say that the question is not a
good one because of the suggestions I have just made; the debaters would
simply balance the hardships of the Antarctic explorer against the trials
of the Arctic traveler.
Now if the question is changed so that it would read, “Resolved: that
the explorations of Amundson are more valuable to the world than those
of Peary,” I should still say the question is bad, for the value of
one ice field will simply be exchanged for that of another. But if the
name of Stanley were to be substituted in the latter question for that
of Amundson, so that the question would constitute a comparison of the
respective values of arctic and equatorial exploration, it would open up
a clear field for discussion. Whether the products of Africa are more
valuable to the world than those of Greenland, whether the negroes mean
more to the world than the Esquimaux, whether the scientific results are
more valuable in the one case than in the other,—these propositions and
others like them are open to argument and decision.
So, to use another illustration, if the question is, “Resolved: that
a union of England and America would be beneficial to the world’s
progress,” there is room for such clear and explicit reasoning on both
sides that the arguments would be reasons and not simply a catalogue of
unrelated facts.
=Subjects Should Be Properly Limited.=—Another rule valuable in the
selection of a subject is that it should be properly limited so that
too much is not attempted. This is really another way of stating the
proposition that the exact boundaries of the question should be properly
defined. For example, one might be greatly interested in the “Philippine
question” but that as so stated could not be debated. What is the
“Philippine question”? Has it to do with the broad proposition that
the Anglo-Saxon race in general and that composite branch of the race
residing in the United States in particular has had imposed upon it the
police duty commonly regarded as the “White Man’s Burden”? Or is the
question one of comparison between the respective values of life in the
temperate and in the tropic zones?
Some particular branch of the question must be selected and matter
outside of it rigorously put aside. If you should attempt to cover the
whole subject, you could not properly discuss it in a dozen evenings, and
if you should try to debate it in one evening without some restrictions,
there would be such hopeless confusion that clear argument would be
impossible.
Even if you get away from the general character of the subject implied
in a loose statement of the question, you must still define its limits
closely. For example, if your question reads, “Resolved: that the
treatment of the Philippines by the United States has been unjust,” it
sounds as if you had narrowed the question satisfactorily. You have taken
it out of the domain of world civics and brought it home into national
politics. But the question is still too indefinite. You may be talking
about the original conquest of the Islands from the Spaniards, one of
your partners in debate about the treatment of the Islanders themselves
in the later wars, one of your opponents be speaking of the attitude
of the United States toward the Islands in business and everyday life,
and another of your opponents, of the alleged injustice on the part of
the United States in not granting them independence. Any one of these
interpretations would afford ample occupation for a whole evening, but
you see that unless the question is properly restricted you would all be
lost in hopeless confusion.
To take another illustration: We are all discussing the immigration
question, these days. But one reason why there is so much loose thinking
about immigration is that we are talking about different immigrants and
from different angles and points of view. For instance, if we decide
that immigration should be restricted, to what immigration do we refer?
All immigration? Immigrants from southern Europe, from Asia, or from the
Anglo-Saxon or Germanic nations? Or shall the restriction be governed by
a literacy test? If so, what standard of literacy shall be established?
Will the Greeks, such as those who shine our shoes and run our fruit
stands, be shut out because they can not read the thrilling story of “The
Cat saw the Rat” in the English primer, even though they read and enjoy
Homer and Plato in the original? If you decide that the Homer test of
literacy shall be applied, you must still connect that kind of culture
with civic duties in some way before you have a question which properly
belongs to the immigration problem. Otherwise you may wander fruitlessly
among all those tangled mazes of classical learning which have afforded
so many opportunities for talk and so little for debate.
Another illustration of the necessity of proper limitation of your
subject: In considering the desirability of certain kinds of immigration,
you may be discussing points which go only to the question of the
admission of the foreigner to this country, and your opponent may be
discussing matters relating to the treatment of that same foreigner as
a worker in the factories or as a laborer on the big construction jobs
of the country. The first refers to _Federal_ restriction, the second to
the State’s industrial treatment of the foreigner after he gets here. One
member of the team, you see, would be talking about the government and
legislation in Washington; the other about the government and legislation
at Albany or Springfield or Topeka, as the case might be.