First Paul Quinn Debater, First
Affirmative: Resolved: Unemployment relief should be ended when the
depression ends. I traveled back in history to 1536, when the first
Poor laws of England
were mandated. In those days the dole -- or "welfare," as we call it --
was funded by voluntary contributions. But as time passed, the English
devised the
Allowance System, the first unemployment relief -- only now it was
paid with involuntary contributions, more commonly known as taxes. The Allowance System was a disaster: The only real unemployment
relief is to give a man a job; but to do that you have to give the economy
life, not tax it to death.
Hamilton Burgess, First Negative: When
capitalism was young, the old puritanical concept of duty was: "He who
does not work shall not eat."¹ Now that
made sense when there was more work than men willing to do it. But those
days are gone. Now, there are millions who want to work but find
themselves standing in bread lines. Now, should they not eat because
there are no jobs? People today, we need a new concept of duty: the
right of the individual to demand from society just as much as he gives
to society.
Second Paul Quinn Debater, Second
Affirmative: We clutch at anything that even looks like a solution:
sixty million dollars a month for public relief -- pay it out if it will
sweep the hobos off the streets. One-seventh of the population of the
United States on welfare: fine, as long as it ends our misery. A nation
as desperate as this is a danger to itself.
Henry Rowe, Second Affirmative: Once, a
Roman General brought peace to a
rebellious province -- by killing all its citizens. Even his fellow
Romans were shocked. One of them wrote, [Ubi] solitudinem faciunt pacem
appellant"² -- which means, "They create desolation and call it peace." Now, for all their facts and figures, the Paul
Quinn debaters would also create desolation and call it peace: They
would allow the unemployed to die so the economy can live.
[Rowe departs from prepared remarks]
A brilliant young woman I know was asked once
to support her argument in favor of social welfare. She named the most
powerful source imaginable: the look in a mother's face when she can not
feed her children. Can you look that hungry child in the eyes, see the blood on his feet from walking barefoot in the cotton fields? Or
do you ask his baby sister with her belly swollen from hunger if she
cares about her daddy's work ethic?
1930 Wiley College Debate Team
¹Derived from II Thessalonians 3:10
²Literally:
"Where
theycreate
a desert, theycall it peace"
