Agile Orator

Wabash College (Crawfordsville, Ind.) points with pride to Maurice G. ("Red") Robinson. He plays football. He vaults with the pole, having bested all comers at the state track meet. He commands the Wabash basketball team, having been "almost unanimous" choice of sport-writers for All-Western forward last year. Last fortnight he trod in the footsteps of Wabash's president, Dr. G. L. Mackintosh, of Indiana's onetime U. S. senator, A. J. Beveridge, to the rostrum of the Indiana Oratorial Contest, and like them won it. That earned him the right to proceed, as Indiana's most eloquent undergraduate son, to the Interstate Oratorical Contest at Chicago in April. The famous interstate contest where young Robinson will compete has ranked many famous men among its winners. From its beginning in 1874 to 1902, it has had one-third of its winners listed in Who's Who in America--including one author, one governor, one bishop and two clergymen, two U. S. Senators, two U. S. Representatives, three lawyers, eight educators, including five college presidents. Wabash has won the Indiana contest five times in the past seven years, the national event three times since 1919. As he twitched and flashed about the Wabash gymnasium last week, Wabash asked itself, "Can our athlete shoot the big oratorical basket in April?" And Maurice ("Red") Robinson wondered, "Can I vault with my tongue to fame?"