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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1900)
THE BATTALION. 21 the success of this work, and I desire to bespeak for these young men your liberal support and hearty co-operation. Again, have public meetings in the chapel as often as possible. Make out your programs carefully, and then send in a notice to Bryan and let the town people enjoy coming out. By all means continue in the State Oratorical Association, and I expect yet to see the A. and M. win the State medal. It might be a good thing if you couid get the college into the Southern Inter-Col legiate Oratorical Association. The more irons you have in the fire, the more contests you enter, the greater will be the interest. The societies have it in their power and province to do some very fine work for the College. One opportunity is through the publi cation of your journal, the Battalion. Let no one get discouraged because the alumni is to publish a quarterly. Your magazine will not conflict with theirs, and the Battalion has an important mis sion. It should be here to stay. Strive to make it the ideal College journal, a publication of which all friends of the College will be proud. This brings me to another subject that is perhaps a hobby of mine. I want the literary societies of this College to jointly publish an Annual. The class of ’95 issued the Olio, and for a beginning it was good. It was a success and did a good work. The conditions existing now are much more favorable than they were then. The attendance is larger, the demand for it is greater, and besides you could profit by this former experience, and that alone means much. If you get out an Annual it would mean lots of hard work, and the societies would have to assume all responsibility, and that would be a good feature. That is the very point. Have on hand constantly some interesting piece of work for these societies, and keep the members hard at it all the time. You will en joy the work and the societies won’t go to sleep. Publish this Annual. Do it this year. Go to work on it right away. 1 can pledge you the help of tfie alumni, financially and otherwise, and I can pledge you the support of the business men of Bryan. But some body says it will be impossible to get necessary funds. The football team will get all the money. Let me say this to you: I approve of athletics, and I want to see the College develop a crack team this year. I am on the Athletic Council, but when football gets to monopolizing and driving out every other laudable project, then it is time to put the brakes on. The motto of athletics must be, “Live and let live.” I am too good a Democrat, aye, and too true an American, to believe in mo nopolies, even in favor of the gridiron. If you will put the right men in charge of this Annual work, they can get the money and anything else they want, and when your Annual comes out you will love it all your lives, and when its pages are yellow and your temples are gray, it will make your heart that of a boy again to take it from the shelf and through it live over your college days. And now I am done. What I have said has been prompted from a heartfelt wish to encourage and assist you. And in con clusion let me tell you that if at any time or in any way I can assist you, I shall deem it a pleasure to have you call on me. I can promise that no matter how much engrossed I may be in other business, your request shall be met with my very best effort. I love my alma mater, Mr. President, that much.
