From the Suffolk County News, Friday, November 3, 1916

This one reaches back even further. The News of October 29, 1926, looking back ten years, mentioned a high school debate from the fall of 1916 — so we went and found the original report, printed a few days after the debate itself. It is short, and it is perfect.

The debate came one week before the country voted in the Wilson–Hughes presidential election of 1916, and the question was the election itself. Six Sayville students argued it in English IV — one side, then the other, on the merits, in front of their class. A week later, President Wilson won the country. In the classroom, the girls won. In a time when political argument can feel like shouting, there is something worth remembering in this little report: each side got its full say, the result was accepted, and the paper printed it with a grin — “it hurts us much to say.”

From the paper’s “Town Talk” column, exactly as it was printed:

Six bright students in the English IV class at the high school had a debate on Tuesday and it hurts us much to say that the Democrats won. The question was, “Resolved: That the Republican Ticket Should Be Elected This November.” The girls, Misses Ethel Helm, Ethel Munkelwitz and Virginia Otto, took the negative side and won over Elbert Mower, Anthony Petranek and William Schwettmann, who had the affirmative side of the argument.

Editor’s note: The debate was held on Tuesday, October 31, 1916. When the News retold the story ten years later, it left the girls’ side unstated and one name unfinished; the original settles both — and if Ethel, Virginia, Elbert, Anthony, or William was your grandparent or great-grandparent, we would love to hear it. — Suffolk County News, November 3, 1916, page 7, via the Fulton History archive.