When Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent was the honorary speaker at a U of T debate, so many people clamoured to attend that the debate was moved to the Great Hall at Hart House. Popular as he was, St. Laurent failed to persuade the audience to vote in his favour. Edward Eberle (BA 1950 St. Michael’s), who argued for St. Laurent’s losing side, has a hunch why: “There was only one door you could exit, so when it came to record the vote, they asked the yes side to go into the kitchen [of Hart House] and the no side to exit the Great Hall. After, I learned from my frat brothers that quite a number were anxious to get to the King Cole Room [a popular watering hole at the Park Plaza Hotel] before it closed. They went out the no side so they could leave.”

This debate on America’s role as a world power was famous for more than the appearance of John F. Kennedy, the junior senator from Massachusetts, as honorary speaker. The debate provoked a massive protest from women, barred from attending by Hart House’s male-only membership rule. Though JFK agreed to speak separately to the women the next morning at St. Michael’s College, his sympathies were clear. During the debate he praised Hart House’s policy, saying, “It’s a pleasure to be in a country where women cannot mix in everywhere.”

As protests against racial discrimination exploded south of the border, five female U of T students brought the fight over gender discrimination home by holding a sit-in at a debate featuring honorary speaker George Ignatieff, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations. The co-eds crashed the men-only event, making headlines in the Toronto papers. Student debaters Bob Rae (BA 1969 UC) and Michael Ignatieff (BA 1969 Trinity), George’s son, veered off the foreign affairs topic long enough to call for an end to gender discrimination at Hart House. But that would take another five years to accomplish.

The resolution: Only a fool would go to university.

The vote: a tie.

Some 300 students debated the resolution “There is nothing not worth talking about” for 388 hours and 15 minutes. They set a record for the longest debate ever, but a broken tape ruined the evidence before it could be sent to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Most Romantic Debate: 1987

Judy Bradt (BA 1982 St. Michael’s), who debated at Hart House for four years, returned to judge at the Hart House Invitational. During the final round, two-time U.S. National Champion J.J. Gertler, whom she had met at the Worlds five years earlier, rose from the floor. On the pretence of disputing the resolution, he offered “a different proposal.” Bowing on one knee, he presented Bradt with an engagement ring. They were married five months later in the Hart House Debates Room.