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The following editorial appeared in The Princetonian of yesterday:
The Princetonian has had little to say about the Yale-Princeton game, but the angry article in the Yale News of last Thursday seems to call for an answer; Yale knows how strongly Princeton desires to meet her on the field, but Yale must not trade on that desire so far as to think of bettering her position by it.
The gist of our position is, that, if we yield to Yale again this year, we may as well be prepared to yield to her for all time to come, which we have no notion of doing. The conditions on which we insist this year have been copied with minuteness, and as a matter of principle, from the conditions which Yale saw fit to force on us last year; after this year, if Yale wishes to do so, the arrangements between the two colleges will be a matter for mutual concession, but Yale must first make good her unfair extortions of last year.
If the Yale ground was good enough for the last year's game, the Princeton ground is good enough for this year's; and if a Yale man was good enough to referee last year's game, we will not for one instant tolerate Yale's assumption that a Princeton man is not good enough to referee this year's game. Such assumptions are a part of ancient history. In future, we will not introduce them, if Yale does not; but we must first have satisfaction for the past, and security for the future. Yale must this year do as she last year forced Princeton to do; she must play on our grounds and with a Princeton referee, If she rather chooses to leave the championship in Princeton for another year, she will do what Princeton did not do last year. We may regret it, but cannot help.
It is not true that ours is a poor ground. On the contrary, it is one of the best grounds in the country. It is level, as the Yale ground is not. Our team last year did not whine about the Yale ground, through every foot-ball player who was present knows the objections which might have been made to it.
Yale's last ditch is the provision of the Constitution that the final game shall be played in New York. Last year, after our Faculty had reluctantly consented to the New York game, Yale saw nothing in the Constitution to prevent her from forcing us to play in New Haven, and we will not consent that she shall revive that article this year for her exclusive benefit.
Besides, such articles are always made, as everybody outside of Yale admits, with some slight underlying reference to College Trustees and Faculties. Yale may "boss" her Faculty: other colleges have not yet got quite so far, as witness the entire suspension of Inter collegiate foot-ball at Harvard last year. In view of Yale's course last year and this year, to indict us for failure in an impossible effort to induce our Trustees and Faculty to gratify Yale in the revival of a rule in whose suspension Yale herself acquiesced willingly enough last year, is just a little too much. Does Yale want the earth every year? She is willing to let magnanimity rule, so long as the cards are against her; we mean that she shall do so when they are for her also; and in that we are fighting the battle of every other college in the country.
We have stated the case, as Princeton men see it. We may be wrong, though we do not see how that can be, under all the circumstances. But, if Yale's refusal to appear on the grounds at the time and place fixed by the convention balks the game which we and the public would like to see, may we ask that newspapers elsewhere, in stating the case, will have some regard to our position as here stated? In common justice, our side should at least be heard.
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