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HARVARD-YALE FOOTBALL.

Captain Thorne's Letter and the Reply of the Athletic Committee.

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

The correspondence between Harvard and Yale relative to the arrangement of a football game next fall was given out last night. The two letters are given below:

YALE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION, NEW HAVEN, CONN., May 11, 1895.Mr. Arthur H. Brewer:

DEAR SIR: - I regret that your illness prevented your coming to New Haven as you proposed doing in your letter of April 23. Your visit would have given me the opportunity of informing you of Yale's position with regard to a Harvard game next fall.

During the last four or five months charges have been made against our team, repeated with persistence, the original charge having come from a Harvard coach.

We steadily refrained from complicating the situation by any recriminations or statements except by publishing a denial on the part of the officials of the Springfield game of the truth of the charges which reflected not only on the Yale team but the good name of our university itself.

While we do not hold you or your team responsible for these accusations, it was in your power to have contradicted them and thus to have neutralized their serious effect, not only upon us but upon the sport.

Under these circumstances we feel that it would not be for the best interests of football or of the Universities to run even a chance of a repetition of Yale's experience since the Harvard game. Unless then such contradictions come from you, would it not be wiser to allow the feelings thus engendered to cool with time rather than to enter upon a contest with these recollections still fresh in our minds?

Should you still be unwilling to do us justice in this way we have concluded to arrange no game with you.

Let me assure you, however, that in case a proper contradiction of these charges is made we shall take pleasure in arranging a game with you and have up to this time reserved a date in the hope that it may be brought about. Other negotiations will not permit us to hold that or any other date open later than May 22.

Very truly yours,S. B. THORNE.HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, May 18th, 1895.To the Athletic Authorities of Yale University:-

DEAR SIRS: - The recent letter from Captain Thorne to Captain Brewer, which raises an important question of intercollegiate athletic policy, has been referred to the Harvard Athletic Committee.

The Committee, believing that it would have been better to let bygones be bygones, regrets the revival of the discussion concerning the last Springfield football game. Since, however, Captain Thorne asks Harvard to contradict the opinions publicly expressed by her chief coach the day after the game, the Committee must frankly say that compliance with this request is impossible.

There is nothing in the feeling of the Harvard players, or of Harvard men generally, which would prevent their meeting the Yale men next November in a spirit of generous rivalry. If, however, the feeling at New Haven is such that Yale is unwilling to arrange a game with Harvard for next autumn, the Committee can only express the general regret of Cambridge men that the two colleges must lose this opportunity of showing that they have the will and the ability to play football with each other in a friendly and sportsmanlike spirit.

Yours truly,JAMES BARR AMES,Chairman Harvard Athletic Committee.

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