Communication.

We invite all members of the University to contribute to this column, but we are not responsible for the sentiments expressed. Every communication must be accompanied by the name of the writer.

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The athletic management stated in the CRIMSON last Saturday that there were 9,000 more applications than seats for the Yale game. In the number of applicants thus excluded, it is fair to assume that a large proportion were undergraduates and graduates of the University.

Any undergraduate or graduate who applied in group four received but one seat. On the other hand, season ticket holders who had no connection whatever with the University were allotted two seats each under group three, before the applications under group four were considered.

To the writers of this communication such action on the part of the management seems manifestly unjust. Had the scarcity of seats under group four resulted from filling the applications of members or graduates of the University under the first three groups, the management evidently could not be censured. But no Harvard man should have been refused seats white season ticket holders having no connection with the University received two each, even though the latter held any number of season tickets, and paid any price for them. Harvard men should receive all the seats they want even should they exhaust the supply. Our athletic contests are for the University and not for the outside public. Until all Harvard demands are satisfied, the public should not be considered. The privilege that season ticket holders may apply for Yale game seats should have been granted with the express proviso that all Harvard applications should be filled first.

In addition to the obviously grave error of giving outside parties tickets before all Harvard applications had been filled, the writers can see the possibility of an evil still worse. What is to prevent speculators buying an unlimited number of season tickets at the beginning of the year, using fictitious names to attain that end, then renting the tickets for the preliminary games and finally applying for two Yale game seats by virtue of their privilege as season ticket holders? The Yale game tickets secured, the men can charge any price for them and there results speculation which the management cannot control.

We can, of course, obtain no positive information that such speculation is going on today. The fact, however, that tickets are on sale at many places in Boston seems very significant.  1904