Too Much Ooo-Rahl

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To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The information conveyed by your column this morning that Harvard is about to be endowed with an "oorah" cheer, vitiating as was its effect on the matutinal appetite, did not--alas!--arrive entirely as a bolt from the blue.. To anticipate something of the kind as the inevitable result of a cheer-leading "competition," did not require the gift of second sight. Let me hasten to protest that I do not herein wish to imply any criticism of the gentlemen who, as victims of the said competition, have been drafted to their ridiculous duty. Their services need only have been impressed for the bedevilment of Harvard cheering, and they are assuming that implied obligation seriously--or is it ironically. The "avocatus Diaboli," I am aware, contends that a lack of "devil" in the stands is reflected on the field. This, as everybody else perfectly well knows, is rubbish. I have often been told by football friends that they did not even hear the cheering during a game much less care whether there was any or not. Cheering is a stimulant for the cheerers. The fact that they once also carried flasks never, so far as I have heard, led any Bacchic enthusiast to demand the administration of alcoholic refreshment to the players between halves. But as--so I am told--it was formerly considered undesirable for too many of the spectators to become too exalted in one respect, so we have also been accustomed to put some check on our male Maenads of noise. Thus end the old cheers and their leaders have served long, faithfully, and well. For pity's sake let us restore them before--for lack of practice in the art--we make ourselves utterly and unamusingly jackassical! Hugh Whitney 1G.,   1324 Massacuhsetts Avenue.