THE OLD GOLD COAST

"At Harvard University, scene of so many classic defeats, Old Gold bit the dust," notes The New York World in commenting on the recent cigarette test given a group of undergraduates. That New York editorial writer may have phrased those words with a great deal of subtlety.

Visions of the Center College eleven of 1921, mixed in with last minute dashes to the Widow's and unfortunate upsets of tea cups at Quincy Street receptions easily suggest themselves to the morbid mind. Too, there is always the chance that the Park Row hack had his fling at Radcliffe romance in his Cambridge days. Perhaps, if Mr. Heywood Broun were still connected with The World, there might have been a hidden, very hidden reference to the language requirements.

There is more to it than that, more to it, even than a sly thrust at Lampy and his humor. For The World knows its Harvard, knows the hopes that come with each Freshman Class and leave again, sometimes, with the seniors. And in it all the great metropolitan daily sees a significant object lesson. Old Gold goes down, but the fight goes on, and when the final smoke from the fray has cleared persistency will win the day. For dejected Freshmen remains the moral: Not a defeat in a class full.