UPHOLDING THE IDEAL

The climax of an open season for charity football games has been reached in the formulation of the plan involving eight colleges who gave grudging approval to the admitted commercialization of their football teams. The very admission on the part of the participating colleges that they have compromised their policies by agreeing to join in the frenzy of charity games strengthens the approval one must accord President Lowell.

No one can deny that to fall in with the proposal would have been a clever way of making a generous gesture and carrying off applause as gracefully as possible in a bad situation. A method of assisting unemployment relief has been suggested to the President, and he has declined to accept the means and its concomitant sacrifice of principle.

The economics of charity games as such is open to severe criticism of a practical sort. No matter how worthy the cause, it is doubtful wisdom to place responsibility on educational institutions whose duty to the state certainly is not financial. There are indications that the attraction of post-season football games is declining. It is possible that the funds raised by charity games may be so inconsiderable that the resultant psychological effect will offset the benefits derived from the money. There will be inevitable regional variations in response to this method of indirect taxation. In sections most seriously affected by the crisis the income will be the least.

There will be much criticism of President Lowell and his stand. So much is the least to be expected, for his decision will not find popular or political favor. But none can say truthfully that he, or Harvard, has refused to contribute efforts toward relief of the unemployed and needy. Harvard is eager to follow its leader far in any acceptable program of assistance to charity. What the President has not consented to is the employment of a method which appears to him unwise and which is an admitted abasement of high policy in American university administration.