THE PRESS

With the football season drawing rapidly to a close I am assailed by my annual pang of regret that Harvard and Princeton are still at loggerheads in its day this encounter was buoyed up by an old and interesting tradition Football, like wine, is poor stuff until it has been aged. I would not go across the room to turn a radio dial for the sake of hearing Ohio State and Northwestern. Not, you understand, that these institutions are not admirable, but their rivalry is of much too recent a vintage to be very thrilling.

The more I mull about the matter the greater becomes my puzzlement that Princeton should have taken the decisive step in the break with Harvard. No college ever eat prettier than the Tigers. Year after year they met the Crimson team after a disappointing season and always they came to life to perform prodigies and win a brilliant victory.

To many Princeton undergraduates that one game represented the hope of an education. There were scores who worked their way through college by betting each year against Harvard. And in the homes of Princeton graduates from the classes before the break one could note rich rugs, fur coats, and electric pianos. They were prosperous enough to afford luxuries. Indeed, in one Princeton home I saw a book, and when any man from old Nassau goes in for literature you may be sure that he is treading on velvet and that he doesn't care how he squanders his money. And in those days there was no need for thrift among the Tigers. Princeton Football First Preferred never failed to yield a dividend to those who backed it.

One Tiger, whom I used to know before the break in relations severed our old friendship, supported two aunts and a grandmother by parlaying his bets against Harvard. It seems to me a tragic thing that these three fine old ladies must now go hungry since the source of their income has been cut off. And the worst of it is that their ordeal is imposed for a matter of petty pride. Princeton, as I understand it, felt that Harvard was too high hat. Whether or not this complaint is well founded makes very little difference. It is never necessary to establish a complete case in order to set up a symbol. To Princeton, Harvard became the archtype or token of snobbery and superciliousness. And out of this idea came great benefits to young men who were the orange and the black.

Thousands and thousands of Princetonians have gone out into the world quite freed from the inferiority complex because of the peculiar efficacy which Tiger teams had against the Crimson. And this was salutary because, as a matter of fact, the Princetonian who feels inferior is suffering only by the kindest stretch of the imagination from a complex. But even an actual inferiority can be swept away in the glamor of a football triumph. It should be unnecessary to point out that the benefits were conferred upon many who never made Coach Roper's squad. When Wittmer gets loose the most meager freshman in the cheering section is also free and hellbent for glory. "Hold em!" shout the undergraduates in the stands, and as they cry out they brace their legs against the concrete and all their muscles are ridged and tense.

Heywood Broun '10 in the "Nation".