THE MAIL

To the Editor of the Crimson:

I am a colored American--also a newspaperman, and very grateful for your expose of U. S. Navy jim crow as regards a Harvard lacrosse player.

However, I think you have been tricked into firing your guns at the Harvard A. A. which I have always found fair to colored. You have been deceived by the Navy which has always discriminated against colored.

William J. Bingham is one of the few men who made it possible for colored college athletes, barred from Dixie trials with whites, to come to the fore by competing in the Eastern Olympic trials at Harvard Stadium in 1936. I attended those trials as a colored reporter and received the best of courtesy.

One of the products of this Harvard opportunity is Big John Borican who came here from Virginia State College as a hurdler. Borican got his "lift" at Harvard--and has never forgotten it. Moreover I wrote an ANP story praising Mr. Bingham not very long ago. Several colored colleges came to Cambridge in 1936. Look up the records. The facts are there.

Mr. Bingham: could have kept Alexis home. He did not.

Mr. Bingham: quoting news story: "at first wired to accept the forfeit, but reconsidered the matter and sent word that Alexis would not dress...."

"I had no choice in the matter", reveals Mr. Bingham.

Yes, there is something rotten in Denmark, but you are on the wrong track knocking Mr. Bingham. Why kill your own leaders?

Mr. Bingham would have rebuked the U. S. Naval Academy. Why don't you find out the source of the "pressure" which forced him to change his mind. There is your story, gentlemen.

If you have the courage, you will blast the U. S. Navy which has always discriminated against colored Americans. No colored American has ever graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy. Many have attended.

In football and other sports, the Navy has barred colored.

How can you compare the Navy's attitude toward colored and that of Harvard with her Bill Lewis, Ned Gourdin, Mathews and others. Don't let the nice speeches fool you. Look at the records.

As a colored American I say you've been knocking at the wrong door. That door doesn't belong to Bill Bingham. Look higher up. Mabray Kountze,  "The Boston Guardian."

(Ed Note: The Crimson agrees that the burden of the responsibility rests with Naval Academy authorities. Mr. Bingham's statement following tonight's meeting of the Committee on Athletic Sports should further clarify his position.

Letters dealing with the Navy incident have also been deceived from Harvard Avukah, Alexander Jackson '44, and S. Ralph Harlow '08, among others.)