We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest. The CRIMSON is not, however, responsible for the sentiments expressed in such communications as may be printed.

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The football situation has been so thoroughly discussed not only in the College publications but also in the newspapers outside, that I hesitate to ask you to print anything more on the subject, but I want to say a word or two bearing on your editorial of last Thursday in which you expressed your willingness to publish "such communications as may be useful in improving conditions."

My judgment is that destructive criticism has gone far enough and that if anything more is to be offered either by undergraduates or alumni it should be put forth, not for the sake of finding fault with what has been done, but to point out the means for improvement. I know that a feeling of what might be called indignation prevailed in the College immediately after the Pennsylvania and Yale games and I feel sure that some of it still exists, but to give expression to it would do a great deal of harm especially as it is, in my opinion, without much foundation. There has been a lot of talk about favoritism and society influence and it has spread abroad to such an extent that the reputation of the College has already suffered and will. I fear, suffer still more. Every Harvard man should do what he can to stop such reports unless he believes they are true. I am convinced that they are false and that the real basis for them is that we were beaten when we expected to win. If the coaches had succeeded in defeating Yale we should have heard little or nothing about favoritism, as a matter of fact, the feeling I have referred to was much less pronounced after the Yale game than it had been just after the Pennsylvania game, and the change in sentiment was due to the fact that the eleven played better against Yale than any one had expected.

The coaches this fall made mistakes in judgment, but in my twenty years of observation of Harvard athletics I have never seen a coach who did not make mistakes. Even W. T. Reid, Jr., for whom most of us are shouting so hard just now (at any rate I am), did many things which caused severe criticism, but they were all forgotten when the team which he was coaching won from Yale, I suppose that playing Filley at end caused more talk than any other one thing this fall. It was attributed to favoritism. I know Filley. He is not the sort of man who becomes the beneficiary of unfair methods or society influence. The graduates who were coaching the ends thought from the moment he began to play that he was the most promising candidate for that position they had ever seen. They said so to friends of mine long before any of us who were on the outside knew that Filley had any chance of making the team. It was a serious mistake, and unfair to Filley and the College, to suppose that he could become a finished end with the little practice he had. But it is absurd, when one knows the facts, to hint that there was favoritism. Investigation will show that the complaints about other instances are equally unfounded. Bad judgment may lose a football game and may be taken as evidence that a man is not fitted to be head coach of an eleven, but it is not a crime.

Is it not possible that the feeling against the societies is a little too strong just now in College and that they are accused of deeds they have never done? I do not believe that these organizations ought to combine to defeat a man in an election merely because he is a non-society man. But is that course worse than it is for non-society men to combine to defeat a man merely because he is a member of a society?

The point to this communication, if it has any, is this--it is not a time for controversy. The lesson of the football season is evident; there is nothing new in it, although it seems to have been brought home this fall with particular force. The thing to do now is to unite for the purpose of doing better next year and in the other years to come. JOHN D. MERRILL '89.