(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:--

Whether Dr. Eliot's strictures on West Point are tenable or not remains for experts to decide, but why becloud the issue of his charges of "woozyness" by attempting an analogy between two wholly unrelated subjects? When a man intimates that our habits might be worse if we were nearer New York, or Philadelphia--or Sodom and Gomorrha--he makes a statement that reflects credit neither on his logic nor on his ethical standards. Surely there is more than a saving remnant among the student body who deplore with Dr. Eliot the lawlessness and indecency that characterize the conduct of many of the undergraduates at both public and private functions. No one present at the Senior picnic dare deny the truth of the morning journals' account that "although they didn't tell where they got the booze, they told the world what they did with it"; and while it may not be for us to criticise the matrons and maids who put the stamp of their approval on similar conditions at Boston balls, Dr. Eliot's position is another mater, and is quite unassailable.

It has been difficult to protest against the increasing orgies of drunkenness this winter without encountering the charge of a "holier than thou" attitude, of pharisaism, or of prudery, but the chastening words of the one who has done more than any other living man to make Harvard the greatest of American universities find a sympathetic echo in the hearts of hundreds of men whom we believe more truly represent the sentiments of undergraduates than the noisy group who refuse to see the beam in their own eye, and the reply of whose champion is only in truth a corroboration of Dr. Eliot's criticisms. Instead of a crawling retort, let us frankly admit that we share the regret that an element among us does exist so lost to any sense of personal decorum that they constantly imperil the reputation of their chosen college and drag its fair name in the mire--only qualifying the admission by the demonstrable statement that the number of offenders is less than their apparent ubiquity might indicate. A. ALEXANDER ROBEY '20.