To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

It was with great interest that I read the article in this morning's CRIMSON on the Advocate's attitude toward football.

Mr. Edmonds evidently thinks that intersectional games advance professionalism, I should like to refute his argument by pointing out the fact that A. A. Stagg, for 34 years coach at the University of Chicago, and one of professional football's bitterest foes, is one of the strongest supporters of intersectional gridiron struggles. Professor Stagg has been in football long enough to know what harms and does not harm the sport. If he believed that intersectional games were the cause of professionalism, he would not permit Chicago to meet Eastern teams. Yet the Maroons are scheduled to clash with both Dartmouth and Pennsylvania this fall.

The claim that East vs. West causes bad feeling does not appear to me to be quite true. At the present time both East and West look down upon each other, mainly because neither knows much about the other. Since I have been at Harvard I have been forced to change my personal ideas about eastern football, and my former ideas are the popular ones in mid-western institutions. Most of my friends here similarly look lown upon western football.

It appears to me that a better understanding between the East and the West could be effected by having more intersectional games. In the last few years Princeton has become increasingly popular throughout the West, and has large numbers of students from the Middle West. This I attribute to the better understanding of Princeton by the people of the West, which is largely a result of two football games between Princeton and Chicago.

Mr. Edmonds thinks that a league would do much to correct the evils of present day athletics. In a way he is correct, but looking at the matter from other aspects, matters would be more complicated. As a transferred student from the University of Chicago I am familiar with the Western Conference, or "Big Ten" (Chicago, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio Stat, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Northwestern, and Purdue). The conference system has one very great failing, namely, the utter unreliability of determining the championship, which I shall endeavor to illustrate. Last year Chicago won the Big Ten Championship, although the Maroon success was due to three tie games and only two victories. One of the tie games was with Wisconsin, which did not win a game, and consequently was at the bottom of the list in standing. Yet they tied the Conference champions. Two years ago the Badgers achieved a 42-0 win over Indiana. Notwithstanding this, the conference system of percentage gave Indiana a place two or three places above the standing of Wisconsin, despite the Hoosier institution's overwhelming defeat. Another example: Last year Illinois whipped Michigin and Iowa, who both in turn defeated Minnesota, which turned around and crushed Grange and Illini. Yet Minnesota ranked far lower than Illinois in the final standing. There is now a movement to decrease the size of the Conference, and make everyone play everyone to decrease the failings of the percentage system.

On the other hand, the Western Conference has many good features. The greatest of these is the fact that ten great universities are united by the strictest athletic code in existence. Consequently, Mr. Edmonds suggestion of a conference in the east, which would broaden the scope of the Harvard Yale-Princeton agreement, is very laudable. But why have it a mutually exclusive organization. Neither the Western nor the Missouri Valley Conference forbid their members to play preliminary non-conference games. Therefore, why could not a similar organization in the East allow for non-conference games, or at least for preliminary games with schools belonging to other conference with similar characteristics. Donald McCloud '28.