"Lack of spirit, did I say? Spirit, in the language of the barracks and of the dormitories and the language of these is quite similar), is nothing but a four-letter word meaning intestinal fortitude, an ugly little word known as "guts."

"If the Harvard team had as little spirit and as little pride as some of the undergraduate body at Harvard, Yale could crawl to victory on its hands and knees. Fortunately for Harvard's pride, however, that is not so."

Mr. Egan's study in the anatomy of student support, like his emotional reminiscences, is excusable by the standard of news value. But even news value has always been drawn sitting at the right hand of truth. Mr. Egan has reversed this juxtaposition in an analysis of Harvard undergraduate sentiment that omits supporting facts. He has also misrepresented in general and falsified in particular the CRIMSON's attitude toward football, football rallies, and the expression of student opinion.

The following quotations, and a categorical dental that the CRIMSON has ever "scoffed at the idea of undergraduate rallies", will serve as restatement of the CRIMSON's position:'

"...The CRIMSON does not 'support' the football team, any more than it 'supports' the Harvard Dramatic Club, the Harvard Glee Club, the Harvard Corporation, the Harvard Lampoon, or the Phillips Brooks House Association..."

"Undergraduate sentiment is too vague and ill-defined, at Harvard at least, to make a suitable foundation on which to build an editorial policy. Every paper represents the opinions and prejudices of those who run and own it." November 21, 1927.

"The paper does not pretend to be a mirror of undergraduate thought. Every Harvard man knows, or comes to know, that there is no such thing at Harvard as composite undergraduate thought. The CRIMSON avowedly expresses the attitude only of its own editors..."   September 22, 1928.

And upon the announcement of the cancellation of the rally:

"Abolishing the Yale football rally is abolishing a tradition. One might feel a little guilty about that, did he not know that the tradition has been soured by unspontaneity. The game is where it has always been, on the knees of the gods and the linemen. And at the needful moment, in the Yale Bowl, it will be for the cheering section to show that Harvard's old and inextinguishable pride in the Harvard team has lost nothing more than a blurring anachronism."   November 19, 1928.