By its acceptance of the invitation to play at Pasadena this year, Columbia must bear the charge of overemphasizing intercollegiate football. The squad has just completed one of the most successful seasons in Morningside history. Now the team is to be sent 3,000 miles away to show its unique ability in booting a tiny pigskin before mobs for whom this university signifies solely a good football team.

In taking this action Columbia must be accused of deliberate disregard of those statements which its own athletic investigating committee made last February:

We recognize the value of intercollegiate athletic contests. We believe, however, that these contests ought not to be conducted as public spectacles for profit. We should look forward with pleasure to such a reorganization of athletics as would confine attendance to members of the universities and their alumni.

We have found that the criticism and rumors brought to us from various sources revolved entirely around intercollegiate football. We believe that these reports are due to the interest or apparent overemphasis on football which originates from the attitudes of the public, alumni, and students toward the sport.

The men who accepted this invitation will not deny that the game is a tremendous money-making proposition, no matter how much will be distributed to charities. Further, the men who fell all over themselves before this hullaballoo have betrayed the trust placed in them if we realize that Columbia University has been a leader in placing intercollegiate football on a sane and decent level.

This editorial expression is not an attack upon the men who compose the varsity squad. We realize fully what a thrill it is to them to be singled out as gridiron representatives of the East. The men themselves are as clean a group of players and gentlemen as any college can boast about. But it is not a question of personalities so much as it is a question of principle.

The administration completely forgot its ideals, however, when it accepted this invitation. It means a tremendous spurt in that ballyhoo and sophomoric enthusiasm deplored in recent years by men and women--including President Butler--who have seen the growing vices which such unmitigated emphasis was developing.

Columbia University had its chance yesterday to show conclusively that intercollegiate football here is not a public spectacle for profit. It had its chance to stand out above any institution in the United States as pre-eminently a university devoted to the advancement of learning and research. By permitting the football team to strike out for Pasadena it has repudiated its own standards.

The Lion Has Joined the Circus. --Columbia Spectator.