Some time ago, this column discussed the unwarranted attacks of two ex-patriots upon their alma mater...John Tunis of Harvard and Larry Kelley of Yale. Add to that Hall of Shame the name of Dave Egan '23, who now exploits pet peeves for the amusement and stupefaction of Boston Record readers.

Benedict Arnold Bingham?

In the best Hearst style, Egan yesterday buffooned Bill Bingham as a master hypocrite and the H.A.A. as a prude but shrewd sweat-shop. The gist of Dave's theme revolves as follows: Bill Bingham was a ringer in the class of 1916, who after graduation betrayed his own caste by cutting the pay of athletes employed by the H.A.A. kitchen; Harvard has a lousy football team and will continue the same way as long as Bingham bends backward from professionalism.

Like his predecessors, Kelley and Tunis, Dave Egan has confused fact with fancy. And his inevitable conclusion that Harvard turn pro is as distasteful as his purposeful misstatements of the truth.

Bill Bingham was not a ringer. He and Charley Brickley opened and operated a student laundry of the type found in many small colleges. Initiative and industry along proper channels will never be questioned; Bingham had both and successfully worked his way through Harvard in this manner.

Generous Hours and Return

Bill Bingham did discontinue the payment of athletes for waiting on tables at the Varsity Club, but the present hours and return are hardly as grim as Egan portrays. During the season needy members of athletic squads wait on the training tables for one hour at lunch and dinner six days a week. In return for 12 hours of work (two hours per day), the waiters are given all their meals including breakfast free, gratis etc., or the equivalent of $10 worth of House food.

Obviously this treatment is humane, and completely satisfactory to the waiters involved. In fact Bill Bingham's regime has been ever marked by a personalized sympathy with needy athletes, tempered only by his conviction that Harvard athletics must remain on an irreproachable pedestal.

Football Secondary

Harvard has long had pride in its achievement. Primarily the college is devoted to the task of educating young men in preparation for life, not for a professional career with the Chicago Bears.

Harvard men naturally want a winning football team, but with the exception of Dave Egan and a few alumni cronies, Harvard men want a team representative of the University, and not a score of imported mercenaries.

With a typical cluster of Alumni 'sour-grapes', Egan concludes that the 1939 Harvard Varsity is the worst in history as "the logical result of Bingham's policy." There have been better Harvard teams, and despite Dave Egan, there WILL be better Harvard teams. But as long as Bill Bingham, and not Dave Egan, rules in the H.A.A., those teams will be non-professional, idealistically amateur...Thank God.