The spines of Harvard men still tingle as a headline in the CRIMSON of a blue November Monday looms on memory's retina.

On the preceding Saturday the Crimson gridiron battalions had suffered a 46-0 rout at the hands of Army, a debacle so grave that solace could not be gained by writing it up, as Hitler's propagandists used to do with the German war reverses, as "a strategic retreat to prepared positions" or "an incredibly skillful disengagement from the enemy." This was 19 years ago.

No, the football defeat had to be swallowed bald and whole. But there was balm in Gilead. Equally bald and equally whole stood forth the headline that proved that, although Harvard had lost a battle, it was winning the war. The headline read: "Crimson Chessmen Rock West Point Forces."

Now Harvard football has come full circle. The season of 1950 was as dismal as, in fact a shade dismaler than, the season of 1932. But where is the balm in Gilead unless it be spelled "b-o-m-b? Certainly not in this report, grinding up the feeble residue of self-esteem, that the Harvard debating team has sustained defeat at the hands of the forensic forces of the Massachusetts state prison!

To be sure, apologists may argue ad nauseum and alibi artists may spin endless excuses. All jailbirds, it will be said, are clubhouse lawyers. But should they be good enough lawyers to out-talk the young Phi Betes who are prepping for Harvard law classes once taught by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Roscoe Pound, and Felix Frankfurter?

When Harvard football got bad in 1949, a coach could be fired. When it stayed bad in 1950, the head of an athletic director of 25 years' standing could hit the basket. But defeat and disgrace for the Crimson debating team! That's a debacle of a higher order. Whose head is left to roll but that of President James Bryant Conant? --From the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, February 20