National issues were reflected in College action. Kirtley F. Mather, professor of Geology, argued that evolutionary theory should be taught in the schools. And H. L. Mencken, outspoken editor of the American Mercury, continuing his attack on American "Babbitry" blasted the Watch and Ward Society for its censorship.
But there were other controversies. The Student Council issued another report advising the University to split the three undergraduate classes into separate Houses, each holding two to three hundred students, in a plan patterned on the Oxford-Cambridge system.
The baseball team, with a best of sophomores, took two games form Yale, 8 to 7, and 13 to 5. Burns, William Jones, Chauncey, and Ullman all hit well during the season, and Barbee was the star pitcher. Chauncey and Ullman got five his between them in the last game. The CRIMSON predicted a 68 1/2 to 68 1/2 tie in the track meet, but surprise Eli strength in the discus upset the dope, and gave the Bulldogs a 68 2/3 to 68 1/3 victory.
Right before the crew left for Red Top, Coach Edward A. Stevens resigned because of what he called a lack of cooperation on the part of the crew. Captain Winthrop admitted the breach in coach-oarsman relations. Bert Haines was appointed coach and Yale won by two lengths.
Juniors More Worldly
As juniors, '28 men were more worldly. Its members heeded the ads and subscribed to the New York Times ("Sports News Written by College Men") and Vanity Fair ("Published for what is probably the most intelligent group of readers in the world"). The junior might even have bought a raccoon coat for $275, a Dusenberg Roadster for $1750, or one of Langrock's Nassau model sack coats.
In the opening football game, little Geneva College, led by a 230-pound guard named Cal Hubbard, slammed out a 16 to 7 victory over a Harvard team which was minus R. W. Turner and J. P. Crosby, both of whom had been inactivated by the language requirement. The number of one's classmates who were on pro would astonish today's undergraduate--950 entered as freshmen, but only 650 would be around to graduate. Coach Horween had a whole-team of ineligible men which he used to scrimmage the varsity.
The big news throughout the fall was still in athletics. Added to the furor about de-emphasis came the specific problem of the Princeton game. There had been rumors that Harvard wanted to drop the Tigers for a few years so as to play Michigan. But on October 8 Athletic Director Bingham announced that this idea had been abandoned, that the traditional game would be held as usual in 1927, and that "relations between Harvard and Princeton are excellent and I am confident that nothing will arise to disturb the amicability of the relationship."
Strong English Influence
The CRIMSON attempted to build up English-style debating as a counter-attraction to football, though it continued to run news of practices in the lead column each day. Indeed, the English influence was heavy on the College all year: Gilbert Murray was giving the Norton lectures, the Cambridge debaters created a sensation with their winning arguments for government regulation (F. W. Lorentzen was one-third of the Harvard team), the tutorial system was just taking hold, and reading periods patterend on Oxford's were instituted for the first time at any American university.
But debate was no substitute for a winning football team, and enthusiasm soared when the Crimson upset Dartmouth, 16 to 12, on sophomore Art French's last-minute run. Tufts was crushed 69 to 6, and then came the Princeton game, the last Princeton game, in fact, until 1932. The Tigers won, 9 to 0, but the game was lost in a welter of bad feeling over a Lampoon parody which proclaimed the death of the Princeton coach, a regular issue of the 'Poon, which showed two pigs over the caption "Let's all root for Princeton," charges of dirty playing, and Harvard's attempt to schedule Michigan. Behind it all lay Harvard's patronizing attitude toward "those Princeton play-boys" and Princeton's resentment of "those intellectual Harvard snobs"
Class activities went on as usual. The '28 football team defeated the Yale class champions 13 to 0. Hammer, Dearborn, Hemminger, Wilson, Cashing, Turnoy, Fox, Hodges, Adams, Herman, Allen, Lomasnoy, Heard, Barbee, Van Rensseloar, Ellis, Mulliken, and Long were on the winning team. And Phi Beta Kappa's juniors were Ernest T. Berkeley, Edgar M. Hoover, Hyman Sobell, Martin Tall, Bleiweiss, Jones, and Stamm.
A 12 to 7 Yale victory by the margin of two field goals ended the varsity football season, though a Chauncey to Saltonstall pass gave hope for the future. Despite the CRIMSON's editorial about "exotic-idiotic" productions, the Dramatic Club proceeded to stage "The Orange Comedy," with Barry Bingham in the lead part and L. H. Ennis, K. A. Perry