The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-12-17
ANOTHER FRIEND
Football Ably Defended In
a Maine Paper.
Compared With Other Sports List
of Casualties Is
Small.

The Bangor, Me-, Daily News publish
ed the following comment on football
following the account of the Harvard
Yale game on Soldiers Field, Cam
bridge.
/ The great football contest on Sol
diers' Field, Saturday, although its re-
suit was unsatisfactory in determining
the comparative strength Of the two
leleyens. was, in other ways, favorable
| indication for the future Of the game.
Saturdays contest was married by no
unmanly features, and though some OF
| the men received slight injuries, no one
was seriously hurt. This shows that
the time has come when two great AM
erican universities can meet upon the
athletic field and match skill, strength
and generalship, without the unseemly
accessories that have been responsible
for much of the prejudice that exists
against this greatest of all college
sports. The hue and cry that is being
raised in some quarters at the present
time is utterly without justification in
common sense for whatever may be al
legged against it, football, properly play
ed under scientific direction, is not
more dangerous to life and limb than
the ordinary sports of the playday
world
There have been, according to the
record kept by the New York World, II
fatal accidents in football since 1894
In other prominent sports the record of
fatalities in the same time was as fol-
lows: Swimming, 1850; boating, 986;
hunting, 654; bicycling, 246; horse back
riding, 1888; ice boating, %; baseball, 6;
tennis, 4; golf, 2. Probably if the elev-
en- fatalities in football were to be ana
lyized carefully it would be found that
nearly all were incidents of minor
games between elevens that had not
been sufficiently trained or properly
| it would be extremely difficult, we i'm
lagine, to give an intelligent excuse for
discouraging the game of bootball, and
continuing to encourage swimming,
boating, hunting and bicycling.
But football is not intelligently op-
posed. Whatever legislation has been
aimed against it has been Of the freak
nature. Virtuous Georgia, the State
which now threatens to perpetrate a
must be remembered, the home of
lynchings ard has been until very re-
Gently, guilty of such inhuman treat
ment of it's criminals as the kingdom of
Ashantee would be ashamed of. 1t is
only another instance Of straining at a
|gnat, and swallowing camel.
To the man whose school life is not
so far behind him that he has lost the
spirit of youth, or in whose case it was
not so misdirected as to have caused
him to see only the intensely practical
side of education, school and college
|athletics form vital part of the stu
dent life. A healthful interscholastic
rivalry acts as stimulant to greater
ambitions in every interest of the
youthful mind. It means better health
to both the successful candidates for
the various athletic teams, and for
those who cheer them on to victory and
|sympathize with them in defeat. 1t in
|spires self reliance and encourages
manliness. Football is one of the most
popular of the school and college sports
of the present generation. 1t may have
it's faulty features, which, considering
that the young men who play the game
are mortal is not so very strange, but
it is far from being the brutal sport
which it's enemies, who are enemies
from ignorance, are constantly claim
ing it to be. If it can be made freer
from fault, and more satisfactory to
friends and enemies in consequence
thereof, we trust that time will bring
about the needful changes. In the
ing in popularity, as it is bound in time
to gain the popular confidence That it
is essentially a gentleman's game could
not be better proven than by the char
acter of the people in attendance upon
Saturdays contest Scoffers may liken
the game to prize fighting, but they
must admit that it's patrons rank essen
italy higher in the scale than do the
frequenters of the ring side or of the
race course