The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-04
FOOTBALL ENDANGERED.

YaIe ma Princeton Resent Harvards Negro Member. Yale threatens to brake of relations with Harvard on account or the negro question.
 ing Matthews in the big game. ne 1 had been warned that Yale Southerners would bitterly resent such an affront. WriRhtinrton, so the story goes, or dered Matthews, who Is a coal-black k negro. in at left end to humiliate Walter Randall. who Is the captain or the baseball team. before the So,ooO spectators.
 Randall, 1t is said, denounced Wright ington and threw his football togs in his face for playing favorites with a secret society pull in the Pennsylvania game. Randall. the best end In col lege, was deliberately kept on the side lines to make way for Fi1ley, the son of an English earl, and Whitman, the tennis player.
 Both these belong to the ultra swell Harvard set. Randall Is Missourian. and in no sense a society man. He Is hotheaded, though, and bitterly resent ed it when Matthews came out and scornfully waved him out of the game. wrightington, 1t is said, was warned during the game that he must not play negroes against Yale. He was told that it was an insult to the Southerners in college. wrightington promised to be good and took Matthews out. after he had been kicked and hammered nearly into insensibility by the indig- nant Yale players.
 Backed by a we'll known abolitionist sentiment at Harvard, wrlghtington was at first obdurate. until told point blank by Yale coaches that no more negroes must be played on Harvard. Another complication has arose. It has leaked out that Princeton has taken a hand In the row and told Har- yard plainly that football relations would never be resumed until Harvard agreed not to play negroes. As white mems colleges. Princeton and Yale. 1t Is said, have read the riot act to Harvard, and delivered u1ti- matums, through men close to the athletic leaders, that the Crimson must pass up the negroes.
 Since this we'll authenticated story has leaked out, 1t is said that Yale and Princeton contemplate forming a three cornered league with Pennsylvania and drop Harvard altogether.
 It is we'll known that the Quakers do not give negroes a chance in football. Harvard has slumped so badly in foot | ball that she is no longer considered | to be a worthy opponent.
 Internal dissensions, proven charges | of favoritism and incompetence have so badly disrupted the eleven that the | graduates are calling loudly for a new 1 man at the helm. "Bill' Reid is slated l for the place, and will be the Walter Camp of Harvard. Wrightington is down and out. The Boston Herald and The Boston Globe have quit sup porting him and the Harvard Bulletin | is calling loudly for the return of Reid. wrightington Is head over heels in the mire and does not know how to get out. The students are mad clear through at the long series of defeats | and with the newspapers openly charg- nlg favoritsm, snobbery and secret so- ciety pull, they savagely demand l Wrightington's head and a new order | of things
 Randall 1t is said, will appeal his | case to President Elliot and if possible | have more officials publicly rebuke Wrightington for humiliating him. The savageness of Matthews's work and the almost brutal retaliatory treat | ment which he received at the hands of Yale had their origin, 1t is said, in an Incident several years ago. when the little negro was a prep school boy at Exeter.
 Matthews was the best hitter and | infielder Exeter had, but for all that Barclay. who went to Yale the year before Matthews came to Harvard and
 is Southern man. refused to sit at the same training table with him. Barclay, as everyone expected, made
 the Yale nine in his freshman year,
 and although Andover men as a rule always go to New Haven, Matthews. smarting under his recent insult, l sought college where race distinction was less keen.
 His revenge came the following June, when, in the final baseball game in the Harvard-Yale series his clever stick work won out for Harvard in the ninth inning in one of the most sensational finishes ever made by a Crimson team. Since then Matthews has played on
 three championship baseball hines, and Yale. with its strong Southern element
 has hated in proportion.