New-York tribune., 1905-02-05
FOOTBALL AGAIN.

President Eliot's arraignment of intercolle-
giate football is TO attract great attention
because both Of its source and its severity.
With nearly or quite all that he says about the
lesser objections to the game We are in full
agreement and there is not likely to be much
dissent from his estimate of them outside of
undergraduate circles. Indeed, ii is safe TO say
that even in the colleges which turn out the
strongest football teams many students will ad-
NIT the justice of that part of Dr. Elots COM
plaint. 1t is perfectly true that the game is
seriously discredited by Its extreme publicity,
1.-The large proportion Of injuries among the
players, the absorption of the undergraduate
mind in the subject for two months, and the
"disproportionate exaltation of the football hero
'in the college world These evils, if they
were all, would at least explain the disapproval
with which football is regarded by many per-
sons who are not opposed to athletic sports in
general.
But there are other objections to the game as
It is now played, and, if the practices which DR..
Eliot describes In telling words are as COM
mon as ne seems to believe, they so far to
warrant his sweeping condemnation. But If,
while quite as odiouS as he deems them they
are rare and moreover, are becoming rarer, as
Is often confidently asserted, then his indict-
ment does not appear altogether just Though
he does not explicitly say so, his argument is
based on the assumption that there Is great
deal Of trickery and brutality in the modern
game. Some players, he says, are never guilty
of the offences which he mentions and some
are guilty of them only when they lose their
tempers, but others are habitually guilty Of
them. What, however, are the proportons2 2
The president of Harvard has much informa-
ton at command, and if he furnished an esti-
mate Of the amount of foul play exhibited or
concealed in an average game of football the
public might be willing to accept it as trust
worthy But he gives no clew to the relative
numbers Of the innocent and guilty. and that,
of course, is a very important question.
We cannot help thinking that DR., Eliot has
hurt his case by making some statements which
he would have to withdraw on further refec
ton. He says, for example: mo sport is whole
's0me in which ungenerous and mean acts,
which easily escape detection, contribute to
victory, whether such acts be occasional and
incidental or habitual' If that is true, a
great many pastimes which are highly es-
teemed by moralists should be abandoned Is
golf an unwhOlesome sport? If DR.. Eliot plays
that game. he knows that it affords constant
opportunities for ungenerous and mean acts
which would easily escape detection and con-
tribute to victory. More than half the time it
is the simplest thing in the world to exchange
an impossible lie for a good one by touch of
foot or club which your antagonist could not see
and your caddie would never mention if he hap
pened to be looking. No doubt the thing is done
every now and then by some sneak but does
anybody think that fact is a sufficient rea-
son for condemning golf as unwhoesome
game?
We have satisfactory means of judging
how badly tainted football is by the illegiti-
mate practices which Dr. Eliot denounces none
too severely but there are plenty of competent
Witnesses and we wish their testimony were
procurable, The captains and managers know,
and, if they could be persuaded to tell, it would
be easy to find a verdict.