New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-11-09
Robert T. Jessup, Graduate Of
1876, DenounceS Use of
English Stroke.
ADVISES RECALL OF COOK
Believes Old Captain Gould
Bring New Haven Out OF
Slough of Despond in
Which It Wallows.

i
lowing caustic words. from Salt Lake
City:
The news Of Yale's disheartening de-
feat last Saturday on Lake Carnegie by
Princeton. college as yet called green
in the collegiate rowing field, would seem
to be the final straw to segregats the
camelian vertebre. 1t is the limit; and
Yale University, as rowing factor. Is
at present zero quantity-all because
the mentors OF her rowing fortunes. or
better, misfortunes, persist in clingtng to
an English fad. a cockney ignis fatuus.
with a tenacity worthy Of better cause.
Yale beaten two lengths In q one-and-
three-eighths miles straightaway race!
This would mean ten lengths in four
mile race, and perhaps the Blues would
not have reached the finish line at all:
| rather, rescued from a watery grave by,
| a lfesaving crew at the end of the third
! mile. The reports say two Ellis collapsed
at the finish, while the Princetonians
finished fresh as daisies. Very likely it
Is just as well that the contest ended
where and when 1t did, else Princeton
undertakers might have enjoyed a mort
| uary picnic at Yale expense.
"Our boating situation recalls q script
ural text, part of Hosea iv, II: For Israel
behaveth himself stubbornly, like stub
born heifer. Ephraim Is Joined to
his idols. let him alone In the face OF
repeated defeats, how otherwise can the
Yale navy management be character
lied? They are the strongest kind Of an
argument against assumption of final
| authority in boating matters by under
graduates. and II this sort Of thing con-
tinues year or two longer II Is an evil
dent proposition that the graduate body
will have to take the bovine not merely
by the horns, but also by the tail and
hind leg and the undergraduate body
given to understand that a radical change
must be made. and made right away. OF
! else the Yale navy must shut up shop
and retire from business.
Yale is strictly up against Il; she Ia
non est inventus In the college rowing
world, an aquatic Thersites, a standing
joke, a bald-headed farce. There is not
a preparatory school In the country with
sufficient rowing facilities to maintain q
school crew that could not at present put
Yale up tree in boat race; and II
In the face Of what has already hap
pened Yale persists in rowing the So
called English stroke II would be fitting
If Yale graduates remained away from
the funeral procession next June at New
| London.
| There is no reasonable excuse for all
this misdirection and dissipation Of well
meant, valuable energy. While the pri-
mary cause is the Inflated English
stroke, there is apparently to the OBJ
server another and associated underlying
cause well understood In college circles
sinister influences, at the bare mention
OF which Yale under class men drop their
chins with bated breath, a mysterious
presence before which the Skyline Books
, shrink into insignihcance and the dog
star Sirius pales into Intellectual fire.
This condition was very manifest at
New London in 1872 At that time Cap
tain Cook, the best coach Yale ever had.
was getting his crew into a shape capable
OF accomplishing something. when these
sinister influences OVERRIDE his authority
and put two men in the boat whom in
experienced observers declared could not
pull their own weight-and they didn't.
Captain Cook left the Yale boathouse In
disgust before the race and went back
to Paris, whence he had come In patriotic
hopes of once more doing something for
his alma mater.
| After his predictions OF defeat for the
Blues had crystallized into actual fact
It might have been supposed that the
old adage Of A burned child breads the
fire would have been held in honor and
observance at New Haven. the preposter-
Gus stroke abandoned and the sinister in
fuences referred to firmly, II not forcibly
relegated to the background. But no
Israel proved a stubborn heifer; Ephraim
chung to his idols like death to pale
darkey.'-end there you are The same
crazy quilt combination sat in the saddle
last year. with most mournful results
leaving the average graduate feeling al
though he had one foot IN the grave and
the other on a banana peel.
AT the end Of tho third milo the news
paper correspondents might have wired
their papers, Tho Harvard crew at thi:
point accepted an invitation out to tea
and after having spent pleasant houl
at the table, followed by a game OF golf
returned to their boat with ample tins
to beat Yale under the railroad bridge
/ by ten lengths
when this fall term opened II gave
Yale graduates a series of spasms e
learn from the aquatic powers that b
at New Haven that the English stroke
had been given an insufficient trial. and
out Of justice TO the English coaches
it would be used again in the 1914 races
at New London. Well. they rave the i'm
ported stroke another trial last Saturday
when Princeton mopped the earth with
the cockney Blues. This gives prett,
reliable forecast of what will happen next
summer IL the altogether lively pro-
gramme Is carried out. IT means de-
feat OF twenty lengths.
Isn't IL time to call a halt? Rather
think II is There is one thing TO be done
/ bring Bob Cook back from Paris. put
: full power In his hands as the coach
let him have his own way and make thu
, crew captain entirely subordinate to him
To a man who has seen military service
the idea Of allowing crew captain eoua
authority with the coach is like giving q
sergeant equal say with captain. i
| Is absurd to imagine that any under
graduate can match his inexperience Will
the matured Judgment of an experienced
coach of years standing. Courtney senses
, this when he went to Cornell. He In
| ~