The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-12-28
Copyright. 1925, by Upton Sinclair,

Copyright. 1925, by Upton sinclair)
The university had grown great
on the money of Pete O'Reilly, the
oil king; and Pet O'Reilly's son
was graduate, and the two of
them, "Old Pete" and Young Pete"
were the gods of the campus. When
they came to commencement the
faculty bowed down before them,
and in all the stories which the uni
versity's publicity man sent to the
newspapers, the names Of Pete
O'Reilly, father and son, never
failed to be featured. The son was
the most active of the alumni, and
their god when they had banquets,
he was toasted and fattered and
cheered; he was the patron saint OF
all the teams, the bounteous friend
of all athletes. And, of course, if
you know anything about American
universities, you know that this is
what counts in the molding of the
students minds; this is the thing
they do for themselves, and into
which they put their hearts
At first it seemed all right. You
knew that S. p U. was glorious
college, and had splendid teams, and
won victories that resounded up and
down the coast. And presently
there was stadium, and a vast
business of athletics, that resulted
in infinite applause and free adver-
Using for your alma mater. OF
this you were proud, the whole stu
dent body was made one by 1.-THE
thing called college spirit" Bunny,
track runner, had had his share OF
cheering; and here was a game" he
could play with all his heart!
But now he was a senior, and ON
the inside of things just as with the
oil game, and with strikes, and with
political campaigns. And what did
he find? Why, simply that all the
football and track and other ath-
letic glory that had come to South
ern Pacific had been stolen, and
Young Pete" O'Reilly was the
thief The oil kings son had put
up a fund Of fifty thousand dollars
every year, for the purpose of turn
ing the game Of college athletics
into a swindle! The fund was ad-
ministered by a secret committee Of
alumni and students, and used for
the purpose Of going out into the
market and buying athletes, to come
and enroll themselves under false
pretenses and win victories for 8.
p. u. Husky young truck-drivers
and lumbermen and ranch hands and
longshoremen, who could not speak
correct English, but could batter
down interference" and crash thru
to a goal And the pious Metho-
dists who constituted the faculty
were eonniving at the procedure,
to the extent of permitting these
young huskies to pass farcical exam
inations-well knowing that any
professor who presumed to funk
promising quarterback would soon
be looking for some other univer-
sity to presume in. Was not Young
Pete" showing what he thought of
! professors, by paying football
coach three times the salary of the
/ best?
/ And of course these hired athletes
were hired to win, and did not
I bother about the rules OF the game;
they slugged and fouled, and the
rival teams paid them back, and
! there was nasty mess, with
charges and counter-charges, brib-
cry and intimidation-all the atmos-
phere of a criminal trial Along
with secret professionalism came
its Accomplishments Of the under
world bootleggers and bookmakers
and prostitutes Study was a joke
to hired gladiators, and quickly be-
came joke to students who asso-
ciated with them. The one purpose
was to win games, and the reward
was two hundred thousand dollars
in gate receipts; and when it came
to distributing this prize there were
just as many kinds of graft as if it
had been a county government: stu
dents putting in bills for this and
that, students looking for easy jobs,
students and alumni building up a
machine, and paying themselves and
their henchmen with contracts and
favors. Such was the result OF an
oil kings resolve to manufacture
culture wholesale, by executive or
der!
Continued tomorrow
| LII a EnAL IN M Al aElAlIn