granting of aid to athletes by individuals and organizations, alumni or otherwise, whose primary object in granting the aid in a particular case is a subsidy of an athlete.

The second point forbids athletic directors and coaches to initiate proceedings with prep-school athletes but permits them to answer queries, make speeches, and in casual conversation to describe the advantages of their institution. The third calls upon alumni and students, whether as clubs, fraternities, or informal groups of individuals, to conform to the tenets; and the fourth point warns the general secretaries of alumni organizations to be careful. The fifth states that prospective athletes should not be promised employment in or by athletic departments; but after matriculation they are permitted to be given reasonable work at a reasonable scale.

The best minds agree that football is worth keeping; that it needs reforming; but they are unable to agree upon the exact location of the infection and consequently have disagreed widely upon a remedy. Doctor Lowell speaks in tremendous platitudes; Doctor Hopkins elaborates upon a theory previously suggested by Clarence Little, president of Michigan University, but his suggestions have been treated coldly; the Committee of Sixty gives detailed symptoms but prescribes a sugar pill. It is curious that the best minds of the college game are so unable to diagnose the ills of their favorite child, whom they nursed from babyhood to what looks like robust manhood.

Football looks healthy enough to the public, the players, and the coaches. The public pays for amateur and professional sport alike; and, although football prices are slightly higher than those of professional hockey, baseball, or racing, the public is only too willing to pay for its thrills. There is no complaint from the player. He asks for nothing more than the innocent pleasure of rushing upon the field to die for dear old alma mater, and he will consider any hardship worth while if he earns his letter and gets his education. The coach is almost satisfied. If he wins he gets fame, fortune, and idolatry; if he loses he is escorted to

the gate-it is a fair gamble; but the coach would be much happier if he could shed his mask.

The objection to football comes from the faculties. Football was a fair-haired sport-a bright and shining amateur; the colleges have developed it into a highly organized business which pays. College presidents and the Committee of Sixty realize that football is no longer an amateur but a semi-professional sport; but they have not the courage to admit the fact. They go about shouting "Lily White" with their eyes on high, and refuse to acknowledge the mud on their feet. The coaches and players accept the rules and regulations and pronunciamentos which they feel are designed to confuse the real facts and which are sometimes brutally unfair to the players; the heavily spectacled bookkeepers of the universities blandly open their documents for inspection; the alumni smile at the newest blasts; and the outposts and people of Centerville wonder what all of the shooting is about.

Over-emphasis of college football can be removed by a simple act of the faculty will. Rowing is as dear to the student, athlete, alumnus, coach, and public as is football; it is even more rigorous in its demands upon the individual; its season is longer than football's; and it produces spectacular Saturday afternoons which might bear comparison with the races in Constantinople. But there is no faculty clamor about rowing. Rowing is a poor amateur and therefore to be honored. Football is a rich amateur and therefore to be suspected. The colleges accept the money from the amateur and grow bewildered trying to explain the incongruity. The severely trained minds which have so desperately attacked the problem of commercialism in football should have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the simplest remedy would be to eliminate the gate receipts. Football without profit would be as holy and pure as rowing or college boxing. If there were half-million-dollar gates in college boxing

supposing that this sport had been exploited instead of football-have you any doubt that Gene Tunney and Jack Delaney would be in college?

Not a trained mind has yet suggested

that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points in football. Instead, the colleges have pursued a tortuous route in their chase of the devil of the gridiron. Doctor Lowell tells us that it was a courageous thing for Harvard to substitute Pennsylvania for Princeton. Pennsylvania will fill the stadium as tightly as Princeton might have done not forgetting the quarrelling of the students and the fact that Princeton dropped Harvard as a consequence; or that the proposed home-and-home agreement with Michigan would have been a far more spectacular gesture than a continuation of the Princeton fixture which was one of the few genuine survivals of the days when football was a poor but honest

amateur.

Doctor Hopkins evaded the issue. Adoption of his plan to abolish the coach, limit competition to two years, and provide two teams, would have tended to reduce interest in the game, but in the manner of slow suicide accompanied by severe pains. It would have introduced a fresh set of problems and destroyed much of the physical, mental, and moral benefits which organized football brings to its devotees. Once again the players would have been penalized; but there was nothing in the plan to decrease the financial benefit of football.

The Committee of Sixty approached the problem with a frankness which indicates that the college officials are fully aware of the official and unofficial subsidy of athletes; but nothing was expressed in the code which has not been implied in the past. The code will have the same moral force as the prohibition laws and about the same observance. The people have demonstrated the clarity of conscience with which they can break the dry-amendment regulations because they consider these unjust; the outposts, alumni, coaches, players, and the heavily spectacled bookkeepers have demonstrated in the past how easily they could violate the code of the colleges because they considered it unfair-in many instances, insincere.

During the deliberations of the Committee of Sixty it is reported that somebody suggested that all varsity-football candidates be required to reveal, on

affidavit, where they received the money with which to pay their expenses the preceding year. This harsh proposal would have given the code teeth, but it might also have been embarrassing to some members of the committee. The football candidate who will not object to just a little more deception by signing the code as it is, might have balked at swearing to a false affidavit. The boys are clean enough.

The code remains toothless and there are sufficient holes in it for the bootleggers-and the hi-jackers, too-to drive truck-loads of stuff through.

Respect for the prohibition law is weakened because of the impression that congressmen have well-stocked cellars, that the dry farmers make hard cider, that enforcement officials are venal, and that few police officers will refuse a drink under proper conditions of privacy. The crime seems to be in getting caught. Respect for the amateur law of the colleges is weakened by the conviction among players, alumni, and coaches that the faculties are insincere. The crime here also is in getting caught.

A few years ago many star football men from Illinois and Notre Dame were caught playing under assumed names in a small town in Illinois. Most of them had finished their gridiron careers at the universities and took advantage of what they considered a safe opportunity to earn one hundred dollars each. The newspaper headlines told of "confessions" in the same spirit as they would have shouted of confessions from bank-robbers. The campus heroes were reduced to the position of ingrates by the properly shocked college authorities.

One of these boys used his money to buy an overcoat for himself and shoes for his best pal, who also happened to be captain of the college baseball team. The "ingrate" is now a movie actor and his pal a successful lawyer and assemblyman. Another of the disgraced band was a three-sport man and also a captain. Before playing for money he was hungry occasionally and walked miles to the campus for lack of a five-cent fare. He has since played professional football and baseball and has used the money to study medicine.

The players had a code of their own. It was my unpleasant duty as a college reporter to broadcast the "confession" from one of my best friends. He told me at the time, in confidence:

"If I told the name of every fellow I played baseball against last summer under an assumed name, there would be few stars left to start the football season next year in the Big Ten."

Two of those he named to me later made Walter Camp's All-American eleven. They did not happen to be caught.

The coach, having been a player, is intimately acquainted with the workings of the amateur system and is vividly aware of the injustice it frequently visits upon the boys who make it possible. There is a close bond of sympathy between the mentor and his men. They understand each other. Neither believes that a bit of help from the usual sources is criminal. They bow to expediency. The athlete matriculates for a four-year course in deception and the coach learns to shout mightily at the faculty revival meetings. I have the word of one of the well-known teachers of football:

"The one trouble with football is the hypocrisy of the faculties. I cannot say that publicly for obvious reasons; but I would welcome a new deal with the cards face up." The coaches are clean enough. Where, really, is the crime if an alumnus chooses to pay the expenses of a boy through college as long as that boy is a legitimate student? When "The King's Henchman" was produced, much was made of the fact that Edna St. Vincent Millay was sent to Vassar after having been discovered on the rocky coast of Maine: Jones was a coal-miner; Brown is the son of a miner; Smith spent many of his younger days on his father's beerwagon. Are they to be denied their only opportunity for an education because they thrill thousands on spectacular Saturday afternoons and because the colleges collect magnificently upon their efforts?

Why must they play baseball in the summer under assumed names to help with their expenses when any other student can work at the occupation which best suits him with no questions asked?

Why is a boy a traitor if he plays a professional game to get enough money to buy clothes for his graduation? Why is he an ingrate if he seeks a nest-egg in professional football after graduation, using exactly the same talents for his own benefit which he used so prodigally to enrich his alma mater for three seasons?

Football is commercial; who cares? Who made it so? Who collects the profits? Everybody will admit that the colleges use this money for laudable purposes; then why this continual chastisement of the boys who earn it, who seek only an education and a personal development which the country can well use, and who play for love of the game?

Why? Because the colleges must preserve ideals and at the same time pay for these expensive stadiums. It will be difficult, but the colleges are brave in their recognition of the duty they owe to higher education in this country.

It will be difficult. The outpost loves to shine in reflected glory and to be pointed out as the man who sent Smith to a certain college. The wealthy alumnus revels in that Monday-morning feeling at his office and that long winter at the club when he can crow over his friends from rival schools. The coach cherishes a winner. The athlete seeks the glory, the intangible thrill of fighting for whatever he thinks he is fighting for-perhaps just the fight. It has been that way for a long time and it is not likely that the bulls of the college presidents or the toothless code of the Committee of Sixty will change the practices of these human beings as long as they believe they do no wrong and retain the conviction that the colleges are insincere.

Three courses are open to the colleges. They can wipe out the evil of commercialism by removing their own handiwork

the system which includes immense stadiums, highly paid coaches, organized publicity, and gate receipts which are designed to produce heavy profit. Football would then be compelled to exist on its own merits as rowing does. But nobody wishes this remedy unless it be a soured professor who envies the coach's salary. The colleges want the money from football, the coach wants his job, the alumnus wants his thrills, the player

HE directors of The Mathewson Men's Stores, Inc., knew the business of being directors, for they were men of long experience at sitting about massive, shiny tables and being bored to the point of death. Each was a member of a baker's dozen of boards in supreme command of other great commercial enterprises, and each had mastered the art of maintaining his dignity however his mind might wander from the proceedings in hand.

Jim Acker, as Mr. Lanton's secretary swung the portal open before him and half-pushed him by the elbow into the sublime presence, was awed by the directors, so that the part of his mind that ordered the movements of his muscles was paralyzed momentarily and he stood motionless just inside the door and heard it close behind him. Then he saw Mr. Lanton himself, smiling and motioning him forward, and heard the president's voice intoning:

". . . and now, gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present to you James Acker, a loyal employee of the corporation, who, by his unflinching courage, his unwavering loyalty, and his zealous attention to duty, has saved the firm not only a considerable financial loss but a loss in prestige. . . .

Obediently Jim Acker advanced to a place beside the president and stood there while the oration continued. He felt Mr. Lanton's hand on his shoulder and Mr. Lanton's voice on his uncomprehending ear-drums; more than that, he felt the hard, unmoved eyes of the directors on his face and his hands that twitched at his sides and his suit that was pulled at the buttonholes and darned at the elbows. He looked very straight ahead of him as they had taught him in the army,

picking out a hinge on the door through which he had entered and focussing his eyes on it.

Strangely, he turned pale, paler even than usual, at this moment when he should have been blushing with pardonable pride, for this was the culmination of what the newspapers had called a heroic exploit. . . . But his mind flashed him pictures that contradicted the newspapers, contradicted Mildred, his wife, contradicted boldly the orating Mr. Lanton there at his side.

Jim Acker remained pale and impassive and tried to believe himself the subject of this highly instructive speech that kept emanating from Mr. Lanton.

The hands of the clock indicated that it was three minutes past twelve, yet Jim Acker's fingers continued their agile dance over the clicking, buzzing adding-machine, his eyes remained glued to a long list of figures. He became conscious of the fact that Miss Katz was standing beside him, but he kept his fingers speeding to the conclusion of the sum and wrote down the neat total before he raised his head to her.

"Your wife's down-stairs, Jim," said Miss Katz.

He elevated his eyebrows. "My wife?" "Yep."

He got up, unpinning the deep paper cuffs he had attached to his arms to save his shirt. "Thanks," he said, and slipped off his alpaca office-coat. From a rack on the wall he took the coat that belonged to his shiny blue serge suit and put it on. He got down his heavy winter overcoat, from which friction had long since removed the fuzziness, and his hat that had been a rather nice brown felt some time before.

Down-stairs, standing uncertainly just inside the employees' door, he found Mildred. In her outdoor clothes for the first