"FLAT-FOOTED"

Our contributor in the communication printed below compares the CRIMSON's attitude on the question of the ticket allotment with that of the complacent football fan who yells, "Punk Judgment!" after a play has failed. He feels called upon to resist an implied attack on the Graduate Treasurer and remarks that, "we can safely trust even his snap guesses in preference to other people's well-laid plans." The writer reads into the CRIMSON's recent editorial insinuations of "graft" and concludes by putting a chip on the shoulder of the Athletic Association with a distinct invitation to the CRIMSON to knock it off.

This the CRIMSON has no intention of doing. In the first place, Major Moore's services to the University are too well-known and appreciated by Harvard men to leave any desire for an attack. In the second place, a contest in Billingsgate such as the author of the communication seems to suggest, with the Athletic Association on one side, knowing its own methods from A to Z, and on the other side the CRIMSON, admittedly with a layman's point of view, would be unproductive of anything but ill-feeling.

Going back to our contributor's figure of the critical fan, it is often possible from high up in the stands to see points which are lost in the close-up view from the side-lines. It was in this spirit that the CRIMSON, realizing the difficulties which the Athletic Association has to face, criticized the present method of allotting tickets. There was no suggestion of any of the "graft" which the author of the communication likes to dwell upon, and the reference to "privileged classes" in the editorial was to the seven groups listed under that head in the Athletic Association's statement of last November.

The CRIMSON wishes to emphasize two main points. First, the unfairness of cutting down undergraduate three ticket applications by lot rather than by classes. This is a matter not for decision by experts but for unbiased undergraduate opinion. The allotment for this year has now been made and the point becomes merged in the larger one of permanent improvement for the future.

Our contributor demands that the CRIMSON come out "flat-footed" and say what it means, suggesting a solution of the problem. The question is not so much how to "save" tickets as how to distribute them most equitably.

The CRIMSON's suggestion is this: let the Athletic Association prepare at the beginning of the season two application blanks instead of the one now provided. The first of these blanks will be filled out by each applicant according to a quota set by the Athletic Association from a liberal estimate of the total expected demand for tickets, determined by past experience and present interest.

If this demand materializes, each man will still be sure of the seats for which be applied on the first blank. If, on the other hand, the demand fails to reach the liberal estimate fixed, the second application blank comes into use. this, returned with the first one, will have been filled out by each applicant for one or more extra tickets, according to his classification, to be allotted in case the supply is not exhausted.

This plan will protect the B. A. A. against finding itself overstocked with unassigned tickets. It will eliminate the necessity of a public sale which would be unfair to men living at a distance. And it will put an end to a large part of the present dissatisfaction caused by the reduction of applications already made.

In connection with this plan the CRIMSON advocates strongly the immediate execution of the Athletic Association's intention as expressed a year ago. This was that "a new committee will shortly be appointed and the make-up of this committee will be composed of graduates and undergraduates. The Harvard Athletic Association will give its ideas to the committee and it hopes that before another Yale game many of this year's problems will be history."

This statement was made on November 26, 1921. Again this year it is to be hoped that "before another Yale game many of this year's problems will be history", and that it will not be a case of history repeating itself.