Communication

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

Although I may be accused of poor sportsmanship in so doing. I feel it necessary to put forth some defence of the Lampoon to mitigate the relentless criticism of this morning's review. I have not yet seen the number which Mr. Code so ruthlessly and so wittily attacks. He may not, therefore, take me to task for combatting him on particular and inconsequential grounds. Perhaps the number may be as dull as he intimates. I daresay it is, but that is beside the point. I care not a whit what Mr. Code thinks of any particular number.

But I must take issue with him on the lone of his review, which is virtually insulting. It may have been inscribed as a humorous review. I should like to think that it was. In that case, Mr. Code might well learn something of humor from even such an immature teacher as the Lampoon.

It is good sport. I admit, to tear to pieces in Shavian wit, a play of a book or a magazine. But I doubt (this is no more than a snap judgment whose accuracy has no bearing on my argument) if even the bombastic Mr. Shaw, after ridiculing a play calls its author an idle dillettante, without first making very sure of his ground.

This, Mr. Code has neglected to do. He might, to substantiate the information of his friend, have investigated the situation and in so doing, would have found that his friend was speaking of the Lampoon of the "Nineties," not of 1924.

There is little excuse for this neglect, Mr. Code was an undergraduate in the University. He may have derided the humor or the Lampoon in his undergraduate days, as he does now. But, as an undergraduate he must have known that the paper had a very serious purpose in trying to arouse lantent talent, such as it was, to action.

He must, if he has read the CRIMSON in the past five years, have known of various improvements that this period has brought to the Lampoon. A very stable financial situation is but an indirect, yet nevertheless very certain indication of solid effort, both literary and business. A scholarship for study abroad is not offered for dillettantism by the "select club." It is the award of an earnest society which hopes to improve the following technique of its most deserving member.

Let Mr. Code damn the paper to his heart's content. Personal attacks on the staff are however unbecoming. Talbot Wegg '25.