Major Moore's Letter

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I cannot let pass without comment the attack on my judgement and my motives in the editorial entitled "Athletics for All" which appeared in your issue of December 5. This editorial is unfair in its inferences and insinuations and illogical in its reasonings and conclusions. You apparently meant to have your readers infer that I wrote an article for the Bulletin for the purpose of "urging the need" (whatever that may mean) of enlarging the Stadium or building a new one, the truth being that my article was written to describe the distribution of seats for the Yale game, and to explain the problem involved, and concluded with a brief statement of facts bearing on what the student body and the graduates might expect in the future, unless more seats should be provided.

You insinuate that I am willing to sacrifice the interest of general athletics for all in order to secure more seats for the football games. The truth is the exact opposite of this. The policy I have followed in this respect, as expressed in a written report to the Committee on Athletics last winter, has been and is to organize and promote play, particularly in the form of competitive sport, for all members of the University; to provide as rapidly as possible opportunities for everybody to take part in sports of all sorts; and to make these opportunities sufficiently attractive to induce as many members of the University as possible, whether candidates for intercollegiate teams or not to take advantage of them.

To the best of my knowledge this has always been the policy of the Committee on Athletics and the several Graduate Treasurers. In accordance with this policy, during the past 25 years more than $900,000 has been spent out of surplus athletic income, permanently to improve and extend our athletic facilities. At least two-thirds of this sum has been expended in the promotion of the policy of athletics for all.

You speak of more squash courts, a swimming pool, a new gymnasium. The Association has already provided many more squash courts than there are at any other university in the country, and expects to provide more. For nearly three years I have been trying to get permission from the Corporation to build a swimming pool, and I am happy to say that there now seems to be some prospect of immediate action on this proposal. I have presented to the Corporation a plan by which I thought a new gymnasium might become possible in the near future. In addition we now operate more tennis courts than any other two universities in the country. I have been doing my best for a year to put through a plan in connection with a proposed "pay as you play" golf club, under which golf would be possible at a moderate fee for all members of the University. We have spent during the past two years fully $200,000 in the reclamation and development of more land on Soldiers Field, primarily in the interest of general athletics. Certainly more than half the net income from our games is spent for members of the University who are not even possible material for intercollegiate teams or crews.

I mention the foregoing because I feel that I may take some credit both for the policy followed and for what has been accomplished under it, and to make it clear that my recommendation to the Corporation several years ago "that a thorough study of the seating problem be authorized forthwith" did not con- template for a moment, even a delay in the provision of additional facilities for general athletics. On the contrary, though this is no reason for more seats, the addition of even 10,000 to the present seating capacity of the Stadium would as a natural result increase our gross income above the guarantees by something like $60,000 annually, and the net income by fully $30,000 after providing for interest on the investment and the sinking fund required. It is so obvious that more seats would result in an increase of our net income from the two capacity games now played annually in the Stadium that I am utterly unable to comprehend the process of reasoning followed by the CRIMSON in arriving at the conclusion that the building of more football seats would delay the provision of athletic opportunities for all. Such an argument, to quote Mr. Jones of Yale, is nothing less than "ridiculous."

Though I did not so state in my article in the Bulletin, I am in favor of an increase in our seating capacity which will make unnecessary the unpleasant and harmful distinction which must now be made between the student and graduate bodies of the professional schools and those of the College. Nor do I consider that I am either "short-sighted" or "foolish" in favoring such a proposal.

There are arguments worth presenting against any considerable increase in our present seating capacity, either by enlarging our present Stadium or building a new one, but certainly none of them appear in the CRIMSON editorial.  Fred W. Moor