Billet Bataille: I

Out of the chaos that has been the Stadium ticket situation since last Friday morning shines a solitary, startling fact: the Harvard Athletic Association and its director, William J. Bingham'16, are not to blame. This week's protesting furor is at heart resentment of a rule that has been part of the allotment system since before the season started, a rule which rolled along unscathed by public attack until enforcement of it began.

Moral backing for any protest against the "No girls in the cheering section" dictum disappears with the application forms themselves, for every student when he signed one agreed to occupy personally the seat he bought. By the fourth game of the season everyone must have realized that the rule was there, enforced or not, and observation seems to show that only a small minority of the student body attempted to beat the game by swapping single tickets.

When the Student Council ticket committee, keeping an eye on the always-touchy problem, advised Mr. Bingham that it would be fairer to the majority to enforce the rule, he complied with the request. One incident in the stands--and Mr. Bingham was the target of half-humorous, half-serious accusatory darts. The fact is that it was the system, and not the enforcement, which drew the darts; and to be justified, those complaints should have been made a month or more ago. Once a system has earned tacit approval by lack of opposition, the fairest thing is to carry it out as announced.

What the explosion of this weekend past does achieve constructively is to call attention at last to the system itself. The idea that a student in the College or one of the graduate schools deserves a better seat than an undergraduate bringing a date is for the first time up for scrutiny, and Mr. Bingham's profession of yesterday that he has no preference on the matter leaves the issue clearly open to organized student opinion.

After a few weeks of doubtful effectiveness, the Council committee took an intelligent step last night with its decision to poll the undergraduate body on the date-or-no-date policy. As far as this year is concerned, the issue is just about dead, but planning for next year's football season now instead of in October, 1948, will be an improvement in itself. The Irard-pressed undergraduate had better resign himself to his 1947 fate--but start thinking long and seriously about what to wait for until next year.