Teapot Tempest: '26 Tiger-Crimson Game

"We have been forced to the conviction that it is impossible at present to expect from athletic competition with Harvard that spirit of cordial good will which should characterize athletic sports. Under these circumstances we have voted unanimously to sever athletic relations with Harvard in all sports."

With this terse statement, Princeton officially ended athletic relations with Harvard some 31 years ago this Nov.11. The reasons for this break were not a stolen drum or an injured linesman but a feeling "of many Harvard men that Princeton plays football in a manner unbecoming a gentleman and cares more for athletic victories than clean sportsmanship." Whether or not this feeling was prompted by the Tigers beating the Crimson 36-0 and 34-0 in 1924 and 1925 is unknown; the fact is that the two institutions did not compete against one another in any sport until 1931 and not in football until 1934.

Princeton Conformity

The comments of one eminent Princeton observer indicate the storm did not brew over night. "There is a feeling among many Harvard men that Princeton places chief emphasis upon uniformity of type and manner of dress, not on things of the mind; that her outlook is immature and provincial, and that membership in the Big Three is Princeton's chief claim to glory."

The issue had been under discussion between the two colleges during the summer but a move by Harvard to drop the Tigers from their schedule had been handily defeated by undergraduate opinion. The Lampoon reported that undergraduate pressure had forced this decision for "the Harvard man would like to see Princeton dropped, but they would still rather lick her."

It is somewhat doubtful that undergraduate feeling ran quite this high against Princeton. When November 26 came around and the Tiger eleven arrived in Cambridge, there was no rioting or efforts to lynch the Princeton team. Both coaches and teams were prepared for the game and no animosity was apparent.

The Vitriolic Poonies

The Lampoon then blew the whole situation wide open by publishing an issue on the day of the game almost wholly dedicated to the most vitriolic attacks on Princeton and its conduct in athletic events against Harvard. In its editorial, it commented, "Lampy looks forward to no chivalrous exhibition of sportsmanship; it will be a glorious free-for-all masquerading under the name of football and the Jester proposes to make the most of them. The Princeton brawl comes but once a year; it may never come again."

The humor sections of the magazine were almost exclusively diatribes on the average Princeton man and his social tendencies such as:

"Though a leader in Athletics,

Social doings and aesthetics,

In his studies he was just a bit obtuse.

But pass over this admission,

For he held the high position

In the Triangle of Lord Hypotenuse.

The 'Poon went on to attack the virility of the average Princeton man by including a section on fashions at Princeton. A quote from it reads, "Men at Princeton express their taste in lingerie by being oh so exact in details," lisps Mr. T. C. Spark, voted the best dressed man in Princeton."

The issue ended with a short question and answer bit, "Are you a Princeton man? No, I was kicked by a horse. Are you a Princeton man? No, the nurse dropped me. Are you a Princeton man? No, I've just done twenty years. Are you aPrinceton man? No, that was my wife."

After such a publication, the game was an anti-climax. Princeton once more defeated Harvard and sent three of its best players to the hospital. The Crimson fans, egged on by the issue, did their best to throw bottles and generate a "glorious free-for-all" but in general it was an average football game.

The Free-For-All

But came Monday and the free-for-all commenced. As might be expected, Princeton did not take kindly towards the Lampoon's humorous endeavors and the Princetonian took up the fight. In its Monday editorial, it said, "The Lampoon speaks for, but against itself. We want to know whether that periodical reflects as it purports to do, the sentiment of the majority of Harvard's adherents. Princeton undergraduates prefer to believe it does not--but they want definite assurance to that effect."

The Harvard CRIMSON was quick to answer and branded the whole affair as a "teacup war." Their main editorial stated that the majority of the student body wanted to continue the series and that the bad taste of a small minority was responsible for the whole affair. "Princeton and Harvard," it ended, "are too much a part of the best traditions of American education to allow themselves to linger in what is at best a petty feudalism."

This seemed to be a perfectly logical explanation and as the Princetonian was happy to accept this, the miniature crisis seemed to have come to a halt. But the teacup had not stopped boiling, it had just slowed to a simmer for a day. On Wednesday, the President of the Lampoon gave his answer to Princeton in particularly blunt terms.

"The evident animosity displayed during the Princeton-Harvard game can only be taken as a demonstration of the same spirit which produced our editorial." Lampy huffed, while at the same time apologizing for the bad taste of the editorial and the whole issue. "The pressure was there, however, and the Lampoon was merely the first to put its finger on it," the letter to the Princetonian continued.

Out Behind the Barn

Letters now began to come into papers up and down the East coast from both Harvard and Princeton graduates, deploring the much-debated issue of the Lampoon and indeed, deploring the whole situation. The New York Worldeven ran an editorial on the matter entitled "Bad Manners at Harvard." The World declared that somebody should take the whole undergraduate body of the college out behind the barn and "teach them a few lessons."

But while these isolated cases all agreed in criticizing the Lampoon and the small minority at Harvard for its bad manners, the average undergraduate at both colleges did not treat the matter with any great seriousness. The student at Cambridge felt that the Tiger football players were a little rougher than ordinary and that their undergraduate body did overdress; while the man of Princeton, although somewhat rankled at being called an underwear salesman, still looked forward to the next football game with the Crimson as one of the highpoints of the fall. This was apparently the limit of the "evident animosity."

The Lampoon sent a letter to the Princetonian apoligizing in full for its editorial and declaring that "unwarranted seriousness has been attached to the matter by both Harvard and Princeton." In their apology, they admitted that they had "committed a breach of good taste which did not have the support of the Harvard undergraduates." The pot, it seemed, had cooled off.

It was then, with the greatest of surprise that Harvard students awoke on Thursday morning, Nov. 11 to find large, black headlines staring at them from the CRIMSON: "Princeton cuts athletic relations at Harvard." The Princeton athletic board had met and decided that further athletic engagements with Harvard would be "inadvisable."

All college officials expressed surprise and dismay at the news. The New York Times declared, "Let Locarno perish and the League of Nations fall, but the Big Three must and shall be preserved." It was not to be, however. W.J. Bingham '16, Director of Athletics "regretted the action" and pointed out what he felt lay at the root of Princeton's decision to break with Harvard. The "root" supposedly had to do with the college's feeling that the rivalry between the two colleges had become somewhat "aggravated" in the last few years. No one really understood what was meant by this, and the whole matter remained up in the air.

"Sophomoric Yellowness"

Various compromises were suggested; the Student Council mobilized itself to go down to Princeton en mass and discuss the matter; graduates from both colleges fussed and fumed, but the break remained. Perhaps the sanest observation on the whole matter can be found in a letter to the CRIMSON from a graduate of the class of '92. "When Princeton thrashed us in '89 and '90, we went through the same paroxysms and broke off athletic relations. Time has shown us older-grads how silly and wrong it was. The traditional association and common heritage of these two institutions is a real and fine thing and no silly sophmoric yellowness should be allowed to undermine it."

The rift remained until Friday, February 13, 1931 when Bingham and Dr. Charles W. Kennedy of Princeton decided to renew athletic relations between the two colleges in all sports except football. The decision had come as a result of student pressure from both Harvard and Princeton. Football relations were finally resumed and Princeton was scheduled for 1934. The Tigers won the first game, 19-0 and the next one 35 to 0 but the two colleges remained on friendly relations.

It was then, the classic tempest in a teapot. It might happen again; Brandeis and Northeastern have severed athletic relations because someone was blocked too hard on a kickoff. All we can hope for is that today's encounter will be played in the cleanest fashion and under the rules of sportmanship that all gentlemen recognize. If they beat us too badly though, we can always drop them and play Marlboro instead