Dry Football
(New York World Telegram)
In a symbolic gesture of frisking the coonskin
coats for hip flasks President Harold W. Dodds of
Princeton University has requested all ticket holders
that they leave their liquor behind when coming j
to Princeton football games.
Many a football enthusiast will remember back
from this request to some particular game when he
stayed through to the final whistle regardless of a
wind loaded with sharp ice and the temperature
reaching down for zero. How to stand it without
a drink? President Dodds is virtually saying, “Let
them eat ice cream cones.”
But, on the other hand, the universities are i
entitled to sympathy, too, for there have been plenty
of football crowds to whom tearing up the goal
posts was merely a start. What is the university to
do with its alumni, flocking back by thousands to
tlie big homecoming, whooping it up in search of
their youth and shouting the blessings of higher
education to the farthest stars?
Ko long as the universities are willing to furnish
the big seasonal athletic excitement after baseball,
giving the public what it wants and taking the public’s
money, the problem of football crowds is likely
to be more practical than academic. Dr. Dodds
showed he was a practical man by merely uttering a
“request." He isn't going in for prohibition. Perhaps
the next step may be to take the profits of a good
season and air-condition the stands against Novem
ber cold.
Otherwise the second-string football players might
be organized into a flying wedge, like the waiters at
Jack's, to give obstreperous spectators the bum's rush.
We hope sweet reasonableness will prevent its going
that far.
