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Football would never die, but would continue to thrive, were it not
for the football followers of Brutus who have stabbed the sport to near
death. These pseudo friends of football are the gamblers, the subsidizers,
and the Pollyannas who state that, "football at the present, is enjoying

sound health and is becoming more of an ameteur sport all the time”.

I stated last winter that subsidized football and basketball had but
10 years to live. I revised this estimate downward somewhat this fall de-
pending on the part that we play in this second World War which we are now
in. Replying to my long-time friend, Major John L. Griffith, Commissioner
of the Big Ten, may I say that I base my deductions on the follow —
set up for the period of our National Defense Emergency. Living costs will
be at least 25% higher sometime in 1942 and at least 50% higher in 1943. The
Federal income tax payments of the people drawing salaries from $2000.00 to
$7000.00 will be more then trebled. Taxes are rising faster than corporation
earningawhich means that the proportion available for dividends to stock-
holders is shrinking. Profits during war will narrow further. Congress will
be asked to vote the draft age reduction to 18 years of age when the time
is ripe. The signal nas “boot Sclinded by General Hershey. It is an open
secret in Washington military circles that there are plans for an American
Expeditionary Force when American bombers and fighter planes can be manu-
factured in sufficient quantities to control the air and to protect the con=
voys from Nazi submarines. Therefore may I repeat that taxes and living
costs will be so excessively high that big time athletes who are not then
in the service will not be carried on the state's payrotl the year around,
- during the time "he# they are attending college as well as on the state's
highway department during the summer vacation. State legislators will not

be giving free legislative scholarships to big time athletes granting them

free tuition at the state universities. In some of our state universities