Allen and New York Writer
Trade Telegrams and Brickbats

4

R. FORREST C. (PHOG) ALLEN, according to news |
dispatches ‘from New York, addressed the following |

| telegram to Lawton Carver, International News Service |
| sports editor, who, in an article Monday, stated “Allen backed |

'down” on his original charges:
| “Your statement that I have
backed down is untrue, I stated
that certain eastern writers have
minimized the gambling hazard,
and your story prompts me to be-
lieve you are one of them.”

In his Monday story Carver wrote:

“Allen should prove his charges
or get out of the game which has
given him so much.”

Allen’s telegram continued:

“As far as my getting out of +

the game I am in is concerned, I
suggest you apply the same
yardstick to yourself in your pro-
fession. What could you know
of how much basketball has
given me.”

Carver sat down Wednesday
'morning and wrote a bristling arti-
\ele distributed to all newspapers
taking his service. He began by
saying: “Let us take the well-known
loud-mouth apart,” referring to

| This was a matter

 

Allen. He referred to Allen as a |
bumpkin of no particular standing
and of questionable ability as a
basketball coach.”

The article got “rougher” from
there on—much rougher.

i Hours later his news service tele-

griphed a “kill” on Carver’s story—
directing editors, who had received
it, not to print it as a part of the

gpIniernational News Service’s daily |

Baportincss. <i .

The news service thus denied re-
sponsibility for Carver’s statements
and are in no way bound by them,
the entire exchange being on |

{between Allen and Carver.

In defense of -himself—a defense
to which Carver is entitled in that
Allen, in his telegram, stated that
Carver’s Monday story led him
(Allen) to believe that he (Carver)
“was one of the eastern sports
writers who minimized the gam-
bling situation’—the New York
writer wrote:

“Getting back to his (Allen’s) |
insinuation that the gambling haz- |
ard was minimized by myself and
others, all I need mention—and the,
public prints will bear me out—is
that there have been from time to
time many hints that gambling was
getting to be a common thing at
college basketball games. Some of
us mentioned that something should
be done about it.

“Lacking evidence that any play- |
ers had been tampered with, we did |
not condemn college basketball.
of common
decency.”