AMERICA 1900-1910 -- 'SPORTS' - (Part 2)

SEIFERT

Posted By: David (email)
Date: 3/7/2004 at 20:43:00

'AMERICA 1900-1910'

** 'Sports' **

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OLYMPIAN CONFUSION IN ST. LOUIS

The Third Olympic Games, held as an adjunct to the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, were more notable for their giddy confusion than for athletic virtuosity. Only six foreign countries showd up. As a result, the U.S. won 22 of the 23 track and field events. And the Games became a dogfight among the various athletic clubs that had sponsored the American competitors.

It also became a kind of athletic freak show. In a bizarre competition called Anthropology Days, a leaden footed American Indian won the 100-meter dash in 11.8 seconds with an African Pygmy scuttling along in the rear at 14.6. And an Ainu from Japan threw the 56-pound hammer one yard and a few odd inches. That was the low point until Fred Lorz, apparent winner of the marathon, received his crown from none other than Alice Roosevelt -- and had it unceremoniously snatched away when a local truck driver confessed he had given Lorz a lift over the last part of the course.

The final indignity occurred when the new York Athletic Club eked out a second in the hammer throw and a fourth in the tug-of-war, to score an overall Olympic victory -- whereupon the second-place Chicago A.C. protested. That was too much for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and it roasted the loser in the editorial excerpted below:

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While 19,000 spectators were on their feet and cheering, the Chicago Athletic Association was protesting the four points by which the New York Athletic Club defeated them for the Olympic championship. The three points for John De Witt's second in the hammer throw were protested and the one point for fourth in the tug-of-war also was. The method of protest makes clear the underlying motive. The Chicago men were fairly beaten and to the undying shame of the Western country, a western organization has shown that it does not know how to take a beating.

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'THE NEGRO SHOWED NO YELLOW'

On July 4, 1910, Jim Jeffries came out of retirement to try to wrest the heavyweight boxing championship from Jack Johnson, the first Negro to hold that title. Bigoted Americans cheered for the defeat of the black swashbuckler who clearly did not know his place. Jack London - novelist and devout racist - recorded for the San Francisco Chronicle, with the headline above and story condensed below, the country's surprise at the outcome:

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John has sent down to defeat the chosen representative of the white race, and this time the greatest of them all. And, as of old, it was play for Johnson. From the opening to the closing round he never ceased his witty sallies, his exchange of repartee with his opponent's seconds and with the spectators. And, for that matter, Johnson had a funny thing or two to say to Jeffries in every round. The golden smile was as much in evidence as ever, and neither did it freeze on his face nor did it vanish.

Johnson played, as usual, blocking and defending in masterly fashion. And he played and fought a white man, in a white man's country before a white man's crowd. And the crowd was a Jeffries crowd. When Jeffries sent in that awful rip of his the crowd would madly applaud, believing it had gone home to Johnson's stomach, and Johnson, deftly interposing his elbow, would smile in irony at the spectators, play-acting, making believe he thought the applause was for him -- and never believing it at all.

GREAT BATTLE A MONOLOGUE

The greatest battle of the century was a monologue delivered to twenty thousand spectators by a smiling Negro who was never in doubt and who was never serious for more than a moment at a time. Never once was he extended. No blow Jeff ever landed hurt his dusky opponent. Johnson came out of the great fight practically undamaged. The blood on his lip was from a recent cut received in training, which Jeff managed to reopen.

While Jeff was dead game to the end, he was not so badly punished. What he failed to bring into the ring with him was his stamina, which he lost somewhere in the last seven years. His old-time vim and endurance were not there. As I have said, Jeff was not badly damaged. Every day boys take worse beatings in boxing bouts than Jeff took today.

Jeff today disposed of one question. He could not come back. Johnson, in turn, answered another question. He has not the yellow streak. But he only answered that question for today. The ferocity of the hairy-chested caveman and grizzly giant combined did not intimidate the cool-headed Negro. Many thousands in the audience expected this intimidation and were correspondingly disappointed. Johnson was not scared, let it be said here and beyond the shadow of any doubt. Not for a second did he show the flicker of a fear at the Goliath against him.

QUESTION OF THE YELLOW STREAK

But the question of the yellow streak is not answered for all time. Just as Johnson has never been extended, so has he never shown the yellow streak. Just as a man may rise up, heaven knows where, who will extend Johnson, just so may that man bring out the yellow streak, and then, again, he may not.

To Be Continued . . .'The Automobile Fad'

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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
March 4, 2004