by Phil Jarratt
McIntosh’s gate receipts were just over 26,000 pounds, more than double the previous record he had set seven months earlier for any boxing match anywhere. But McIntosh was only starting. He had a cameraman film the fight, running from one vantage point to another between rounds, then toured the flickering film of the fight in its entirety around Australia and throughout Europe, netting more than 37,000 pounds, a box-office record that would stand for many years.
Scrambling for tickets, Sydney Stadium, 26 December 1908. Photo courtesy Daily Telegraph.
McIntosh was a very wealthy man now, and when he looked around for other sports at which he might turn a quid, his wife, May, pointed him in the direction of the swimming baths. He was already a friend of Reginald ‘Snowy’ Baker, who had recently returned from the London Olympics a hero in three sports, and he was getting to know Cecil Healy, the most popular swimmer in the land. ‘You ought to be looking towards the other changing rooms,’ May McIntosh suggested, ‘at the girls.’ And for once in his married life, McIntosh took notice of what his wife said.
When McIntosh was starting out as an entrepreneur at cycling meets back at the turn of the century, a female swimmer had often stolen the sporting headlines from under him. Annette Kellerman was ‘the siren of swim’, an athlete of such exquisite figure and delicate movement that no-one could resist her, least of all the vaudeville producers of New York, who had whisked her off to become a scantily clad siren of the stage, earning more than a thousand dollars a week. But now there was a new Kellerman—her name was Fanny Durack—and boy, that girl could swim! She came with an equally—some would say more—attractive understudy, Wilhelmina Wylie, and there was a controversial campaign underway to get these two young women to make history and swim at the next Olympics. Sport, sex and politics—McIntosh couldn’t resist.
Chapter 4
The Club
Stage one of the Outrigger Canoe Club. Photo by Ray Jerome Baker, courtesy Outrigger Canoe Club.
By anyone’s reckoning, stage one of the Outrigger Canoe Club of Waikiki was a humble affair, little more than a sand-floor storage area for surfboards and canoes and changing rooms for its active members, who numbered about 60 by the end of the summer of 1908, the majority middle-class kama’aina (locals) but with several of the more prominent beach boys represented. Eighteen-year-old Duke Paoa Kahanamoku was not among them. Despite Bill Rawlins’s counsel that junior membership would be advantageous, and a formal invitation from Ford, Duke asked respectfully to be excused, citing his loyalty to the rival Healani Club, also sometimes known as the Waikiki Swim Club.
When they met downtown at Rawlins’s office, Ford exploded. ‘You must speak with him, Bill. He must be a part of this.’ But Duke’s refusal to join the new club was only one part of Ford’s anger. Another was the fact that the committee, without consultation, had commissioned designer Lucius Pinkham (who would later become Hawaii’s governor) to design a lanai adjacent to the shacks for the purpose of hosting ‘luncheons and afternoon entertainment’. Ford had approved the idea of an entertaining area, and he had approved Mr Pinkham to design it, but he was furious that he hadn’t got a say in it.
Despite these minor rumblings within its founding board, the Outrigger Canoe Club was an immediate hit with Honolulu’s haole society, and membership grew at a phenomenal rate, soon including many of the most influential bureaucrats and businessmen among its number. The clear success of the concept enabled Ford to remain true to his charter for the club, creating a base at the beach for native Hawaiians to reaffirm their ocean-sport tradition, but the fact that the club was now dominated by powerful haoles deterred many from joining, even when Ford offered them a deal to do odd jobs around the club in lieu of paying membership fees. Part of the reason for this reluctance was that by 1910 the former president of the republic of Hawaii, Sanford B. Dole, was the president of the Outrigger and other leading annexationists, Lorrin A. Thurston and J.P. Cooke, were on its management committee.
The most important role model for aspiring young Hawaiian watermen, Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, held firm. ‘We got a club of our own, Mr Rawlins,’ he told Big Bill. ‘Waikiki Swim Club, that’s us beach boys. We don’t need some big haole deal.’ In fact, the Waikiki Swim Club existed in name only and half of the beach boys had already deserted it for the grass shacks of the Outrigger, but Duke had developed a stubborn streak that would remain with him all of his life. It wasn’t mean stubborn, as Halapu frequently had to point out to those who bore the brunt of his son’s intractability, it was loyal stubborn. No-one could convince Duke to desert his pals, not even when most of them had already deserted him, and that included Big Bill Rawlins, who had become more a mentor than a trainer to Duke, but who could not sway him on this issue.
Rawlins would always claim that his role was one of gentle persuasion, that Duke and the half dozen others who came up alongside him were naturals, needing only a disciplinary framework for their training. It may have been true, and it may have gone unnoticed, were it not for the fact that America was becoming infatuated with the beauty of its exotic new territory and with the athleticism of its natives. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, Pacific tourism had become a growth industry (more than 300 arrivals a month in 1910), and the imagery upon which it was sold included the romantic image of the muscle-bound, sun-drenched Waikiki beach boy. The general public was not yet aware of it, but the personification of the advertising dream actually existed, and his name was Duke Paoa Kahanamoku.
In 1910 the Amateur Athletics Union of Hawaii was formed, paving the way for the Territory’s athletes to be considered for Olympic-team selection. But the union was a collection of recognised clubs, and the virtually defunct Waikiki Swimming Club was not one of them. Bill Rawlins was quick to pounce. ‘Paoa, you must join the Outrigger now. It will help you in so many ways.’
But Duke rejected the offer again, and with the support of a small group of beach boys, helped re-establish a club called Hui Nalu (club of the waves), which had first surfaced in the 1880s as a collective of outlaw surfers who defied the missionary prohibition on riding the waves, and re-emerged around 1905 as a loose band of like-minded beach boys within the Healani club.
Alexander Hume Ford. Photo by Ray Jerome Baker, courtesy Outrigger Canoe Club.
Like many of the young beach boys and surf-riders, William ‘Knute’ Cottrell had joined the Outrigger when Ford explained they could provide their labour instead of the five-dollar membership fee. ‘When they brought in the grass shacks and set the club up, Curtis Hustace and I wired the whole thing up with electric lights. That was how I got away not paying my dues!’ Knute recalled years later. But Knute was not alone in feeling there was an undercurrent of racism towards native Hawaiian members. ‘One day I heard something said by one of the fellows at the OCC that disgusted us quite a bit, so Duke, myself and Kenneth Winter, who was captain of the club at that time, went over to the Moana Hotel and the three of us started the Hui Nalu Club.’
In an old autograph book of Duke’s, now held at Honolulu’s Bishop Museum, there is a page of handwritten inscription that tells the ‘why of the Hui Nalu’. It includes the names of the original members, ‘Duke P. Kahanamoku #2, William A. ‘Knute’ Cottrell #3, Kenneth S. Winter #1’ at the top of the page, followed by, ‘Founded by the Three of us at Waikiki Beach July 1908.’ Below, under the heading ‘Fellowship’, is the following verse:
When a man ain’t got a cent and he’s feeling kinda blue
And the clouds hang dark and dreary and won’t let the sunshine through
It’s a great thing, O my brethren, for a fellow just to lay his hand upon your shoulder in a friendly sort of way.
It makes a man feel queerish, it makes the teardrops start
An’ you sort o’ feel a flutter in the region of your heart;
You can’t look up and meet his eyes; you don’t know what to say
When his hand is on your shoulder in a friendly sort of way
O, the worlds a curious compound with its honey and its gall
With its cares and bitter crosses, but a good world after all
And a good God must have made it—leastwise that is what I say
Then a hand is on your shoulder in a friendly sort of way.
In Friendship-Fidelity-Fealty to you old gal, and ‘Meke ke Aloha pau ole,’ Knute
Typically, Duke never confirmed or denied that racism was an element in his reluctance to join the Outrigger or in the formal founding of the Hui, but he was delighted when the Hui was quickly accepted into the AAU, and when Bill Rawlins became a founding member.
By the following summer the Hui Nalu had more than 40 active members, including Waikiki’s only female surfers, Mildred ‘Ladybird’ Turner and Jo Pratt. The club had a strong swim team, a surfboard paddling team second to none and a small but formidable canoe crew. But they had very little funds and no clubhouse, although members were allowed the use of the changing rooms at the Seaside Hotel. They were definitely poor cousins to the booming Outrigger Canoe Club, but the Hui had spirit, and its members were fiercely loyal.
Duke’s swimming continued to improve, particularly after the visit, late in 1910, of a group of Australian swimmers whose technique was radically different to anything he had seen. They complemented the ‘crawl’ style with a straight-legged kick that seemed to thrust them forward very quickly, but at the cost of a lot of expended energy. It was a kick, they told Duke, that had been introduced to Australia by Alick Wickham, a champion swimmer originally from the Solomon Islands. Duke copied it exactly, but he soon found that in his long training sessions he was exhausted. Under the guidance of Bill Rawlins, he modified the kick by bending his legs. The immediate results were impressive. ‘That’s the Kahanamoku kick,’ Rawlins bellowed as Duke finished a speedy lap.
The first Hawaiian swim meet under the sanction of the Amateur Athletics Union was scheduled to be held at Bishop Slip in Honolulu Harbor on 12 August 1911, but owing to commercial shipping movements it was moved to Alakea Slip. The Alakea Slip was very much the AAU’s second choice, the better-appointed Bishop Slip being more comfortable for spectators. It was not exactly a pool, but it did have the benefit of a solid, straight timber wall that could be used for the start line. The finish lines were marked by rope suspended between a line of buoys, moved up and down the slip as required. By early afternoon a big crowd had gathered in the ticketed bleacher seating provided along the wharves and in free standing-room-only positions behind in expectation of something special happening. The Honolulu newspapers had been talking up the prospects of new records being set in the 100-yards race for weeks, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser noting:
There are several men who can almost touch the minute mark, and it is rumored among the waterfront bunch that the 60-second notch will be beaten on Admission Day … The best swimmers in the Territory will be seen in action and, as the courses will be properly measured, and the times taken by experts with the stopwatches, the records established will be entered in the AAU annual, and then Hawaii will be on the athletic map of the world.
Duke had already clocked unofficial times in inter-club meets that indicated he was capable of one day coming close to a world record. Bill Rawlins did his best to keep a lid on such talk for fear of pressuring his young star, and, to be honest, he sometimes did not quite believe the times himself. Duke was quick, make no mistake, but world-class quick? The gathering crowd was hoping that this question would be answered at the Slip.
Before the swim events began, however, the crowd was treated to a display of stunt diving led by George Freeth, home on a brief vacation from his work as a lifeguard and exhibition surf-rider in California. George’s role in the 1908 rescue of eleven Japanese fishermen during a storm in Santa Monica Bay had won him the Congressional Medal of Honor, while his surfboard riding exhibitions at Venice Beach and the Redondo Plunge had made him the most famous surfer in America. When he came out to dive he was given a standing ovation by the Honolulu crowd, few of whom would have realised that his mainland wages were so low that he had been forced to take work as a deep-sea diver constructing dry docks at Pearl Harbor to pay for his holiday back home.
Having romped home first in the 220-yard race early in the meet, Duke took to the block for the blue-ribboned hundred-yard sprint. ‘On your marks,’ the starter cried. The crack of the pistol echoed around the docks and Duke was away, churning up the harbour, his legs like giant pistons. With the crowd roaring in the background, he powered under the finish rope, a good ten yards ahead of Lawrence Cunha in second, and looked up from the water to see the AAU timers conferring, brows furrowed under their hats. Finally they handed their sheets to the head judge who announced the winning time—55 2⁄5 seconds, 4 3⁄5 seconds faster than the American record of one minute flat.
As the realisation of Duke’s achievement spread through the crowd, another mighty cheer erupted and suddenly Duke was surrounded by family, swimmers, officials and, of course, in the thick of it, Bill Rawlins. All of them were shouting and laughing and slapping him on the back. If this was celebrity, Duke was not at all sure he liked it. Fortunately, Rawlins and Hui Nalu president, E.K. ‘Dad’ Center, soon guided him away from the crowd to enable Duke to rest up before the 50-yard sprint. The 50 was a repeat of the hundred, although a tighter finish. ‘In first place Kahanamoku,’ the judge shouted. ‘Twenty-four and one-fifth seconds. New American record.’
Although this was not the first time a Hawaiian had taken on the world and won—Ikua Purdy, a Hawaiian paniolo (cowboy) shocked the rodeo world by winning the world roping championship in 1908 in Cheyenne, Wyoming—the new territory had yet to have a sporting hero whose name meant anything beyond its own balmy shores. Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, big, handsome and affable, and just two weeks shy of his twenty-first birthday, had just smashed two national records in an afternoon. To say there was excitement in the air is to somewhat understate the mood. The Kahanamoku clan came down from the bleachers again to congratulate Duke and form a protective cordon around him, but Duke was still on the dock fending off wellwishers as night fell. No-one knew, least of all Duke, that this was the way it would be for the rest of his life.
‘No less than five watches caught Kahanamoku’s time as 55 and two-fifths seconds for the hundred and there is no doubt that the record is correct,’ the next day’s Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported. ‘The only thing that might add a fifth or so to the figures is the fact that the finish was over an imaginary line, which was directly under a thin rope that was fastened across the dock. Still, as all the men with watches caught the time the same that should be all right.’
But it wasn’t ‘all right’. Almost a week later the Honolulu newspapers were still trumpeting the ‘birth of Hawaiian sporting greatness’ at Alakea Slip when telegraphs from the mainland gave them a rather different angle to the story. After long deliberation, the AAU had refused to accept Kahanamoku’s times as legitimate, citing the possibility that the swimmer had been helped by the tide, or that the incoming tide may have moved the marker buoys closer to the wall. Privately, AAU-Hawaii officials denied that either was a possibility, the course having been measured just prior to the meet and the tidal movement being miniscule, but publicly they toed the line, even as all of Hawaii howled in protest. The AAU would not be moved. Kahanamoku would have to repeat his times on the mainland before they would be officially recognised.
Supporters in Honolulu estimated they needed to raise at least 1500 dollars to send Duke and middle-distance swimmer, Vincent ‘Zen’ Genovese, accompanied by trainer Dude Miller from the Hui Nalu and manager Lew Henderson, ‘back East’ to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the US nationals, then on to New York City and Philadelphia for the final Olympic trials in March 1912. The Hui Nalu Club arranged a fundraiser dance on Saturday 27 January, at the roof garden of the flashy new six-storey Alexande
r Young Hotel. Tickets were an unprecedented four dollars each, with all proceeds going to the Duke Kahanamoku travelling fund.
Just a week later, the fund got another huge boost when Duke was involved in a double rescue off Waikiki. Frederick Shaffer, a crewman on the visiting cruiser, Colorado, drowned while attempting to rescue a woman in difficulties. Shaffer’s companion and the woman were then rescued by thirteen-year-old Ralph Williams, Alexander Hume Ford and Duke Kahanamoku. Williams and Duke used their surfboards while Ford had grabbed the smallest outrigger canoe available. Donations now flooded in, the tickets were purchased and the swimmers departed Honolulu on the Honolulan on 7 February. At the dockside, members of the Hui Nalu gave their club yell, a quintet sang ‘Aloha Oe’, and Berger’s band struck up ‘AuldLang Syne’.
This was the first time Duke had left Hawaii. He felt like a naïve child compared with Zen and Dude, who had both been to Seattle a few years earlier to demonstrate canoe paddling at an exhibition. They ribbed him about it for most of the voyage, and were particularly scathing about the fact that Duke had failed to pack any winter clothes, not that he owned any. Duke was clinging to the idea that they could catch a train to Los Angeles after docking in San Francisco and hang out with George Freeth while they acclimatised. ‘George is sure to have a coat I can borrow,’ he said.