Major Taylor

by Conrad Kerber

  Hugging the inner rail so he didn’t have to zig and zag around as many pockmarks, Taylor was once again “the hero of the meet,” taking two firsts and one second and becoming “the star of the afternoon.” Following his victories, Taylor was escorted to the podium where he was introduced to the ecstatic throng. During the ceremonies, with thousands cheering him on, a mighty stench apparently permeated the air, one he surely remembered from his days on the farm. The odor must have been near the awards stand. Perhaps someone had purposely opened the floodgates of horse manure on the wheelmen. Taylor “abashedly” accepted his prize money, bowed to the crowd, and, according to the Daily Eastern Argus, “hurriedly left the stand.”

  Meanwhile, somewhere out in Maine’s high country, a trainload of horsemen in their wide berths must have keeled over in fits of laughter. The horse owners, joked the Portland Evening Express, had “roasted the boys pretty hard.”

  As the racing season rolled into September, Taylor continued closing in on front-runner Eddie Bald in the points column. At ten August meets, he had finished first four times, second twice, fourth once, and had moved up from eighth place to fourth. With his form improving daily, Taylor stood a chance of challenging the champion—or at least finishing in the top three—when the racing circuit finished in late November.

  But as the honeymoon between Taylor and the public grew, so too did the animosity against him from his competitors. “The position of the Negro is a trying one,” wrote Bearings, “for every rider is anxious to top him, owing to his color, and the battle to beat him is waged fiercely day to day.” On the backstretch, as the circuit chasers prepared for the second half of the season, there were whispers that certain riders were out to get him.

  Starting in early September, those whispers became reality. At a race in Worcester, Taylor was deliberately crowded into the fence by a group of riders as he led the field around the backstretch. With no room on either side to maneuver, his wheel struck one of the posts, heaving his body to the ground and badly tearing his arms and legs. Scraping himself off the ground, Taylor sidled over to the steward’s stand to lodge a complaint against a big bus of a man named Charlie Wells for fouling him. The stewards agreed and disqualified Wells. Shaken, Taylor nursed his wounds for a week, then prepared to rejoin the circuit.

  Upon his return, riders began working in two-man combinations against him: MacFarland and Aker, Johnson and Butler, MacFarland and Stevens (aka “I and Stevie”), and so on through the whole racing fraternity. Taylor was always alone. On September 9, when he caught up to one of the combinations in front of a packed house at the Waverly Park Track in New Jersey, he was shoved over the pole during one of the preliminary heats.

  On September 10, also at the Waverly Park Track, Taylor won the opening heat in the one-mile race by two feet. But when it came time for the final heat, he was nowhere to be found. He felt terrified. “I have a dread of injury every time I race” he told a reporter. While thousands of fans hollered “Taylor! Taylor!” down in the locker room several riders were threatening bodily harm if he rode again. These kinds of threats were not to be taken lightly. Taylor told the stewards, but they didn’t seem to believe him. Wanting to avoid serious harm, he switched tactics and insisted that he was too tired to finish the race. The stewards asked Taylor for proof of his claim, but since none of the riders were willing to confess to their own sins, he was forced to ride in the final. “A little more exercise might cure you,” said one steward.

  At the starting line, Taylor looked to either side and saw a field of riders glaring at him. Despair and trepidation spread through him. Not his usual aggressive self, he deliberately tucked in behind the pack, puttering across the tape as the lanterne rouge—bike-racing slang for the man who finishes in last place. “I know of no reason the boys should be against me,” he would later lament in his cool and judicious style. “I try to do clean riding without receiving the advantage of anything or anybody. I only ask from them the same kind of treatment . . .” Jay Eaton, one of the few sympathizers Taylor had in the peloton, summarized the treatment Taylor was facing. “Considering the length of time he has been in the game, Taylor has shown as much speed as any other rider . . . yet he is treated as a pariah by the majority of his fellows on the track.”

  Dealing with increasing hostility chipped away at Taylor’s finite energy reserves, causing him to lose out on valuable championship points. His rapid ascension in the championship standings suddenly froze. With fall right around the corner and time running out, his dream of becoming the American sprint champion was in jeopardy. Unfortunately, if one was to believe the tea leaves, Taylor’s greatest troubles lay ahead.

  Taylor’s train sighed into Taunton, Massachusetts, during the final week of September. He was slated for two days of racing against a field of twelve riders, including second-place Tom Butler and William Becker, a noted rider from Minneapolis. Becker was a big, strapping man and the proud holder of the five-mile American Championship title. To some, he was seen as more than that. Since bicycles hit the streets in the 1860s, a few quack physicians, jealous horsemen, and general doomsayers warned of ill effects from bike riding. Cycling, they claimed, would ruin your eyes, hands, gums, face, heart, wrist, feet, and even your mind. With his muscular body and dashing appearance, William Becker fought back for the cycling industry, becoming a poster child of the real benefits of diligent bike riding. Several newspapers plastered his photo front and center, arms folded, handsome face thrown back in a stately pose, broad chest pushed out, fists planted firmly under his bulging arms.

  Journalists filled vast column inches with the virtues of bike riding while simultaneously describing the remarkable physical qualities of Becker. “It’s a pity that the old fogies who rail at cycling and talk of its debilitating effects upon the human body,” ogled one reporter, “have not a chance to see, feel, and examine the splendid muscular tissue developed by W. E. Becker, America’s five-mile champion.”

  Since they had been on the same racing circuit all year, Taylor was aware of Becker’s racing exploits and his physical prowess—he’s “as tough as a pine knot,” wrote one correspondent. Throughout the season, Becker, who because of his pathological need for attention, was known to “play to the crowd.” He had watched with silent scorn as huge crowds cheered Taylor on at race after race. Initially his anger was like a pilot light—ever-present but out of sight. But when Taylor’s intense following began stealing some of his thunder, rage, jealousy, and the desire for revenge bubbled inside him like boiling water.

  His largest seed of anger may have been planted in Springfield, Massachusetts, a week before Taylor’s arrival in Taunton. By then, Taylor’s popularity had risen off the charts, especially with fans in New England, a region that seemed to be a tonic for his racial ails. Even on a weekday—Tuesday the fourteenth of September—around twenty-five thousand fans, the largest throng in Springfield history, had crammed into the local track. Every hotel and boardinghouse had been filled. Countless neighboring towns had been all but stripped of their citizens. Since the grandstand wasn’t nearly large enough to house everyone, the entire infield had bubbled over with a mass of smothering fans. With Becker—who had been eliminated in the preliminaries—waiting on the sidelines, Taylor, who performed better near his home turf, beat Bald twice. “The black cloud led the way,” wrote one witness.

  Becker must have figured he’d seen enough. Until the last week of September, he had held back his fury. But as was often said, hell hath no fury like revenge.

  The first signs of a declining summer hung in the air as the field lined up for the start of the One-Mile Massachusetts Open on September 23. Apprehension spread through the peloton. Taylor’s nerves were frayed and everyone noticed it. TAYLOR’S LIFE IN DANGER headlined several papers days before the race. “It’s true . . . they have threatened to injure me,” Taylor confessed, stating some of the most ominous words of his life, “and I expect before the season is out they will do so.”

  With
the crack of the pistol, the field surged forward, Tom Butler leading the pack, followed by Becker, with Taylor a close third. The three men careened around the track at a terrific pace, the rest of the field slowly inching back, struggling to stay in contention. The positioning remained static as the three leaders veered down the midstretch. Then, like a vulture, Taylor swooped in behind Becker, harnessing the sweeping draft created by his large frame, hoping he would eventually wear out trying to chase down front-runner Butler. Being intimately familiar with Taylor’s inclination to finish with a burst to the inside, Becker inched closer to the inner pole to close off any attempt by Taylor to take over the prized position. With little more than the width of a bicycle separating him and the inner rail, Becker believed he had the inside all but choked off. But behind, as if tethered to him, Taylor was stalking him, waiting for the slightest sliver to open. It did.

  Swerving down the final stretch, Becker craned his neck back to gauge Taylor’s position, causing his bike to veer ever so slightly toward the outside. Taylor, who could be utterly fearless on a bike, saw the slender opening and pounced catlike toward the inside, his weight sinking deeper into his saddle. As Becker snapped his bobbing head forward, he felt a strong gust of air, while simultaneously glimpsing Taylor’s lean frame whisking past him on the inside. As he passed, on one side mere inches separated Taylor from the rail and on the other side, no more than the width of a bicycle spoke separated him from Becker. In a flash, Taylor was more than a length ahead of him.

  Once again Taylor had broken Becker.

  Pandemonium rained down from the grandstand. Thousands of fans shouted as he shifted his sights on front-runner Butler. Becker, recalling all the times this scene had played out throughout the racing season, surely had one thought: It’s happening again! He became unnerved, his eyes swelling with rage. He was riding amok.

  Noticing that Butler’s suicidal pace wasn’t fading, Taylor dropped his head down and tore after him. But it was too late. Taylor crossed the line a length behind Butler, with Becker nipping frantically at his heels, finishing third.

  Taylor stopped and leaned over his bike, his ribs heaving in and out. Before he had fully recovered from the strain of the intense race, through the roar of the crowd came a loud, masculine voice. Behind him the long, muscular arms of William Becker stretched forward. His open hands lunged in Taylor’s direction, a demonic look washing over his face, an eerie portent of things to come.

  Looking forward, Taylor never saw what was coming his way. Becker grabbed him from behind and tried hurling him to the ground. Taylor quickly collapsed under the tremendous force generated from Becker’s sturdy frame. Taylor lay prostrate on the track floor while Becker’s pent up rage and jealousy clamped down like a vise grip around the crook of his neck. Within moments, the weight of Becker’s body and the firm grip around his neck compressed Taylor’s chest and trachea, cutting off the already reduced flow of air to his lungs. A few minutes passed and Becker’s grip had not subsided. Short of breath even before Becker began choking him, Taylor gasped for air, any air. Out from under the jumbled pile, a low, muffled plea for help dribbled out of Taylor’s mouth, dying before reaching anyone.

  At first, no one seemed to notice. Then a handful of fans began screaming for someone to help. Soon, a chorus of catcalls spilled down from the grandstand. Before long, chaos ensued. Piles of angry fans trampled out of the stands and tore after Becker. Enraged and oblivious, Becker continued his assault, the sweat from his hair dripping onto Taylor’s jersey. His face was fire engine red, his lips were quivering, and his thick hands were still sinking into Taylor’s neck, seemingly trying to squeeze the life out of him.

  The color drained from Taylor’s face. His eyes flickered shut and all resistance halted. His body went completely limp. A pulse of terror spread across the velodrome.

  Doctors say a choke hold held for a few minutes causes convulsions, after four minutes brain death. One question droned through the track: Is he trying to kill Taylor?

  Within minutes, the police intervened, finally prying Becker off Taylor’s still frame. Agitated fans jeered and lunged at Becker. “Someone ought to give him a sound thrashing,” one man yelled.

  Meanwhile, Taylor lay motionless on the track. The compression that at first cut off his breathing threatened to shut off the flow of blood and oxygen to his brain.

  To the massed thousands, it must have seemed as if Taylor were dead. Ten minutes had passed and he still lay stock-still. After separating Becker from the angry mob, the police hunkered over Taylor’s flaccid frame desperately fighting to revive him. Today, the rescue breathing part of CPR is a standard lifesaver for choking and drowning victims. But in the 1890s when 10 percent of all violent crime involved strangulation, this effective technique was fifty years away from being discovered.

  The life of one of the most likable and promising American sports figures hung in the balance.

  An excruciating fifteen minutes passed and Taylor still lay unconscious. The police probably employed all the traditional techniques known at the time—slapping, yelling, striking the soles of his feet, massaging his neck, chest, and diaphragm.

  After nearly twenty minutes in a lifeless state, Taylor finally came to. The crowd sighed. With someone’s help, he stood up groggy and discombobulated, hobbling to the locker room where he struggled to regain his senses. The race stewards huddled to decide how to handle the final heats. One of the stewards had the insolence to suggest that Taylor race in the final heat despite nearly having the life strangled out of him. But with his head still in a fog, Taylor was in no condition to even think of it. “I was too badly injured to race,” he later remembered. The stewards eventually came to their collective senses and disqualified Becker. Taylor sat in the dressing room choked up with emotion.

  With great apprehension, he later emerged from the dim interior and hobbled to the rail station where he boarded a train. As the throaty, mournful wail of his train clattered west, the sun disappeared.

  Word of Becker’s assault spread through racing channels. In a special bulletin, Albert Mott, the bespectacled chairman of the LAW, announced the immediate suspension of Becker pending a full review. Becker’s booming voice barked back, claiming that Taylor had crowded him. Virtually no one who was there bought into his argument.

  The newsmen caught wind of the story and lit up the sports pages. Nearly all northern writers were calling for a multiyear ban so that Becker could, as one man wrote, “recover the manhood he seems to have totally lost.” In its daily section devoted to cycling, the New York Times wrote a long piece titled “The Negro in Racing,” in which they first read Becker the riot act, then moved on. “Probably none of the circuit riders has stored up resentment against the Major personally, unless the defeats he has administered to nearly all the circuit chasers may rankle in the breasts of some of the surly disposed, for the little Negro has always shown a very sportsmanlike spirit.” Then the unnamed writer got right to what he believed was the heart of the matter. “It is simply a matter of race prejudice, which is one of the hardest things to eradicate.”

  The verdict among the reporters—that Becker should receive a long suspension, possibly forever—was virtually unanimous. But one writer, who at first condemned Becker, suggested Taylor was to blame. “Becker will undoubtedly be punished with a lengthy term of suspension, which he richly deserves,” reasoned a Bicycle World reporter, “but the colored man, the cause of the unpleasantness, will remain just where he is, with the added halo of martyr to stimulate his hearty ill feeling which prevails against him among his rivals.”

  A heavy atmosphere awaited the verdict. Everyone knew the outcome would be an important indicator of the league’s feelings on the touchy matter of race in professional bike racing. By imposing a harsh penalty at this early stage of Taylor’s career, one proportional to the gravity of the offense, the league would be setting the stage for what was not acceptable. Conversely, a light penalty would send a message to all riders th
at the LAW wasn’t going to take the issue seriously, in essence giving the white riders a free hand on the lone black man in the future.

  While his allies in the press carried on, Taylor had other reasons to believe severe punishment would be doled out. Just two weeks before, Chairman Mott laid down the law in front of a group of riders at the Manhattan Beach Track. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mott vowed “to rule over the riders with a rod of iron.” He explained to the riders that he intended to be tough on anyone who committed fouls, saying that “a mere disqualification from a race was too small a punishment for foul riding.” He then warned riders that he would not only disqualify them but fine them severely.

  Taylor, who remained strangely silent throughout the affair, must have been comforted by Mott’s pledge. If elbowing or crowding would bring serious consequences, an outright assault causing unconsciousness would certainly remove someone like Becker from the tracks for a long time, perhaps even for life as some in the press were demanding.

  Refusing to give up on his dream of becoming the sprint champion of America, Taylor scampered off to a race in Cleveland late that evening. By the time his train arrived the next day, he was late. The crowd was waiting. He bolted to the dressing room, tore off his traveling clothes, and changed into his racing togs. Running on raw adrenaline, he proceeded to ride the legs off everyone there.

  Days ticked on and still no decision had been reached. All eyes remained fixed on Baltimore and Mott’s office where officials hovered over Becker’s fate. The Washington Post was becoming impatient: “When racing men begin to kill each other on the track, it is time for quick and decisive action on the part of the racing board.”